It is always fun when any form of media completely surprises you and sweeps you of your feet, and just exceeds all your expectations. With Vincenzo I was expecting something very melodramatic, boring and quite typical legal drama that I would stop watching for a few episodes because I was dying of boredom but what I got was the exact opposite of that. It was so off-kilter.

The drama actually sounds as crazy as it sounds on paper and yet I don’t think the description does it justice. Usually, I do not like such makjang type dramas or over the top soap opera style shows, but here it is done with so much humor and skill so instead of getting on my nerves I got this weird mix of soap opera, thriller, and comedy and then a group of weird, flawed and morally gray characters. It is a weird mix, but it works surprisingly well together. There is a good balance between all these different factors, and it makes quite a cohesive story.

Despite all the laughs and the absurdity that the drama throws at us, it never seems as if it is mocking the story or this soap opera world that is had crafted around it. It’s more playing with it and really take advantage of it. The show takes itself quite seriously with it tone, and yet it does not because it’s main goal seems to be making the most entertaining story, and achieving that is not easy. It’s shows a certain strength within the story and the vision the people behind it had. And that shines quite clearly within the story and makes Vincenzo quite stylish.

The story goes in circles a bit. Sometimes things just seem to happen just because the story needs them to happen just for it to move forward. Some things feel too convenient but the show seems to be very aware of it that you kinda don’t question it too much. It feels wonderfully self-aware of it’s genre, which also helps you suspend your disbelief and keeps you thoroughly entertained while even the most convenient plot points are happening. The story sort of manages to be logical within this small world it has created.

It plays with the soap opera formula and the clichés that comes with those stories and tales of the mafia, to take the story and comedy to another level, making things more exciting, crazier, without making fun of it. It has all done to entertain us or to provoke sort of reaction out of the audience.

But I think it is the characters that really make this show what it is. They are just so fun or interesting! Every single character, whether they are supporting characters or not, have their own quirks and darker sides, although to varying degrees. They are all quite ridiculous and complex in their own way.

Our hero Vincenzo is more of an anti-hero and even the antagonist gets some nuances and quirks that even if you sort of hated them you also enjoyed watching them. I have personally not enjoyed a villain in a kdrama this much for quite some time. They brought so much tension, drama, and comedy into the show that I was almost more excited to see what they would do more than our protagonist.

The same goes with the supporting cast. I enjoyed every scene, every little side-plot that they had going on, which does not always happen. Sometimes they feel like fillers to extend the story for no good reason, but here the supporting characters get to control both the humor of the episodes but also the heart of the show. They all felt important, flawed, and interesting in their own way. They are not just comic-relief,

The romance in Vincenzo is slow and never takes over much of the story itself, although it is very often lingering in the background and the drama is always alluding to it. However, it is never the center of the drama. It is not the main story or focus, and I have to say for my part I am usually fonder of a slow-burning romance and that really worked well here with everything else going on. I love some good pining and longing because the character does not want to admit that they are in love or have not realized it. And there was more than enough of that in Vincenzo. Both are learning to trust others and become good people. Although no one is really a good person in this show.

Do I feel like the drama could gave allowed Chae Young to save herself a little more instead of always having Vincenzo come and save the day and the drama itself had a tendency to rely a little too much on the charm and the visuals of Song Joongki for my taste. It became a bit too repetitive after a while.

Vincenzo is a style of kdrama that I rarely see. And although it contains many basics of soap opera storytelling and other types of kdramas out there, I feel it does stand out because I have never quite seen this mixture before. No matter what the drama did it was always exciting to see what happened next and it always kept me surprised even though I thought the story went in some circles and brushed over certain things along the way. I never felt like they truly ran out of ideas to entertain me and entertain me it certainly did. It never really dealt all its cards.

Vincenzo is not flawless, but it is a hell of a good time. There is always this tension within it, you kept on wondering what would happen next, what these characters would do. You have no know what is going to happen. There is always a lot going on and so much high drama, such high stakes, yet still always so filled with humor. It was a real roller coaster ride from start to finish.

Vincenzo grabbed me completely and did not want to let me go until the very end. I have not enjoyed a kdrama and the discussions that took place around this much it for some time now. And that is what I will take from it; it was just pure fun. It was pure entertainment for me.

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I mostly watch rom-coms and period dramas so Misaeng was at first not a drama that I had too high expectations of and I was just going to check it out because I liked some of the younger actors there and I read that the person who wrote Arang and the Magistrate was writing it or adapting it to the small screen and I liked Arang so I thought I could at least check it out.

Misaeng really surprised me. The story itself doesn’t sound like my cup of tea or that exciting and rather “ordinary” and ordinary isn’t always what I am looking for in the tv programs that I am watching but it pretty much just won me over at the first episode. It was fresh, it was sort of fun and sort of heart-warming and I think one of the charms of Misaeng is how ordinary it feels. This is just a drama about everyday life almost.

There is no over-dramatic plot, there is no romance in it or anything like that. It is sort of just very heartfelt, heart-warming story about this ordinary dude that is just trying his best to get his feet on the ground in this new environment that he is in. It is done very well, it is written and acted very well as well as directed and it manages to speak to people and connect to them since it is so easy to see yourself in these characters, even if you haven’t experienced what they have or are experiencing.

I really feel like applauding the writers and the director and everyone involved with this drama, as well as the manhwa author for thinking up this story since it really was just wonderfully done from the beginning and until the end. It really is the best drama that came out in 2014 and it is one of the dramas that I have enjoyed the most while watching it and I was never expecting that when I first started to watch it tbh.

I have mentioned that I thought Misaeng was fun to watch but it also sort of wasn’t, since it was quite heavy and I don’t think many people are just watching it for some entertainment because some of the scenes and themes in this drama are so heavy and make you feel quite sad while watching it but in a good way. There weren’t that big dramatic scenes but it is quite intense at times and so heartfelt in its delivery and the characters are amazing that is becomes sort of amazing and you are willing to watch these heavy scenes.

The main plot is almost just seeing these people interact and seeing the newbies trying to find their place in the workspace and seeing them fail and succeed at it. It has bosses that aren’t so good and bosses that are so nice and it talks about stress and tension in the workplace as well as misogyny and the question whatever you will become a permanent worker there or not and that maybe doesn’t sound that dramatic for a drama but it is very interesting, intense and realistic and we really didn’t need to have a bigger plot than that.

Like I said, that can be a bit heavy but there are some lighter scenes in between these heavy scenes and while they don’t really hurt as much in a good way but they make you feel a bit better and make the tension go away fro a little while. Some of my favorite scenes in this drama are these more lighter scenes, where we see the characters growing closer and working together.

The friendship that bosomed between the newbies and the sales team nr. 3 was one of the best things about this drama and it both broke my heart and glued it back together at one point or another in this drama. I just want these people to be friends forever and the thought of that not happening was sometimes unbearable.

Mr. Oh and Geu Rae are the most popular ship or relationship in this drama, which is completely understandable and they are so sweet together, as well as the friendship that slowly grows between the newbies at the workplace. I also really really liked how there were no love-lines and there is no second lead or anything like that. There don’t need to be a love-line in every single drama and this story just isn’t about that so it wouldn’t really fit.

Shows like Misaeng don’t tend to get me in the heart like I wanted but man this show owned my heart. I also sort of knew that I could be very good but that did not mean that I would have to like it since you don’t always end up liking shows or movies that are really good simply because they didn’t get you in the heart. You didn’t feel anything while watching it. That is not the case with Misaeng and that makes me super happy.

Sometimes it was hard to watch and some of the character arcs didn’t really do it for me but I liked how every character got their own time to be explored and we got some time to know them, at least the major characters. I almost have nothing but praises for this show except my somewhat usual complaint with TvN dramas and that is that sometimes their episodes can be rather long but other than that they are doing a great job.

I may have gotten more entertainment out of other dramas this year but Misaeng is one of those dramas that I really cherish and I am pretty sure that I am going to remember it after few years while I might not do that with some of the more entertaining dramas that aired this year. It is also so original and well done that it is almost impossible to just forget it. It just really spoke to me, even if I have never been in most of these situations before and it is very well done and I am not surprised over how popular it got. I just hope this review is doing it justice.

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It's not often you get a great adaptation of a great novel that has so much scope and a rich story to tell, but I think Pachinko is a rather successful adaptation and handles the subject matter well. It's a big novel that leaves a lot behind once the reading is over and is a true family story that spans generations through Japanese colonial rule over Korea and then as uprooted and anxious immigration to Japan and what follows that second-class citizenship.

The cast, sets, cinematography, and costumes are all excellent, and each episode feels like a short film in a sense. However, we only got to see part of this big story in this first season. The pace of the story is slow, but the story never seems to drag its feet or lose too much focus on the story it wants to tell us.

How the story moves between periods isn't always too clear, but the show often gives viewers notice of where they are in the story. Even though past and present events certainly mirror each other in certain places and explain the characters and their hidden backstories it does feel a bit choppy at times. But because of this time jumps that the story leaves some of these storylines a bit short or they feel rougher around the edges than one would have liked.

There are also certain characters, moments, or backstories that the story focuses on that are less interesting than others – but there was also a thing I noticed from the book. The story certainly shines brightest when focusing on the perspectives of the women in the story and Sunja, the matriarch, truly has all my heart. How much these women fought for their family's survival even though their lives suffered is breathtaking and it makes sense for the show to not beautify those things too much since they're based on real events.

Both the book and the episodes tell a story that is rather realistically depressing, but not necessarily in a totally crude or bleak way. It's a story about endurance and finding a way to thrive despite everything, and it certainly works for every tear the show squeezes out of you – and oh boy, where there are lots of tears. There really is not a big happy ending for any of the characters, they just have to keep fighting for their lives and hope that's enough until the end.

This is a great exploration of culture and life, but also the loss of it. The story is quite thought-provoking and poignant, pulling at your heartstrings with its realism and resilience of the characters, allowing the audience to confront the reality these characters live in. The scope of the story is epic, although the story manages to feel intimate and personal. This season successfully gives the viewer a pretty open ending to the story just in case there is no follow-up and the story doesn't get another season, despite having so much more to say.

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A kdrama with a horror twist is one of my favorite genres of Korean tv and with a show starring Kim Tae Ri, that’s written by the same writer who gave us shows like Kingdom and Signal, I couldn’t help but be excited about Revenant.

The series is mostly a murder mystery that intertwines evil spirits and other horrors into its narrative, which is not so different from many other horror-kdrama I’ve watched. The plot builds the tension within the narrative rather well, and each episode usually ends in such a way that you have to see the next one as soon as possible, but it does have a bit of a pacing issue.

The story works more like a mystery than a horror story in my opinion, but the evil spirits and the Korean folklore about such spirits and shamanism is used in an interesting (but perhaps familiar way if you’ve watched many such dramas) as such a tool to communicate moral questions about society, as well as the weaknesses and behavior of the characters to the viewer, like horror stories of this nature do. That’s the purpose of the horror.

For a while it seems like the story goes in a few too many circles with the main characters’ quest to get rid of these evil spirit, and the narrative loses a bit of momentum towards the middle. There is a lot of repetition and too little progress whether it was in the story itself or the characters own personal arcs, even though we are always learning more and more about these evil spirits and the past that explains the present. But towards the end the story does pick up the pace again.

There are plenty of great, interesting characters here, and of course Kim Tae Ri, like the other actors, is doing a great job in their roles but the drama struggles to give all of them time to tell their story while managing to keep a good flow to the story. There were almost too many character and it breaks the flow. The story affects the characters, but the characters don’t affect the story too much. Therefor the story overwhelms the character a little.

In some instances the narrative does seem to drag things out just because they need to fill the time with something. I’ve seen this screenwriter do horror very well before, as well as murder mystery, but mixing the two together seems to have been a struggle at times. Perhaps if the drama had been allowed to be longer, it wouldn’t have felt like it was holding too many balls in the air at once and allowed the story to breath a bit more or add more things in so it felt less repetitive.

An exciting story that allows the story to unfold through the characters and their actions, but ends up dragging them a bit unhesitatingly forward for the sake of the narrative. There is always something hooking you within each episode, but the build up between each cliff-hanger could have been better in some places. It makes the narrative a bit uneven, and I personally would have liked more horror. But overall a very entertaining watch despite the hiccups in the narrative structure.

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Despite the main character being a man trapped in a female body, there is a certain focus on women within this drama; their lives, roles and work within the palace, which I enjoyed. Shin Hye Sun is absolutely amazing in this role and can switch from comedy to drama with great easy. It never feels forced to too harsh of a transition. I enjoy her so much in this role. And considering that this is a comedy about gender-swap, I never really found the humor that demeaning or like it talked down to women, or even homosexuality for that matter, as the romance became more prevalent. It wasn’t perfect, but I had expected worse, and it never really got on my nerves personally.

Whether we need this gender-swap to tell the story I am on the fence about. I think but that the story could have worked well enough if the main character was just a woman from the 21st century. Sometimes it seemed to me that they were brushing over things that should have underlined the struggle that a person who is not in that time, not in their body, would deal with. And I don’t think this is the radical or feminist take that some might have wanted about of women or the gender. But I also don’t think the drama ever intended to be a big commentary on society or gender roles. It just wanted to be a comedy sageuk with a twist.

I liked pretty much all the female characters in the drama for different reason. There was a range of characters and even the more comic relief ones had more to their roles than just that. Most of my favorite moments in the show had something to do with the main character’s friendship with their maids as well as the mutual respect that existed between them.

The sort of regular, everyday life of the court, especially for the women in the highest positions, was something I enjoyed too. Those moments are usually more in the background in these dramas. And I found the humor mostly revolved around that; life in the palace, the people who worked there, a little bit about politics and power struggle, but also the fact that the main characters was from another time period and how that person did things differently from the others and the conflicts that created. Much more than the actual gender-swap. Which is why I think we didn’t need it.

It took a while for the drama to mix the humor with the more serious tones of the drama that boosted the suspense in the story. The humor that led the drama in the beginning, but the more political bits never felt too jarring to me. And after a few episodes I felt like they managed to mix those two elements well enough so they worked together.

Despite some complaints about the politics taking up too much time, Mr. Queen was always a comedy and manages to keep the humor up throughout the drama, despite the politics and all the power struggles taking place. But even in the darkest, most tensest moments the show always manages to mix in lighter and funnier moments in. I never felt like the overall tone of the show dropped, or that it become too heavy. The humor never dried up and the story never became too dreary.

Many people do not like the high stakes, which never feel that high compared to other such period dramas, or the politics and just want the romance and the comedy. But personally I think dramas like these could not keep the story going with just funny moments and no politics. There have to be stakes and in the palace stakes comes with political maneuvering. Most stories are based on some kind of tension, risk and conflict.

The conflict here comes out in subtle fights for power, very under the table political tactics to, shifting of allies and clashes between several powerful clans within the Joseon era. But those conflicts never took over the whole story. It is the usual shenanigans that you usually see in these period dramas, but just a bit more woman focused, which I enjoyed a lot. How the women used their power and manipulated the court and people around them. The king has his focus as well, but the is surrounded by really smart, calculating women.

Overall I felt like Mr. Queen was a pretty standard period drama that tried to have a little bit of a different angle on things, that just aimed to be very fun and entertaining. It never took itself that seriously, but I also didn’t think it was saying that much either, although criticizing society through comedy is what the genre is sort of made for. Yet the light-hearted spirit that was always persistent through the drama, the character and just the amazing performance of Shin Hye Sun, made Mr. Queen overall a really easy and entertaining show to watch.

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I kinda knew that I would be making a review of this drama around episode 10, because it was just one of those shows that I couldn’t stop talking about. I liked it that much and I was sure it would keep up the good work and I was right.

The things that I like the most about the dramas that Park Hye Ryun writer is how easy and fun they are to watch and how great I feel when I watch them. They are all a feel-good shows for me. They all manage to be both funny, entertaining and dramatic and emotional at the same time and there is a great balance between all of these things in this drama, as well as in Dream High or I Heart Your Voice.

I was just so pleased with this drama, it is well written and for me it hit all the rights spots, since I got emotional and I smiled etc. so I was very much in love with it. It is also very easy to watch and I tend to not get bored over her dramas or at least those who I have seen.

The story isn’t necessarily not that new but I feel like I haven’t seen that many dramas like Pinocchio and Park Hye Ryun does tell a good character story well in my opinion. The story is very well paces and I didn’t feel like it ever dragged along ether and I liked how she wrote it. It was like she had a plan and she didn’t just write something in for no reason and I like that. I also liked how the new reporter theme was used in this drama.

The character have always been quite good in those Park Hye Ryun dramas that I have seen and for the most part they are quite well rounded in this drama as well. I especially like how she writes female characters and they get to do more than just be the love interest or the mean bitch.

The secondary characters could have been a bit more developed in my opinion and I felt like she has done a better job with the second female lead in the past, which was a shame. Yoon Yoo Rae could have been a much more interesting character but she was just the cute comic relief to me. The second male lead Seo Bum Jo got so much more to do in this drama, as well as In Ha’s mom.

Maybe it helps the plot to go along smoothly and swiftly that the main character can’t lie and she has to tell the truth and can’t hide her feelings or anything. I did have my concerns around the middle of the series that it was going too fast and there wasn’t enough story left to tell, but I was gladly proved wrong on that.

I also liked the main couple a lot and it could have ended up being super creepy since they were raised as niece and uncle but it totally wasn’t creepy at all and very well done and felt realistic.

This is one of the better dramas that I have seen Park Shin Hye act in and I think this drama has helped some people realize that she doesn’t totally suck and maybe they will stop hating on her now because of Heirs or for other things. I liked PSH and I find it very comfortable watching her act and I am a fan so I am super happy that she got a role that I like.

In my humble opinion Pinocchio is one of the better dramas that came out in 2014 (most of the drama aired last year) and it was, like I said before, a very nice and sort of feel-good watch that I enjoyed a lot and therefore I have not many bad things to say about it. I am a huge fan of Park Hye Ryun now and I liked how she crafts her stories. They are meaningful and entertaining, both light and dramatic and I liked very twist and turn along the way.

Overall I liked this drama more than I liked I Hear Your Voice but not as much as Dream High. But like I did with Dream High I felt so nice and comfortable watching this drama, but I was maybe just a bit more emotionally invested in Dream High. I will miss watching Pinocchio every week and I can’t wait for Park Hye Ryun’s next drama.

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A review of both part 1 and 2

What both stunned and impressed me the most about the kdrama My Dearest, right at the very start, was how focused it was on the ordinary people and how they deal with war. And what the war does to them. It makes it less of a war epic and more of a human tale of self-preservation and hope at a trying time. which I found to be quite a fresh approach to this kind of historical drama, although many will no doubt find it rather slow and dry in its execution and style.

The story is ruthless in its realism and harshness with how it seems to paint the world. The narrative is very willing to comment on several aspects within society that it tells it’s tale, the nobility and their uselessness, the lack of care that a certain position within society seems to push into you for the people that live around them, as well as society’s attitude towards women in wartimes and just their position in society both outside of that as well. The way it uses these elements to shape itself, the details it shares throughout the story is very tangible, interesting but also poignant. It is incredibly well thought out and effective within the narrative to stir up further emotions both with the characters and the viewers.

These are not the heroes that poems are sung about, but seem to be more everyday heroes of the common folk. Most of their influence is not great within the grand scheme of things, but it is the people who knew them who will always remember them with kindness and love. They are the ones who will tell the stories about them until they disappear from human memory and are forgotten.

At some point, despite their intelligence and strength, as the war and the hardships seem to tighten more and more around them, the characters seem to wear down a bit. But they never lose who they are, their will to fight but how they go about fighting, how they deal with situations changes a little. All that happens very slowly and works very realistically within the story. It’s a really well-handled look at character, as well as how normal people deal with such situations.

The characters do feel sharp and manage to be both a fresh take on the traditional characters that we get in a Korean historical dramas, but at the same time they have quite a bit of the characteristics that we are used to seeing; Jang-hyun may come across as smug and aloof, and Gil-chae may come across as snobbish and somewhat self-interested. But there’s a lot more to them and their flaws are very presant within the story. Overall there are plenty of multi-layered characters that make My Dearest a rather worthwhile and heart-wrenching watch. Everyone has something to say in their own way and all have some point to emphasize within the story. The story touches your heart from beginning to end if people just allow themselves to enter this cruel, realistic world with these characters as a guiding light.

The plot itself goes through its ups and downs, and it does hit a bit of a lull within the second half where the story tends to repeat itself quite often. Characters almost miss each other a few times over the course of few episodes in order to create tension and longing within the viewers, and since the story is already slow by nature it might make some people really struggle. It makes it seem like the story has lost steam and doesn’t really pick up fully until right near the end. But if the characters manage to grab you and make you completely fall for them in the first half of the story, it’s perfectly tolerable.

The story never seems to fall into being too epic or too grandiose in its approach to the narrative, as some costume dramas tend to do to make their heroes seem bigger. Much rather My Dearest seems so focused on being realistic and grounded in reality like it has a bit of an obsession with the human spirit and the lengths to which people will go to survive. It run through the very heart of the series. And the love story, which is really successful on its own, reflects that. It’s very slow and down to earth and it’s quite unusual for a kdrama in lots of ways.

The story takes its time, sometimes excessively so, and repeats itself a bit too often, but even if it takes the story a good while it manages to underline every point that the drama set out to make really well. The story always seemed to know what it wanted to say. And the humanity that this series carries with it and manages to reflect within the narrative does make you cry many times. It’s gorgeous, it’s heartwarming and filled with hope for brighter days that is always enveloped by a little bit of sadness.

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From Why Secretary Kim to My Stranger Hero and now Her Private Life it seems like my kdrama rom-com slump is finally over. I say slump since for few years I didn’t really enjoy those rom-coms like I used to, and I didn’t really write any reviews for those dramas.

Her Private Life went in a bit of a circle for me. I wasn’t too keen on it at first. I wasn’t a fan of the humor and the whole fangirl aspect of it wasn’t really doing it for me, even if I consider myself a fangirl myself (just not that much like Deok Mi).

It wasn’t until the romance really kicked in, with all the fake dating shenanigans - one of my fav rom-com tropes ever - that I almost sold my soul to this drama for a few weeks.

The drama toned down the humor and sort of became sweeter and light, which I enjoyed. I really liked all the pining in the beginng and the start of the relationship. It was very predictable at times, but I could not get enough.

I would personally have wanted more depth into the whole fangirl business and the whole culture of that. More focus on Deok Mi and Cindy - which was one of the more interesting side characters in the drama - and them finding a balance in their fangirl activities. Not just the worry about how Ryan would react to Deok Mi being a fangirl.

For a drama about the private life of a fansite manager and all of that, I expected more of the plot to revolve around that and not about the family drama of Ryan Gold.

The success with this drama, with me and other, is kinda thanks to the actors and how well they played these characters. They had very nice chemistry together. Deok Mi and Ryan was the sweetest couple and treated each other with such a respect and tenderness. It was wonderful.

There was not a whole lot of conflict in this drama, even if it used some very well known tropes in it story lines that usually really amps up the conflict. The characters sat down and talk things through, which I really liked. I thought that was sweet and I like how things didn’t drag too much.

But that also left the story kinda conflict-less and therefore not a whole lot happened toward the end. It slowly ran out of story to tell. If you are going to have such a non-conflict like story then you kinda have to fill it with side characters and plots that make the story a bit more exciting.

The romance, as sweet as it was, wasn’t always enough. Especially when some of the side characters and their stories were really not fun at all. The ending suffered a bit from this, in my opinion. The story was over before the drama was over and I was starting to fast-forward through certain scenes.

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This is a drama that sounds like a hallmark rom-com; a city girl who focuses a lot on frames and her career moves to a beautiful small town and meets a scruffy local men that she falls in love with. But this is actually a slice-of-life story. It’s overflowing with warm feelings and wonderful, deep and imperfect characters that you will fall in love with along the way. It’s almost like a warm drink on a rainy day in kdrama form. Hometown Cha Cha Cha is one of those dramas that really moved me from the very first episode as there was something so cozy and homely about them that just gripped me by the heartstrings and would not let me go.

The story may not be big but it seems to be enough there that the story never drags it’s legs or or goes into endless circles with the plot. It spends a good time with all the characters and the introspection of those characters that takes place within the drama.

Hometown Cha Cha Cha strikes a pretty good balance between having a story that is constantly moving forward while also capturing this mundane life and the quiet moments as we follow all of these different characters and their lives in this small community where everyone knows everyone.

All the characters we meet on our way through the story are interesting and it’s fun to watch them and their impact on each other’s lives. Everyone has their own burdens and baggage’s in life that the drama manages to explore quite well. Watching people’s walls break down over time and people face their demons without it ever dragging too long or being too dramatic.

We get to see the different sides of most of all the characters and how complex and human they are. Each episode of the drama is more than an hour long, which I usually do moan about, but here I hardly felt it. Because I enjoyed the time with the characters so much.

There is almost this subdued suspense that is there all the way through the story. It never get’s too big, too dramatic or too ahead of itself. It captures this feeling that life can be messy but it’s also just a series of moments that pass and fade over time really well. Some moments are wonderful, warm and calm but some cruel and sad. But life still goes on somehow. The message of the story and the story itself is not much bigger than that, but it works really well.

So much of the romance, but also just the friendship that is going on, is just about the individual’s personal boundaries and the communication between them. Everything about how the romance was built radiated comfort and warmth in my opinion, which I found really sweet and just pleasant to watch. Like everything about the drama was. Shin Min Ah and Kim Seon Ho, as well as all the other actors, fill their characters with life and emotions.

There is also a really good balance between the love stories within the drama and the other stories that deal more with people’s personal lives and their position in life. The love story will never be too sappy, which would not suit this type of story, but rather it seem more human and sensible. Even if misunderstandings occur it is quickly worked out and one can understands the reason why the character act a certain way because they story has worked for it. These people are complex and you get to see them from many angles.

The love story is still a very big part of the story; both when it comes to the main characters and the supporting characters. But even though the story is about them falling in love, it is also so much about these characters learning to love themselves as well as the other characters around them. But the drama also deals with loads of different themes such as loneliness in old age, divorce, there is a lgbt character, and many other things that crop up as we go through the lives of the characters of this small town as this is ultimately a story about the community.

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Answer me 1997 is probably one of the most down to earth kdramas that I have watched, if you can call it that. It isn’t that every other kdrama is completely unrealistic but they (or at least those that I watch) tend to be a bit of a fairy tale like dramas, total escapisms, in some way while I didn’t feel like this drama is. It’s very down to earth, coming of age type of story.

This is not some Cinderella tale, where the rich guy falls or the poor girl or anything like that, and while I often like those dramas a lot, it was also so refreshing to get something like this one, where the characters were just normal people and we just follow them through their young adult life. After the drama I truly felt honored to have been able to see them grow as humans.

I was truly amazed by the fact how nostalgic it felt, and how it evoked that nostalgia within me, despite the cultural and the time differences, that I had from this drama. I was feeling not only nostalgia for those universal things like; your first crush, your first day at school after the summer, first idol band you liked (granted, I was never that kind of kpop fan, like Shi Won, but then again I never lived in Korea, where these kpop idols where, with that type of idol culture), while also nostalgic over time that I had never experienced. And that connection, that nostalgia and that coming of age aspects of the story made me weep like I have never weeped before.

The drama may have been set in ‘97, but the story feels sort sort of timeless, even if we didn’t grow up or were around Sung Shi Won or Yoon Yoon Jea’s age in '97. Throughout the drama I found myself saying this to myself; god this drama speaks to me. It perfectly describes emotions that I had felt when I was a teenager and even beyound that. That age where you feel like you could where you put everything on the line for the smallest of things like a boy band or something. A more naïve and innocent times.

It’s a story about you first love, about your first heartbreak and just about growing up, but so much of it is just about friendship. There is so much heart and soul in this drama and it hits such a sweet spot, at least for me, which makes Answer me '97 is quite a unique drama. It was just so original and wonderful. And it has had such an impact of this more slice-of-life, coming of age type stories in kdramas.

It was just this little show produced by the cable network TvN that just became so big and so successful. It just fills us with empathy (or sympathy) and nostalgia. I felt like the writer(s) of the drama understood what it had been like, being a teenager, just like I feel like a lot of adults forget what it is like to be with all those hormones and emotions and can’t therefor quite catch those feelings when they try to talk to you or write about it.

The later half was much more about the supposed lover-triangle. I did feel like they did a good job on it and I felt like they did keep us guessing for the most part throughout the drama. It was wearing a little tiresome by the end, but I didn’t feel like it ruined the story or anything. But I always got the sense that the people involved knew what kind of story they wanted to tell so they didn’t go overboard with the story, so it become too crazy or just fell flat. It just hit that sweet spot.

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When I first started watching Empress Ki, I never expected to actually finish it and I am (sort of) to this day surprised that I finished it. Not because it was bad or I thought it would be bad. It was mainly the size of it because to me 50 episodes are a lot of episodes and I just wasn’t sure if I could make it threw that but I liked the cast so I decided to give it a go and it just turned out so great.

The first 5 episodes of the drama had me hooked and suddenly I was just so far into it that I started to see myself actually finish it and here I am. This is therefore the longest drama that I have watched and funny enough the longest drama that I had watched before EK was the drama that introduced me to Ji Chang Wook (which was one of the main reasons for watching EK).

I know a lot of people were annoyed by the not-so-historically accurate plot and the costumes. I did read a bit up on Empress Ki before the drama and tried to do a bit of research here and there while it was airing but it sort of doesn't bother me that it wasn't historically accurate (I feel the same way about Reign as well) because I am mainly watching it for the historical setting not the historical accuracy.

I am very found of period or costume dramas and while I liked it when they are historicity accurate (if I know th history beforehand or when I read up on it) but I am mainly just there for the costumes and the period setting and all of that and to me Empress Ki delivered on that. The set and the costumes were gorgeous and just really well done.

The drama says in it’s description that it is a “historical” romance drama and while there is romance in the drama (like there is in most tv shows or dramas) I felt like a lot of the romantic stuff was sort of put on the back burner for some parts of the drama, which I didn’t mind that much.

A lot of the drama was just about Empress Ki /Seung Nyang revenge and quest for justice/power and the political aspect of things and while I did enjoy it a lot I think a lot of other people where annoyed by it or by Seung Nyang and her politics. I liked how the women of the drama were powerful and involved in the politics and I really enjoyed that aspect of the show.

I really didn’t expect to like the politics since they sometimes bore me in these dramas. Maybe Game of Thrones is making me like that sort of thing more. It has happened that I am watching a drama and as soon as the plot goes away from the main couple I lose interest but that didn’t happen here.

I feel it was most of all a character driven drama and not necessarily a otp driven drama. The main story is not how they got together but how Seung Nyang became Empress Ki. The story does go on for a long time though, so there are bound to be plotlines that were more fun than others.

Now that I look back my favourites were between episode 1-6 and episodes 24-37. Those were the plot-lines that I enjoyed the most and I felt like were best written. For the most part I felt like the story was fast paced and all in all decently written. It went a little thin in the end but overall I found it very entertaining.

Because it is so long and therefore you have plenty of room for a lot of things happening at once and a lot of different side plots and side characters you really could flesh out some of the characters. Some for the better and some for the worst and I think most of the characters went threw some sort of character journey, except for some of the bad guys which were just evil and bad just for the sake of the plot like El Temur and his lot.

Aside from Tanashiri which I always liked even if she wasn't the best character. I felt like I could sympathize with her but not her action. I understood why she felt why she had to do what she did, because she was the empress and she needed to secure her place in the palace because that was her only job in life but I didn’t really like how she handled everything but I found her amusing and I liked the actress who played her and I will be keeping an eye out for her in the future.

I liked how I could understand most of the time why people did what they did within the palace because you had to be hard and ruthless if you wanted to survive in the palace and I especially liked how the women where written and that they were just as powerful as the men.

Wang Yoo however was one of the good guys and he was suppose to be the main lead until the public (and most of the fandom I think) decided that they liked the emperor more and he was sort of swept aside and he didn’t get that much character development at all. He was just always very consistent and noble but just sort of there in my opinion and I just found it sort of plane.

I couldn't even get behind his love-line with Seung Nyang and I just sort of feel bad for Joo Jin Mo but their love-line felt so much like a duty thing and that she was always just his subject that I never got behind it.

In the beginning I also rabidly shipped Seung Nyang og Ta Hwan / The Emperor but that sort of went away later in the drama and while I liked them together for the most part of the drama my rabid shipping never returned. I mostly saw them as friends later on but I don’t doubt their love for each other. I just really liked their

Ta Hwan did go threw a lot of character development, which is why for the longest time he was my favorite character on the show. Untill he became a bit too possessive for my taste and it almost looked like the writers forgot all about his character development and just decided to toss it out of the window because they needed a bad guy.

I think the best character in the end was Tal Tal but he was amazing and he really started to bloom in the later half of the drama. Empress Ki is just a very character driven drama to me.

In the end the story was getting a little bit thin and a little bit wonky but I still enjoyed it for the most part and I sort of expected it to go a little bit like that just because of how long it was. I never felt like it dragged and I wasn’t really that annoyed by it or anything. It just felt like the writers didn’t know what to do with all these episodes and just started to add in some shock-value.

I don’t think it could have been ay longer than 51 episodes and 45 episodes or something would have served it just fine and made made the story just a bit more stronger and not at thin but I still enjoyed myself a lot while watching it. The last 10-15 episodes were not as good as the rest of the show.

The ending though didn’t bother me at all nor did I find it lame or anything. It was sort of what I had come to expect given how the story was going and how the story actually went (historically) so I was’t really mad about it. Empress Ki was such a roller-coaster ride and some parts were better then others and it did go a bit crazy in the end but I still enjoyed the drama a lot. It was entertaining and for the most part fun and easy to watch and I will miss it.

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With movies such as Train to Busan (but also another very underrated comedy called Zombie on Sale) and the Kingdom series, South Korea is proving that no one is really doing the zombies as well and them right this moment. Ashin of the North is not the much anticipated third series of this hugely popular kdrama Kingdom, but a kind of prequel to a character we will get to know better in the third series. When we get to do that we will have to wait a bit more to find out.

Ashin is dark, not only in terms of it’s story and the subject matter of the story, but also in how it was shot. There were scenes, that were supposed to take place at night, where I did not see properly. That got on my nerves, but nothing that completely ruined the story for me or anything.

Personally, I would have liked to get a good three episode arc from Ashin and not this one and a half hour movie that we got. I thought the story was a bit hasty in parts and maybe a bit rushed in the first half and I really would have wanted a whole episode just to set things up and spend more time with the characters. Really explore the people’s actions and the consequences that came with that later in the story. And I would have liked more screen-time with the adult Ashin and her thirst and drive for revenge.

Getting a good two episodes where more character focus and a nicer buildup to the escalating tension would have been nice. Because I felt it was a little lacking. And I was expecting more of a connection to the previous season of Kingdom and perhaps more answers regarding the plant that is the root of this all. There was not much information we were getting from this story in my opinion.

Except for Ashin’s revenge of course, which will come to play later on. The revenge and how it all comes about is still a really cool and interesting, dark plot twists and what I enjoyed the most within the story. It wasn’t until that section came about where the story caught my attention.

Ashin is dark and thrilling in parts so if you’re just going into this to experience some excitement and a bit of zombie horror then Ashin manages to be completely satisfying. Maybe Ashin falls into the trap, like the first series Kingdom did for me, of being just an introduction or the beginning of something and not telling a whole story. Perhaps I will not really manage appreciate its genius until I finally see the third series and where the story will take the character of Ashin and the conclusion it might give to that story.

If Ashin was supposed to be something to quench my thirst for the third series, then I did not think it managed that as well as it hoped, although it is very good entertainment and a thrilling ride with some good twists. I just wanted a better buildup to things and character work. Had fun watching it though. Just didn’t leave as much as I wanted behind.

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It’s not every day that the Kdrama gets a season two - which is actually one of the things I like most about kdramas - so I was so I was thrilled, yet cautious about how the Age of Youth 2 would turn out. It’s hard to meet all those expectations, if the previous series was really good, as Age of Youth was.

And while Age of Youth 2 certainly didn’t beat Age of Youth in terms of quality, or how good it was, I can’t say that this was a bad drama. This was still the story of five girls and all the ups and downs in their lives. Even if it did not feel as fresh or new, but then again, to me, it was never going to since it was coming after the first season. It was a lovely continuation in my opinion, was what it was supposed to be.  A continuation. And I think I have to judge it based on that.

At first people were concerned about how many changes were made (and some people it was just too much) but these changed didn’t affect the story itself too much, though it did a little. Even if they added more male roles, they did not take any (or not much) time from the girls and their story. It was still all about the girls.
When it comes to both seasons of Age of Youth, they are mainly about the girls in Belle Epoque, their lives and their friendships.

The boys are just on the sidelines, featuring in the stories of the girls and it wasn’t super heavy on the romance. And while there are some people who find the focus of the series have shifted a little more from the story of the girls, and into the story of the girls and all these ships, I personally never saw it that way.

A good part of the first series was dedicated to these ‘ships’. Ether those who were there from day one (Yeun and her boyfriend) or the ones that slowly formed during course of the drama. (Jinmyung and Eun Jae and their men). The fandom might have shifted its focus more on these ‘ships’ in a second series, but the story itself didn’t.

I think this focus on these couples within the fandoms has more to do with the fact that the underlying story of Age of Youth 2 was not as captivating or compelling as in the previous season. Or it didn’t feel as tight. I like the stories that were featured in this season, but at the same time I did not feel like these stories had too much to do with each other, as they did in season two. This season didn’t have any ghosts in the shoe-closet to connect all these story-lines and make it all more symbolic.

There were many interesting stories going in this series, but they didn’t have too much to do with each other, and we did not quite get these individual episodes that we got into the previous series, which added so much to these characters. The connection that these stories had with each other was mainly that the girls all lived in the same house. 

To me, Song Ji Won, one of my favorite last season, got the biggest, heaviest and probably the best storyline, compared to the previous season where she was mostly on the side-lines. Which is great since Park Eun Bin is a great actress, one of the strongest in this drama and Song Ji Won deserved her own spotlight.
Her story had the greatest weight and depth in this season, and we got to see more of her and Im Sung Min, which I appreciated (cuz I ship them). I was over the moon over it and though that story took us to some rather dark place at times, it was handled quite well.

It took her character to another level and made her into such a complex characters. To me she is the star of Age of Youth 2. To me she was the main character of this season.

Drama was still only in trying to make the story darker, or more dangerous, than she had to be (in order to be edgy) in my opinion. But those items did not appear to be dry, or out of nothing, and just being there to make us feel uncomfortable.

Yeun and Jinmyung both got to continue on with their stories from the first season, as Jinmyung lays his first step into the adult, working-world, and Yeun is struggling with the follow-up of the violent relationship she had with her former boyfriend. And I thought that was very done, how Yeun and the drama managed to handle that problem and how she slowly began to become more confident. I was very happy with that progress.

Jo Eun, the new girl, who moves (after Yi Na moves away in episode 1) and although I found her friendship with the girls, how she opened herself up bit by bit, and her relationship and Jang Hoon was very sweet. But I didn’t feel like story stood out a lot.

But Eun Jun, my favorite character in the first series (with Song Ji Won), got another actress who did very little for that character - though I blame it mostly on how she was written. Eun Jun really pulled the shortest straw when it came to plot in AOY2. All she did was break up with her boyfriend, for god knows what reason, and then she moaned over that the whole season. I never really understood what the scriptwriter was trying to go fir. All her parts just seemed to act as a filler, and she didn’t really act like herself. For me it was by far the biggest minus about Age of Youth 2.

If Age of Youth was four and a half star then Age of Youth 2 was a solid three star drama. It had some really good moments; I was very excited about watching each episode, and overall had a pretty good time watching it. But it did not reach the same height as the Age of Youth did. I did not cry over t.  The story was, in my opinion, a little disjointed  at times and could have been tight. There was something missing in that department. We needed something to keep going back to, and added a bit of depth to the underlining story, like the ghost in the shoe-closet.

I thought t was a good follow-up, I loved visiting Belle Epoque again, as well as the characters. Not all the stores left as much behind as the stories in the first season. But it is hard to re-create that magic. I just wish I could have gotten a bigger closure to some of these stories. Because we have been sitting through 14 episodes of these stories, so I think it is better to not leave things too open ended. It doesn’t leave as much behind.

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Goryeo-Khitan War is an long epic and very heavy and political historical drama, and a certain type of period drama that I thought would never come back into the scene in the current kdrama landscape that we now have, where the fluffy romances with only a few political plots here and there seem to have gradually taken over the period drama scene and each drama seems to get fewer episodes to tell us its story.

I feel like this show was successful in making this enormous and complicated story epic and successfully cramming in lots of history within these 32 episodes without making it too dense. It was rather thrilling thing to watch from start to finish. There seems been put quite a bit of detail within the narrative, although there are, of course, some deviations from history - and especially in the second half, or so I have read.

The focus of the narrative is largely on the war strategy of Goryeo and other things that came with the waging a war, the toll it took on the people and soldiers who fought bravely on the frontlines, the pressure it put on society or the elites who found ways to take advantage of the turbulent times that followed. And the story certainly captures the tension and depressing mood that came with it all – you're able to immerse yourself in the action and put yourself in positions in a way that you can feel every sword slash, every conspiracy, every deceit with the characters. But also every victory.

The first half of the drama focused very much on the action and the story holds no punches and gives you time to adjust before descending into chaos. And the story doesn't really take a break until about halfway through. There is constantly something happening, every little thing within the story affects something else, and each episode reaches a cliffhanger of sorts that makes it so you can't stop watching.

The second half of the story focuses a lot on exploring the aftermath of the war and the story shifts the pace of the narrative ever so slightly, although the story never really stops to a halt, but more so gives itself some time to catch a breath. It certainly gives us plenty of time with the characters and gets to know them all over again after the war and everything they've been through. But it becomes a bit of a repetition and there is a lot of 'men sitting at a table or standing together in a room and talking and arguing about things' sort of things happening. But the political intrigue was strong enough and the characters likeable that you just went along with it.

And although I think it's a very engaging narrative in many ways because the story successfully makes us feel for, and root for the main players of the story and their idealistic views – and the characters are all very interesting and flawed in their own ways. I did appreciate the angle to the story, that it would be difficult to get the country back on its feet after so much conflict, because I feel like that part is not often shown in shows like this, in such detail.

It can be said, however, that the plot seems to rule over the characters at times and not the other way around, but especially in the first part, in which case there's also an awful lot of plot and things like that happening and they want to make sure that the historical narrative is delivered properly.

I did enjoy the female characters here, even though they are few and their roles in the narrative was maybe a bit too the side, yet they were complex, and all served the story in some way. They may be in secondary roles and it's a super male-centric story, but they still felt genuine and real for this time the story takes place in.

This drama is gripping and epic in scope. It’s a thrilling history lesson about perseverance, loyalty and love of one’s homeland, the complexities of wars, and all that with some old school kdrama charm, which in a way makes the story a little fresh. It's not for everyone, but as a fan of the heavier kind historical kdramas, I really enjoyed the journey of political intrigue that Goryeo-Khitan War took me on. And I also just enjoyed getting a period drama from Korea that doesn’t happen during the Joseon era, because we don't get to see those every day.

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I really enjoy it when kdramas surprise me or sneak up on me like Marry My Husband did. Because I had no interest in watching it until half of it had come out, but somehow it fell into my arms because I needed a cute romcom to watch during the darkest time of the year and I’d heard good things about it. And I don’t regret starting that journey at all.

I’ve fallen a bit out of drama romcoms over the years – in the past it was the genre that I watched the most but now it’s sageuks. But despite that, I’ve enjoyed Park Min Young in romcoms so often over the years, and her warm and easygoing on-screen demeanor tends to draw me well into the characters she’s portraying.

Marry My Husband focuses largely on her character, Kang Ji Won, and her quest for revenge and a better life that fills her with more passion and hopefully a better ending – which is a very engaging and compelling story to fallow, and I think the drama does a great job of making us feel for her. Even if it goes a little into too much victim complex and the characters tend to be a little too naïve at times.

Many of the secondary characters and their side stories were also very entertaining or interesting – which I think is essential in this kind of office drama. Both the blossoming friendships in the office, but also villains would completely steal the show for me. Some of the characters are horrible people, like Ji Won’s ex-friend and husband, but the drama manages to illustrate well how subtle they are and how they manage to use people. The actors and script made them very interesting to watch while you’re praying for their downfall. They feel like complex, multifaceted characters who can look funny or fascinating on the outside like many abusers are. But even though some of it felt a bit over the top at times.

For some time, it seemed that romance wasn’t a priority in the story, which doesn’t pick up until well around the second half of the drama. But I thought it was a very wise decision while everything else is being set up. It gives the drama time to highlight the emotional abuse Kang Ji Won is dealing with and trying to break away from so she can live. But all these different side stories also give us a little break from the romance that starts to drag on a little towards the end.

To me, romance is actually the weakest part of the drama, and it could just be because I don’t think Yoo Ji Hyuk is a particularly interesting character. I thought he was a little dull and I don’t think Na In Woo is a particularly charming actor on screen. He’s just fine. he’s tall and handsome, yet often he feels like he is just there, like a beautiful blank canvas, for a good majority of the drama. The rest of the cast was doing such a good job with their characters and sometimes made his scenes a little stiff in comparison, for me.

He did slowly start to make sense to me as a person and romantic partner when Ji won started falling for him and you get to fall in love with her – which is what the best romance films tend to do in my opinion. You fall in love with the characters and through the characters. But there were parts where I found his scenes, when no one else was with him, a bit full and just not that interesting. Like his backstory and past felt a bit too much of a kdrama cliché for me.

Overall, I found Marry My Husband a gripping and interesting story full of emotions that was far gloomier than I expected from such a romcom drama. But that didn’t hurt the story at all. There were interesting characters that you could hate and lovable characters you could root for, and a fair number of stakes to make the story exciting. The narrative flows well and doesn’t drag on too much, which is a bit of a bane for many romcom kdrama, especially towards the end, even if it did turn a bit too melodramatic and clichéd at times at times.

What caught my attention most about Marry My Husband was its use of comedy for the villains of drama. We are often made to laugh at them but not with them, and humor is also used to show how they could seem good and fascinating on the surface. It shows their insecurities and inferiority feelings and why they hold on to other people and drag them down because of them, but also how they manage to deceive the people around them. The way Ji Won saw them before she had another chance to live and gain clarity. That and Ji Won’s revenge was what really gripped me all throughout this drama – Ji Won’s on-screen revenge was often a certain cathartic release for the viewer, in a good way.

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