Cheers!!!

Well, nothing earth-shattering here! Just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill, based on a manga romcom. And it is fine! If that's what you're looking for!

I thought I was! And I loved the first couple of episodes! And then I did not any more! It is not that it gets bad but it gets too long and eventually it becomes boring! I think that says something when the drama has only 8 episodes 30min long!

But first I would like to than donsubbers for the subs! Keep up the good work! We do appreciate it!

It is an office romance between an icy straight forward office lady and a people pleaser, handsome but spineless office worker. He is forced to accept a bet involving her, she overhears him accepting said bet. So they start dating, hesitantly enjoying each other's company but still holding back because of the bet. Their respective best friends try to help them out.

I loved the FL: strong, principled, honest and taking no nonsense which made her an outcast though she was appreciated for her professional attitude and her competence. She always managed to keep a straight face while the storm was brewing behind it: the j dramas' favourite trope i.e. the inner monologue came useful here though they used it a bit too much when she was all alone and acting out the very monologue! Those were also the moments when the manga origins of this drama came to evidence: grimaces, gesturing, jumping around, turning eyes...the actress did all of this to perfection but managed not to go overboard so I was not put out by it much (since I usually drop a drama when they go OTT with manga codes, this is a good sign!).
I hated the ML: spineless, wanting to please everyone, boring, flavorless and annoyingly cowardly but, to his defence, he grows a pair by the end of the drama and stands up against the office harassment.

The office harassment was actually the main topic behind the romcom: it is used as an initial motivation for the plot but it is left superficial even though the main harasser is punished, learns his lesson and becomes a better person. It is very unrealistic but I should not expect more from the treatment of this topic here since this is first and foremost a romantic comedy and it is not to be taken seriously.

There are some interesting support characters, like the FL's coworker who hero worships her and then observes from afar her love life cheering her on, the FL's parents: the talkative mother and the newspaper reading absent father(they were funny), and last but not least the chemistry overflowing best friends and hopefully a future couple. They were a spicy couple in contrast with the vanilla main one! Much more interesting but not present enough!

I liked the music: it was the right kind and right amount and it accompanied the story well without drowning it as is often the case in j dramas (at least among those I've seen so far!).

The production was solid but there was one scene in which I found the extras' attitudes bizarre! In the scene the second couple is walking down the almost empty street discussing their friends, they are not speaking particularly loudly so it was surprising to see extras, far away from them stop and watch them: there was no reason for them to do that! I was wondering if they filmed it with real passer bys who stopped to watch the filming of the scene out of curiosity because that is what the scene looked like !

This is an easily bingeable, light and fun drama and you might spend a relaxing moment watching it if you do not expect much!

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Ah that hairline....

Well, this does not stand a rewatch!

I watched this for the first time when it was first released and I loved it. So a week ago, when I was feeling a bit down and not wanting to start anything new, I decided that rewatching this was a good idea.

No, it wasn't!

It took me three days to finish the first episode and than another two to watch half of the second one before finally abandoning it: it was unwatchable.

The story is not bad, the hook up was all PC, asking for consent and all that jazz.

But: the actors may be cute and handsome, they cannot act to save their lives. The line delivery is monotone, the facial expressions non-existent or rather they each sport one single expression throughout the drama: Boun is trying to be cocky and seductive (just cringy and unconvincing!) and Prem has eternally trembling lips and panicky attitude. And they have absolutely no chemistry between them: Boun falling for Prem when he sees him in the first episode comes from nowhere. I guess that's what they call love at first sight and that is something reason, logic and appearance cannot explain.

Then there is the only actress with lines Samantha, fidgeting and grimacing and trying to show shyness and seductiveness but failing miserably. She was painful to watch. Dean with his expressionless face and zero acting talent is a known and expected quantity, while Fluke cries easily and very often.

The production value is standard though they forgot about continuity when it concerned Boun's blond hair: that was the most amusing aspect of this drama i.e. keeping track of Boun's roots!

I have either seen too many BLs now and my rose-tinted glasses are off, or I am a bitter and blind person who needs to have her eyesight checked.

A good watch once but not to be repeated !

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Blue pool of destiny

I loved it! And even though its flaws are many, I have enjoyed this immensely! Now I am more than certain: I love thai BLs rated below 7.5. Those above I find unwatchable!

The plot is rather original: involving a blue magic waterfall pool at a full moon which connects two parallel universes and a man accidentally crossing the boundary, deciding to help his boyfriend's counterpart and ends up falling for a bad boy with a heart of gold! I am a sucker for such characters: apparently ambiguous and grey but deep down kind and righteous!

BTW, this year's thai bls seem to swing between parallel universe and vampires! Full marks for originality, sincerely! I cannot watch another school BL....

Unfortunately, in spite of its original premise, this drama does not manage to avoid many heteronormative tropes. The main character is uke, Kram who seems to be smart and unexpectedly strong even though he is slight in built. But after a couple of episodes he becomes the stereotypical damsel in distress with a baby voice! That was a disappointment. Tai, on the other hand is a typical seme, macho, strong and silent type, gang boss' son but actually nice. And, oh boy, does he take care of his Kram!

The acting was top notch from the entire cast particularly the actors playing parents who were here less two dimensional, clichés. I don't particularly like the height difference but the actors had decent chemistry and were very much at ease with each other so I managed to bear with it! The cinematography is beautiful as well: the drama takes place in the jungle so the feeling we got from the screen were dreamy, subdued, fuzzy and sparkling. Amazing! The music was probably the best I've ever heard in a thai bl, completely different from the usual fare and more reminiscent of c drama music with a lot of flutes and some romantic piano music, it actually gave me butterflies. The poster for this drama is just awful: dark and scary and it does not present it in a correct light because there is a lot of comedy carried on expertly by the second couple!

The packaging of this drama was perfect. What was missing was the content: after the initial promise, the package was actually empty. There were gangsters, murders, kidnappings, painting, running around and plot holes...I am still trying to figure out why would Tai's father kill himself after killing his own boss and coming out on top of the mob world? Completely illogical in my book!...There were many make out scenes, beautifully filmed and choreographed (the second couple go full monty on us, from the back though...) but too many and too long! There was a mysterious illness and a lot of blood spitting, again reminiscent of c dramas...

I still don't know how I feel about the ending. It was a happy ending and the main couple get their happily ever after but it had left me with a bitter after taste since the other version of a MC gets his redemption but does not get to enjoy it. I guess they needed to make space for the original version of the MC but it does not sit well with me.

Nevertheless, I loved this drama but you need to go in it well aware of its flaws, that it is fantasy and that the phones are nowhere to find! Almost! That was refreshing!

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A boxer and a nun...

Finally! I finally managed to finish it! And it only took me three weeks! Truth be told, if it had not been for the Back To The Past Challenge, I would have dropped it ages ago! Not even Kazu's charm could save this for me! Actually, his over the top acting and the zero character development were the main problems I had with this drama. But not only....

The story follows a promising boxer who loves eating and falls in love with a nun. Put like this, it sounds promising and fun. And that it was, for about 3 episodes and then it became boring and repetitive!

Boxer is a young man of uncertain origin: we don't get to know his (or anyone else's ,for that matter!) backstory. He lives in a boxing gym with other boxers and is training to become champion. But he has to keep his weight down so he eats in secret and puts on 10kg overnight which he looses in 3 days. I was really bothered by this weight gain/loss issue: it seemed extreme. But since I know absolutely nothing about boxing, who am I to criticize. It just sound illogical and unrealistic. A very big part of the first half is spent on the boxer eating and then training to lose the surplus kilos. Those kilos were never obvious: the actor himself is very thin!
One day while jogging he bumps into a nun and falls hook, line and sinker for her. She's an orphan, brought up in the convent, kind and pretty. He follows her around, declaring his love, asking her out...ignorant of convent life. He keeps barging in, jumping around, screeching, in short he behaves like a 5 yr old child. From the beginning to the end of the drama. With a 5min break in the last episode when he grows up. But only for 5min!

The side characters are a mixed lot: the gym owner who is oblivious of everything else but her gym so she never notices her own son being bullied in school or the huge crush her chief trainer has on her. The other boxers in the gym are there only to be a bouncing board for the main boxer's musings and problems. We don't know much about them, except for one when he receives a visit from his father and the whole gym starts lying to cover his failure.
The adversaries in the main boxer's matches are all basically the same: scary on the surface but deep down poor boys just trying to survive (family abroad, make son proud or pay debt!). And of course our dieting boxer beats them easily!

They should have made this into a film because here we just have about 6 filler episodes, case of the week type while the main plot remains still, unmoving. Boring and annoying!

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Quirky and illogical....

....if you trust the human vampire movies. But, as they say, "Don't trust the human vampire movies!"

There are 4 vampires: three men and a woman who is fed up with living and wants to die but does not know how. So the men come up with different ideas. So this introduction part was interesting but after that I found everything they did illogical to say the least.

So she wants to die but has never tried to go out in the sun? That is THE big vampire trope: sensitivity to sunlight. But she never thought of that? Has she been living in a bubble for over 70 years and learned nothing about herself and the vampire species?
Then one of the guys says that vampires die if they have sex with each other. I find it hard to fathom vampires living for centuries (700yrs!) together and never once trying to have sex especially since they seem to have feelings for each other. So the woman has sex with the guy and apparently it is mindblowingly good but they are both still alive.
So she tries garlic, crosses and eventually sunlight. Nothing kills them.
In the end, they just have to keep on living like "ordinary" immortals.

If you do not try to nitpick like I just did, it is a funny little film I would not mind watching a much longer version since it shakes up all known vampire tropes.

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Cute and superficial

I am a bit torn: this drama is very short and therefore they do not go for in depth character development so I wish they had made it a bit longer. On the other hand, the topic is not interesting and the plot is just a string of predictable moves.

It is a story of two make up influencer who used to be friends but are now mortal enemies. They are forced to work together, so they never stop bickering and throwing snide remarks around. There are two men interested in the younger influencer. Who is she going to choose?

I am not spending my time on different social media, so the very main topic was extremely boring to me. I stayed for the romance but because of the short duration, it was rushed and it sorely lacked chemistry.

This is a web drama so I should not expect much but it definitely looks like an average quality endeavour. Everything is average here: the actors seem to be clones of big stars, the screenplay is undercooked and superficial (even though they put the stress on social media speed and influence but they do not elaborate on it: it is just there, it exists and that's it!), the cinematography is correct though they made an effort to put the FL in spotlight with slight special effects: she sparkles a little bit! The song is annoying!

It is a romcom and nothing more.

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Dorian Gray in Grand Amsterdam Hotel

If you are looking for horror, you are in the wrong place in spite of the genre mentioned on this drama's page. It is a murder mystery, comedy and fantasy but not horror: horror is scary, gives you nightmares. Here, except for a very sexy serial killer, there is nothing to be jumpy about. Unless the sexy serial killers give you nightmares.

The plot in this drama is reminiscent of those many c dramas where the FL falls into a novel and has to find a way out. The FL here is an editor in an online publishing company. When her boss, on whom she has a crush, disappears, she goes looking for him and discover the existence of magic laptops: when you write a person's name on it, that person disappears into the novel the laptop writes all by itself. So the FL writes herself into the novel and while trying to save her boss's life, she discovers the truth behind the writer and the laptop.

How far are you willing to go in order to succeed as a writer? Sell your soul to the devil? There are parts of Dr Faustus and Dorian Gray in this drama. There is also a slight criticism of the writers' system ruling the korean entertainment world: when one writer rebelled against the constant harassment by her writer boss, she was immediately blacklisted in the whole community. When you touch the bottom, you either sell your soul or sink deeper but they never realize that by selling their soul they would inevitably sink deeper! The choice is only superficial!

The hotel setting of the novel reminded me very much of Wes Andersons' film Grand Amsterdam Hotel with the exterior aesthetics and with its quirky staff (well here we only get to see the receptionist but he is bizarre enough!).

I found the FL very annoying in the first couple of episodes, with her swooning over her boss who does not notice her, batting eyelashes at him and speaking like a little girl. But she is actually very smart and, with the help from a couple of coworkers, she eventually figures out how to get everyone out of the novel.

This is a well written drama with the plot which survives scrutiny: no major plotholes noticed: every question gets an answer in the last episode. The acting is correct, the music is there. Except for the jazzy bar singer: she was good and the songs steamy!

An exceptionally good short drama, definitely worth your time!

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Bromance aiming at us....

Short, sweet, cute with loads of chemistry and perfect pacing. Added to it is Xia Zhi Yuan's irresistible smile and some nice piano background music and songs and you have the perfect, light entertainment for a Sunday evening.

A concerned father asks a young man to pretend to be his illegitimate son in order to shake his real son out of the slump. His happy go lucky attitude first encounters refusal but slowly and steadily he breaks through his fake brother's walls and manages to find the cause of his slump.

The two young men are perfect examples of opposites attract, enemies to friends (to lovers!) challenging each other out of their comfort zone and making them aim for different goals, making them more ambitious. While the first one is an orphan, who learned early to think on his feet and not to be bothered what other think about him and worry only about his own survival, the other man is a son of a rich father, pampered but also put under pressure to realize his and/or his father's dreams so much that he could not deal with it anymore and started stalling during competition.

The drama depicts well though not enough, the pressure the high achieving athletes are put under: by their families, their coaches, their competition. Having the iron clad will to win and not buckle up under provocation and bullying is paramount in this cut-throat world.

Even though the drama is short, the development of the relationship between two men is excellently paced: no stages are skipped, from the initial animosity to tentative resignation to hidden admiration and deep friendship. And of course more. Aaahhh, love that dares not speak its name in Chinese dramas....was pretty much obvious and they stopped a few times just a second before their lips touched but the feelings were overflowing. The chemistry was top notch. Even the presence of the girl visiting from France and not minding her business and therefore putting the spanner in the works of the father, though it gave additional drama it did not stop them in their bromance. We had everything here a good (b)romance requires: initial hatred, slowly getting to know each other, sleeping in the same bed (I loved those scenes: in the same bed but texting each other!), brushing teeth and eating together (nice home life), misunderstandings and jealousies, last minute break up and then reconciliation in the last episode. It was perfect!

These short dramas have become my favourites these days: not enough time for unnecessary side characters and time-wasting subplots , just a story of two people getting to know each other. And promote dental hygiene products!

This whole drama is actually an add wrapped around a BL.

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Love & candles

Apparently this is based on the K drama with the same title. I have seen said drama but years ago and all I remember are the candles and the Himalayas. But I remember liking it (though when time travel is concerned, i am not picky: I adore the concept!).

A man discovers a bunch of candles that can take him back ten years so he uses them in order to save his girlfriend's life. This is the basic plot: but it is eventually really complicated, with many changes accomplished in the past which radically alter the present.

I have to give it to the writers: every time I'd see a plot hole and say "Aha! Gotcha!" , they'd find a perfectly logical explanation in accordance with the overall plot. It is practically foolproof if, of course, you accept the original ridiculous premise of time travel inducing magical candles! There is also the advantage they had going with the short format: they did not have too much time to ruin the drama with unnecessary subplots and complications.

Production value is excellent, the pacing perfect, the acting solid, music nice.

Since it is a c drama and since they are not allowed to do time travel themed series, there is an epilogue after the credits of the last episode which explains, using some incomprehensible mumbo jumbo, that the whole thing was just a coma dream. The full version (3h50 on youtube) does not feature this epilogue so you will be left wanting answers since the story is incomplete (or rather left on a cliffhanger!).

Definitely one of the best short c dramas!

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Free will or the fate

I somehow grew to like these short historical c dramas. First of all they are short so they do not have time to waste on fillers and unnecessary side plots. Second of all, they are historical i.e. costume dramas which have no relation to real history. And finally, they are pretty to watch: pretty people dressed in pretty clothes inside pretty sets accompanied by pretty music.

Fortune Writer is one of the better ones, combining seamlessly costume drama and characters-inside -a-book drama. Even though the plot gets a bit complicated and repetitive, it is certainly worthy of the watch.

The story follows Yun Qui, the daughter of the Prime Minister as she realizes that she is a character in a book, written by the fortune (or fate) writer and decides to rebel against her tragic fate by lying and manipulating other characters. I loved the FL: she is an unabashedly gray character, not entirely evil but not far either. When the drama started, I thought she was a side character molesting the usual pretty and kind princess.

The story is tightly written. The mysteries are revealed one at a time steadily. The characters are not what they seem to be , there is a depth in them which is a nice change for a short drama. The main point of the story is the duel of wits between YunQui and the Fortune Writer. She is convinced that she is the sole master of her own fate which the FW refuses to admit. The whole concept of FW is an interesting one: they come into existence when individuals have something they deeply desire so in order to obtain it they are allowed to manipulate the lives of other people. The FW invades bodies of such people. Yun Qui refuses the offer eventually, and lets everyone in her vicinity have free will. Could this be a pique to the current politics? I wonder....

The acting was solid though I found the chemistry between the leads lacking: the main actor has one expression throughout the drama. Whether he is in love or in pain, hungry or constipated, it is always the same stony face! But I loved his line: "Just keep lying to me! I don't care!" He was in love!

I needed to suspend belief a few times especially when falling off of a cliff or when arrow wounds were concerned. At one point, the FL has an arrow buried in her shoulder, pulls it out (no visible blood) and continues as if nothing happened. When a friend sees her a few minutes later, he gives her a handkerchief she uses to wipe her chin, the arrow wound has somehow magically disappeared. This made me lose concentration badly!

Another good point for this drama is that the version on youtube is mercifully free of audio problems: they found the way to air a complete drama without cutting the sound. This is the first!

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Love knows no obstacles

Well, this was a perfect romcom for a Saturday evening!

And it is just a romcom that does not try to be anything more than that: so no dealing with lgbt issues, no history context issues, no family acceptance issues. Just a romcom! Fun, funny, sweet, butterflies inducing chemistry...what more do you need for a relaxing evening?

I have been aware of this drama but since the rating was very low and comments not good, I was never tempted to watch it. Until I discovered today that there was a movie version of it. I was actually looking for a BL to watch tonight and it was a toss up between this and Venus In The Sky. I am so happy that this film won!

The story: a man dresses up as his sister who ran away, and takes her place at her wedding. Afterwards he asks her husband to wait a few days until his sister is found. Since nobleman Ryu's mother is of fragile health, they decide to continue with the charade for a few days. But the forced proximity makes them get to know each other well and feelings start growing between them.

There is a lot of comedy, smart kind involving secondary characters: Mother heating up the room to make them undress, Ryu's friend who falls for his "wife" and sends "her" love letters even the jealous little sister pranking. There is not one single mean character, surprisingly.

The characters live in their own universe apparently: it is a costume drama but we do not know when because that is not important. Nothing exists outside this little world and I was fine with that. I was not expecting it to deal with the lgbt issues in the past: that was not the point of this film.

I have not seen the drama but this film version flows smoothly. The characters are sweet and nice. The main couple have great chemistry. The actor Han Se Jin, playing the brother dressed as a sister, is beautiful. He made me think of the japanese actor Yutaro: same kind of actor! Actually he looked better in a dress than in a hat (but anyway nobody looks well in those hats!).

This is just a regular costume romcom involving a crossdressing main character but it is amusing, well written and acted. Towards the end there is a bit of too many flashbacks, same scenes over and over again. The music is really nice and the final scene gave me butterflies....

This was a nice and light, amusing and warm, a perfect relaxing watch. I want more like this!

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Friends or more?

A very badly produced and acted short film I saw a very bad copy of on gcinee (don't go to youtube: the sound is off and completely covered by piano music).

The story started like a cliché friends to lovers until the final twist which makes you wonder what really happened. The film is about two best friends: one has had a crush on the other one forever. The other guy is not aware but is very touchy-feely with his friend. Neither dares say anything. One day the second guy's friend, a girl, asks him to help her date the first guy. He introduces them and the first guy, hopelessly, accepts to date her. The second guy just looks at them with yearning and regret. At the end of the year, while they part, the first guy gives the second one a hug which is all but an innocent, friendly hug. And then he leaves. One year later the first guy wakes up in hospital. Was everything just a dream? Wishful thinking? open to interpretation! (Due to poor quality video!)

Another film about friends wanting to be more but not daring to confess to each other. It ultimately boils down to the question: shall I risk losing a friend for a tiny chance of getting a lover? This is always a difficult question, more so in same-sex relationships where the weight of society norms bear down heavily on young people.

The story is interesting but the production is bad. It is an older chinese short film so it must have been difficult to make it. The acting is basic, the editing all over the place, the cinematography non existent.

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The triumph of the underdog

Needing a drama from the year 2016 for my Back To The Past Challenge, I set my eyes on this one found in an editorial article a few months ago (https://mydramalist.com/article/check-out-these-sports-themed-web-series). What a discovery this drama was! It is a short web drama so I did not expect much from it but it is actually gripping, interesting, well written, filmed and acted. And it is just the right side! I think that if it had been a normal length K drama it would not have been just as good!

The plot is basic and familiar: our leads meet and clash, only to find out later that they need to work together to achieve the same goal. A classical enemies to lovers drama. The drama takes place in high school: the volley ball team is the last in the country and the FL, a star volleyball player, has to coach them as penance. From the reluctant star to a full-fledged coach only interested in the well-being of the team, is the journey the FL has to take. But, it would not be interesting if everything was smooth sailing. Her manager/agent gets his say in the affair and he apparently does everything to ruin her nascent coaching career. Does he want to exploit the goose who lays golden eggs or is there sincerity behind his concerns?

The cast of characters is perfect: varied and quirky. There is a love triangle but it is resolved to the satisfaction of everyone. One of the players has issues with his father, just like every teenager in the world: my parents don't really understand me, are not supportive enough, are too strict etc.etc. A girl has a crush on a player so she is willing to do anything but eventually she comes to her senses.

And of course, there is a lot of volleyball: training and matches which are expertly filmed. But the drama touches also upon sports' management agencies and the lengths they are willing to go in order to keep the sportsmen in check. The toxic and manipulative atmosphere is well presented, even though it peters out in the end and the agents are finally turn out to be not as evil as suspected.

The acting is skilful, the chemistry is there and the writing is solid. This is a good short watch, fun and fluffy enough. Sometimes we all need this kind of drama, optimistic and uplifting!

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Photos and memories

Once in a blue moon, a miracle happens and a second season of a series turns out to be better than the first one! This is an example!

The drama starts exactly where the previous one ended: Yeesa has woken up from a coma but is completely lost. People know her, she recognizes them but the things are not as she remembers them to have been, something is slightly off. So she goes to the esoteric club who helped her during time travel and finds out that the man who sacrificed himself to save her life was never in it, they have never heard about him. But when she bumps into him in a bookshop, he does not recognize her. A few days later they meet again: he is a writer and ever since they met, he'd been having dreams about another version of himself. They conclude that he'd been getting images from the parallel universe Yeesa is from. In that universe, he reconnects with his childhood friend and discovers that the photos they took with an instant camera let you travel to the moment those photos had benn taken for 15min (i.e. the time it takes for a instant photo to be developped).

Basically we have two stories developing at the same time. In the one, Yeesa is helping the writer with his novel in order to figure out how to go back to her original universe. The other story is the plot of the novel taking place in that other universe.

Fortunately, in this season, the FL is different and Yeesa is just a guest character having no more than a couple of scenes in every episode so the drama is so much better for it! The story focuses on Ka Chung and his childhood friend Cu Ning. The drama follows them as they slowly figure out how the time travel through photos work and we see them as they regretfully realize they cannot change the past no matter how hard they tried. There is a scene where FL goes through a big number of photos in order to try to save her grandfather and is miserable when she fails! But they eventually realize, just like in the first season, that changing destiny needs the ultimate sacrifice.

The running theme of this season are memories!Memories hidden in photos that both main characters are trying to find and keep the important photos in their life.The grandfather's memories he is slowly losing but not only. The story is much more complicated because it keeps going back and forth between past and present in both universes. The director found a good solution for us not to be lost: the ML looks completely different in different timelines, if I did not know better, I'd think they were two different actors! That was very helpful in order to follow the story!

There is even a bad guy: someone so steeped in grief and guilt after his wife's death that he manages to find a way to time travel and provoke as much pain in the lead's lives holding them responsible for his own unhappiness. This was so frustrating! The guy turns out to be practically a caricature of evil: why do bad guys hum and whistle while doing evil deeds? Always! Just look at any crime thriller out there, every serial killer moves around humming or whistling! This whole subplot brought nothing because the main leads did not manage to save anyone with their actions and the final solution came from literally wishing upon a star. So just like in the first season, time travel depends on the whims of Gods!

The writing is excellent, without obvious plotholes but without time travel explanation either. Why is this particular instant camera creating time travel photos? The reason some people can do it is explained but not the means of transportation! On the other hand, the connection between the two seasons is established perfectly as the story of this season circles back to the beginning of the first one: the events of this season happened before the event of the Leap day and the conclusion to both series is the last episode here! This is headache inducing but time travel always is so....

940920 is a top tier time travel drama. The characters are interesting, the plot is tightly woven and manages to retain some logic but it is not very optimistic even though there is a happy ending for everyone involved. The cinematography is just as beautiful

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Life reboot

I am a sucker for time slip tropes so as soon as this finished airing and after checking that the ending is probably to my liking, I went for it. I won't lie to you, I binged it in three days but eventually I did not like it so much. There are a lot of issues I have with it.

The story is quite straightforward: two people leading boring unhappy lives are given a chance for a redo of the last ten years. How are they going to deal with the knowledge? Are they going to use it to correct past errors? Spoiler alert: they do of course! Otherwise what's the point of this drama?!? And so the doormat FL stands up for herself and comes up victorious!

The drama is fun to watch. There are a few tropes that do not go the usual revenge, makjang mode so that was rather refreshing. The chaebol grandfather and his lawyer are not the usual evil heads out to ruin our FL. They turn out to be kind and reasonable. But they could not do away with this cliché completely with the appearance with the psycho ex girlfriend. Mostly, the support characters were the usual clichés: jealous, greedy, bullying... And the glasses issue: ugly with them, drop dead gorgeous without them. We are still doing that? Of course they are kitted out with the most ugly and the least becoming models of glasses otherwise, the change is not obvious enough!

The change in the main characters' personalities is just as obvious: they both went from doormats to smart people who stand up for themselves and won't be beaten down. And even though the FL becomes cocky and looses her newly acquired smarts towards the ending, making idiotic mistakes, she comes back rather quickly!

The main support characters were more interesting: the joyful sister, the unassuming boss, the regretful cook (with a beautiful smile) and the quiet but powerful lawyer.

The first major issue I have with the plot is the time travel aspect: it was never explained who the mysterious taxi driver was? Are there any other cases like theirs? How are they chosen? Probably, the person needs to hit rock bottom and die in order to be offered a reboot! What is the significance of the heart? Was the time travel offered by her dead father (who was the taxi driver for ML)? I guess, one should not think too much about the logic when talking about time manipulation! I hoped to get an even cursory explanation at the end. Nothing! I was also surprised that the leads never wondered about the hows and the whys of their reboot! The aspect of the reboot I liked was the way their fate was transferred onto others and how they fought to save their friends from that fate!

The second major issue I have is the cast: Park Min Young looks too sleek and smooth to be true. People say she abuses of plastic surgery. I hope not but she has changed a lot over years and here she looks so artificial and even older than her age. Her face is pretty much expressionless: she can smile and cry but nothing else moves. Na In Woo looks like a very tall kid next to her. There is supposed to be an age gap (3-4 years tops!) between them but it looks much more!

Everything considered, this is a fun and a very forgettable watch. Things happened, but I cannot think of much now and I actually wonder what did they fill these 16h with? It went by and it was not too boring, so I guess something must have happened! This was Park Min Young's show from the first to the last minute. Unfortunately! LOL

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