One Shot Scandal (2023)

Math + Food = Love

Crash Course in Romance (2023)

Likes
1. Choi Chi Yeol as best math teacher and boyfriend of 2023! Love Jung Kyung Ho's comedic timing too.
2. I havent really watched a lot of Jeon Do Yeon's works but i hope she stars in more romantic and lighter dramas and movies because i love her smile!! Although her character has many problems she was wonderful as Haeng Seon.
3. I also love Haeyi and her friends. I was rooting for Geonho but Sunjae is not bad too.
4. Best character growth is Sunjae's mom. I was crying when she went on a trip with Hui jae.
5. Chiyeol having his own bestie in Jong Ryeol!
6. The final episode was so warm and happy i really hope everyone will live brighter and less stressed.

Dislikes
1. This drama could have been even better if there were no serial killer storylines. And even how they resolved it was bad and felt rushed.
2. Didnt like the pairing of Jae Woo and Yeong Joo, or even Su A and Geun Ho. Almost everyone had to pair off with one another for a "happy ending".
3. I'm so done with Kdrama mommies being too toxic to fellow mommies and their kids.
4. Haeyi's mom didnt need to come back and create unnecessary drama in the last eps.

Rating: 8.5/10

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Fun, heart-flattering and unique

I really loved it. The first time i liked a kdrama i watched as it aired till the end.

I wanted more romantic scenes between the leads and sunjae and haeso i think they should have shortened the storyline of the murder and the aunt( the birth mom storyline shouldn't have been there) .

Also i am confused how fast some characters changed ( sua and sunjae's mom mainly) and what the hell was up with sua storyline ( where she freaked out implying she had something to do with missing hae) they just left it.
Other than that, i really enjoyed my Saturdays and sundays.

Editing me( mar 21 2023)
I think i enjoyed the first have way more than the second coz of that, i am reducing the rating to 8.5 or 8.75 instead of 9).

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A slice of life romcom laced with the harsh reality of the korean academic rat race..

I hadn't heard of this drama before it first started airing if I'm being entirely honest. I had one of my close friends watch the first ep and tell me that it was nothing like they've ever seen before, and I was thoroughly intrigued. Now that it has ended.. It doesn't feel real.. Waiting every weekend for a double episode only to have to wait another week to see what happens next, and having continued that until today has been a very memorable experience. This drama did that for me.

The title "Crash Course in Romance" obviously suggests a very kdrama-esque romcom but I was very pleasantly surprised to see the evident elements of the academic competition in Korea and how serious it can get, including our group of helicopter mothers and very stressed and emotionally unstable students driven to the edge because of this life of grades and success. Nam Haengseon, our lovely FL is presented as someone who would never enforce decisions on anyone, not even her niece Hae-yi. We can see how Hae-yi has organically become better at studying based on her own motivations and receiving almost no pressure from her family; and that starks in comparison to some of the other kids we see in the show (*cough* SUA *cough*)

The whole history with Chiyeol's former student and her brother was very striking personally. Like I'm not an emotional person, but knowing how Suhyeon said that he was one of the only adults she trusted made me feel so bad for them, especially because of their mother (her daughter fell to her death but she wants her son to study harder because he's "now her only hope"????? That's messed up.) I felt so bad for Sua until the very end and I knew that the shit she was going through isn't entirely her fault but the show made me hate her so much and I hated that so much - speaking of which, the geonhuXsua pairing is lowkey SO underrated I really really really wanted to see more of them they're SO CUTE

Ji Donghui (or rather, Jeong Seonghyeon) really scared me since the BEGINNING yeah at the start the pairing was lowkey cute and I had NO clue it was going to be him but I had a HUNCH... I'm also confused about how everything just died out at the end when he died? like okay yeah it was sad for a bit but I love how everyone forgot about it soon after?

The whole plot was played out very well, in fact. Recently I've been having quite the blackout with kdramas and I seem to get bored REALLY easily. The spacing of this one was incredibly even and I think that's a major factor is the longevity of a drama for me! Portraying every single aspect of the plot from almost every single character's perspective is an important feature of a good drama and this one definitely did it for me!

The ending was incredibly satisfactory thankfully! - I was so afraid we were going to get a Hae-yi and Haengseon separation moment BUT HER MOTHER DID SOMETHING RIGHT FOR ONCE! - I loved Sunjae's mother's redemption arc! The picture she sent Sunjae of her and Huijae made me tear up:"( and when huijae came back on leave from the military:"((((( I really love happy endings! - The Sunjae and Hae-yi moment:"( It was too late for me like I would have appreciated a whole episode with them together - and the same for Geonhu and Sua!! When he went to pick her up saying that he was going to enrol in her university:"( Underrated AND unexpected pairing but I loved it! - and lastly, our main couple!! As if them proposing together wasn't cute enough, him rooting for her throughout her examination preparation process was the most wholesome thing ever :"(

As if I haven't spoiled the entirety of this show in my review already, If you still made it to the end and you HAVEN'T watched it, I suggest you do!!! I know I will definitely be rewatching this in a few months!!! <33

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Me tirou da ressaca de doramas.

O último dorama que terminei, foi Advogada Extraordinária, e puxa, eu o amei. Amei tanto que passei meses sem ver nenhum outro drama.

Começar CCIR foi uma das melhores decisões que já tomei, e eu daria tudo para assistir de novo como se fosse a primeira vez.

O dorama é bom em tudo que eu gosto, romance, drama, suspense... mas suspense? Eu não esperava isso em uma comédia romântica.

Então é essa a minha opinião sobre, sem spoilers: Trabalharam muito bem com os dramas familiares e adolescentes, mas muito mal com todo aquele plot twist que teve nos últimos episódios. Pra mim, esse dorama teria sido 10/10 se focassem somente nas dificuldades que adolescentes encaram durante o preparo para o vestibular e no romance dos protagonistas (e nos casais secundários, também). Enfim, me tirou muita risada, e o episódio 9 me deixou em lágrimas, e por isso minha avaliação é o que é.

Se você gosta de um bom haters to lovers, family found e adultos resolvendo problemas como adultos maduros, esse dorama é perfeito pra você.

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Messy and ill-fitting female lead

It began very interestingly with a view into the intense education demands of the country.
Characters looked different and intriguing too. The teenagers are all lovely and their friendships/ relationships were very refreshing. The female lead's brother was wonderful - very touching to watch him.

It had the tag of romance - which is the only genre I watch - so was looking forward to a different kind of story.

However the zero chemistry romance fizzled, the appeal went flat, the genre decided to embark on its own path.

The female lead was so ill-fitting in her role that it soured the whole drama. She may be considered some kind of hero in her country, but she was the least appealing. Grandmother outfits, greasy hair, bony hands of an older person pretending to be young. If she is considered a great actor then please give her intense roles. Not romcoms where she destroys the sentiment of romance.

Even the nasty mother's club had more appropriate actors.

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Overrated

I think this drama suffers from a number of flaws, just from my personal point of view, and I do not understand why it has such high ratings.

First of all, if you're not a fan of noona romances, you would not like this. I do not have problems with age gaps IRL, but I just don't like huge age gaps in my dramas. In this particular case, the actress, while being a fine woman and good at her craft, I'm sure, just somehow felt miscast for the role. She looks and feels way too old for a romance drama of this type. Sometimes it almost feels like she could be the male lead's mom or aunt. The pairing just felt cringey for me. And this is not a prejudice against older women falling in love. There are other dramas where this is given much better treatment and the romance is more age-appropriate, or the actors are better cast.

My second issue is I just did not like the male lead character at all. Not the actor per se. Just the character. I didn't hate him. But there was nothing about the character that I found attractive. He's an okay guy, a fine teacher, but other than that, the character was not developed fully and felt flat and one-dimensional almost. Even his supposed main selling point, his mathematical brilliance, was somehow not utilized enough to make you swoon for him. So with the ML's character not fleshed out and the FL being miscast, the main romance just did not do anything for me at all. Many instances where the FL, who is very ahjumma-like, is acting like a schoolgirl just felt...cringey.

The character of the younger male lead is also poorly written. In a way, he's worse than the main lead because the way he's written, he is not just undeveloped and quite generic, but he also has some glaring character flaws. After the exam fiasco, he resorted to avoidance instead of facing the issue head-on. In the interest of inserting some social commentary about how Korean students suffer from pressure exerted by parents, the writers turned him into a cowardly and immature boy who could not even be open and honest with his supposed best friend who he knew was also suffering and confused due to the circumstances. Just not someone I'd imagine falling in love with. The second teenage male lead had more spunk, more sense, and was at least always there for the female lead. Anyway, both male leads were too bland and uninteresting, and not well-developed, IMO. Just poorly written characters.

I also had some problems with the portrayal of the FL's brother. Was he supposed to have Asperger's? High-functioning autism? Somehow I feel like the portrayal was inaccurate, but I am no expert in this. And I also feel like the actor was miscast. I mean, I'm sorry. He's a fine actor. I've seen him in other dramas. But it would have been better if someone...more attractive were cast in the role so that we could swallow the sudden romance later on. That romance with the FL's best friend just felt too sudden, too forced, and just totally unnecessary. The fact that he said he treated her like an older sister all his life didn't help.

The plot itself is nothing special. It follows the usual format of the new spate of romance kdramas, where the main leads get together at episode 10, after which the plot devolves sharply into a not-that-interesting murder mystery, which, in the case of this drama, was resolved in a totally unsatisfactory way. I guess the main point of the drama is to critique Korea's obsession with academic excellence and tutoring services, and I guess they were able to get that across, at least, but the rest of the drama just feels uninspired and not that interesting.

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Boring and a waste of time

The storyline was really boring, predictable and contained too many unnecessary scenes. The actress playing the FL was a bad choice. The Fl was obnoxious. The leads had no chemistry. The only thing i liked about the show was the scenes showing how bad the education system is and it's effects on the students mental health, as well as the scenes showing how obsessed parents get when it comes to their children's education. I also really liked the students scenes they were much more fun than the leads scenes. The show wasn't funny at all, i don't get why it's labeled as a rom com. Overall I wouldn't recommend this drama to anyone

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C grade

The adults act so childish while the teenagers get all the emotional heavy stakes and interesting plot developments. The best parts of the drama were actually the teenagers and their struggle to meet these physically and mentally taxing educational standards and expectations of their parents and society as well as the mother daughter relationship between the aunt and niece. The wildness of the the hagwon institutions like how the parents have to line up everyday to get the best seating for their children was interesting as well. The murder mystery part of the drama was okay, but it was dragged on for like 3 or 4 episodes too long. When it was revealed that the brother is a red herring and assistant guy is the murderer, that's when they should have wrapped it up.

I quite enjoy seeing pairings where both grown consenting adult characters have the female lead as older than the male lead and the corresponding actors, but the casting here is really distractingly off with the actress not looking anywhere near believable as the character age range she is portraying. It didn't really need to be a noticeable issue except for the drama itself making it awkward by throwing lines like "she doesn't look old enough to be a mom to a teenager" and showing that only a decade has elapsed between the past and the present the story takes place in. It's compounded by the fact that the costume department didn't make a single effort to at least style her to look like she's in her 30s or even 40s and always put her in clothes and hair styling that made her look very middle aged.

Her character is also like an emotionally volatile doormat, it would have been nice to see her have some smarts and effectively save or stand up for herself and her loved ones from time to time. Her version of acting cute was really off putting as well with the over the top laughing as she covers her face and violently hits whoever is in front of her. The romance plots of all of the adults were the least interesting parts of the story. None of them had chemistry and it would have been better to keep those as brief as possible. The teenagers were more interesting, I like how the two boys actually developed a friendship despite being love rivals.

For a single mom with younger man romance that also includes a serial killer plot, I recommend watching When the Camellia Blooms instead of this drama.

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Farofinha

Foi muito divertido de assistir, ria cada vez mais todo novo episódio que se passava. Como a relação dos protas foram mudando aos poucos de enemies pra collaborators e em fim lovers kkkkk. Até o triângulo amoroso secundário foi lindo de se ver, não teve aquelas intrigas besta entre os meninos, na verdade criaram uma amizade verdadeira, eu amei isso. O vilão foi meio sem sal , sem açúcar, enfim espero que o ator faça um dorama com um personagem legal na próxima vez haha
Os atores escolhidos, amei todos, combinaram certinho com seus personagens e entregaram tudo!

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I like mature romances & I especially like noona romances, so I had high hopes for this one. While I did enjoy the romance & what little comedy there was, I found the rest quite disappointing. For starters I really dislike the setting, more specifically the whole private school thing, it’s almost as if this drama is -despite the negative things that happen there- an advertisement for that horrible horrible industry. Also if that wasn’t enough, I think the whole mystery killer thing is kind of bad. To me XYZ’s sudden transformation into a cartoon villain is not a well planned whoah moment, but rather a sudden shift in live writing. (yes there is some seemingly clever foreshadowing, but things could have gone in multiple directions nonetheless) Also I think this drama has way too many annoying moms. Just one is too many, but here there seems to be an army of them..

To talk about some positives as well, it’s very nice that FL kind of looks her age, or rather what a hard working 40ish cook/restaurant owner could actually look like. While the chemistry with the ML is not that great, they do look great together! Also there is not really a breakup, nor a love triangle for them. I feel if I used my fastforward button more liberally, then I could have enjoyed the drama a lot more, focusing just on the romance aspect.

I did not like the ending either. Sure the happy endings for the couples were nice, but it's extremely annoying how suddenly all these evil characters got mini redemption arks..

So yes, as of writing this review this stands on 8.6, so the drama is HUGELY overrated in my book. While the romance is good, it’s not even close to good enough to carry the show, so I decided to settle on 6/10 as my final rating.

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Mostly strong, but fizzles from ep14 on

This is a very strong drama but had several flaws which really undermined the quality and – most damning of all – the writing of certain characters. Based on the experiences of children studying to prepare for college entrance, their teachers, and their parents. The romance is enjoyed by an elite maths teacher with an apparent inability to tolerate food, and the humble mother of one of his students: after he realises that the food from her side dish shop does not make him vomit he wants to know her better. Understandable.
Let me talk first about some of all the things that were good. Of course the acting was wonderful. It is beautifully shot in attractive locations. Characters are for the most part well rounded, and mostly the plot is character driven. The plot is engaging and charismatic, and some of the people are just lovely.
The pushy mum's are all witches though which is a bit lazy. Dads are almost universally invisible.
School work and pressures seem mostly realistic, and teachers are shown as genuinely caring – though the schools' administration and leaders are much less so.
The murder sub-plot was OK : well presented, and an interesting concept. We start to catch onto it though, and once that happens, the culprit and motive are fairly quickly identified, though the way it is resolved is rather sad.
The relationship between ML and FL is fine – I enjoyed it, but sadly the excellent writing of both characters was hugely undermined by the absymal styling for the FL. This was a major flaw and it persistently spoiled most of the drama.
It's by no means the case that a hot teacher like him could not have fallen for a frumpy, badly dressed, badly aged wee woman from a food shop, but I could not believe that, even with the responsibility of raising a child perhaps ten years younger than her, an elite athlete from a national team would have resented herself to the world like this - none of the other mums did that.
That was absolutely and damningly confirmed by the fact that once a certain part of the plot is reached, she tidies herself up, gets some decent clothes, sorts out her hair and looks hot!
Good for her, and at LAST, but pathetic styling. Shoddy. And don't blame the stylists - they are following Directors' demands.
And I think the other main failing here is that the drama could easily have ended a couple of episodes earlier.
The FL's sister turns up out of the blue. Expecting open arms. Despite the fact that ten years ago she abandoned her daughter with her "mum", and has never been in contact since. The reason for her appearing is never made fully clear, but when her daughter made a fuss saying she will return with her to Japan ... she promptly absconds again. So that worked!
I found this whole sub-plot entirely unnecessary. I make no apology for mentioning it here, because it is SO OBVIOUS from the very start. I expected it from the point at which she dumps the child in ep1.
The only reason I could see for these 2 redundant episodes was the chance to tie up the few remaining 'loose ends' for some of the characters – with better writing, that could have been done by ep14.
Overall, I expected to give this drama at least a 9 but it limps in at a mildly weak 7.5 /10 for me ... especially since waiting for new episodes was torture! Disappointing

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