Cute and short: perfect!

Actually there is not much to say about this short GL web drama. Between the synopsis and the coments, everything that can be said, has been. So why am I writing this review? I wanted to gush about so much cuteness in a korean drama. Definitely something new and refreshing!

It could be said that this is an office or better yet, a workplace romance. A boss/employee kind of a series. True, this year has been the year of office romance bl/gl series. This one takes place in a cafe. Not much of a budget so no customers in this café. The manager teases her employee so much that they fall in love but are scared to say anything. The arrival of the ex girlfriend pushes the relationship in the right direction.

The manager is very masculine looking: tall, thin, very short hair, dark clothing and no make up and even her voice is rather deep. People (customers) often mistake her for a man. She feels hurt because of that but we are still conditioned by certain ideas about gender that the mistakes of this kind are easy to make. In her previous relationship as well she was assigned the role of a man which displeased her immensely. Her employee is a very short, petite and very feminine girl (long hair, girly clothes, make up). In a way they look like your typical manga characters!

The drama obviously did not have much of a budget but they managed to tell the story correctly. As usual, the sound in korean web dramas is atrocious, it is cavernous and has a slight echo to it. Music is generic, probably free elevator music heard many times before.

Nevertheless, it is a cute short watch, a very good gl mini drama leaving you wishing for more but, storywise, perfect as it is. Well almost! I do not get the title: what does it mean?

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Dead fish kiss country musical

In a gist! LOL

Coming from the makers of campy, silly and highly enjoyable Love Poison, SSN is another offering featuring Isaan, the region, the language and the music!

The story is nothing original: your ordinary enemies to lovers in high school while playing football and singing!

Ruk comes to Bangkok from countryside Isaan on football scholarship and immediately clashes with IG, school and internet star. They are friends with a group called Good Guys Gang within which there is another couple in the making, (friends to lovers trope) . During school break they discover they originate from the same region where they both go for vacation. There, their respective brothers (cousins?) are in a relationship they are hiding from everyone. Relationships are created and undone and afterwards they all go back to Bangkok to finish the school year. The misunderstandings are eventually resolved, there is overall acceptance and they all live happily ever after. The usual BL plot format!

Cue in, the musical part where these couples all suddenly burst into song expressing their love for each other. Read the lyrics of these songs, they are hilarious :
"It melt, melt I want to swallow you whole"
"The economy is bad, my house is in trouble"
"Wanna feed your dog and cat, just order me to do so"
"In Bang Khae you help your mom sell chicken rice"

The guys can barely sing, it is bad but the feelings are there and they are really invested in it.

The support characters are a colorful lot: the all accepting and understanding fujoshi mother, the authoritarian and funny grandma, the macho set in his ways father, the girl childhood friend who wants to be more and cannot, the ex girlfriend who keeps going back and forth. And the comic relief Good Guys Gang! As if the series was not funny enough!lol

The main characters are all the usual high schoolers: immature, high on hormones and thinking they are invincible! I did not like the height difference (another one of my pet peeves!) between Ruk and IG but they had decent chemistry.

There is a lot of kissing in this series: there are so many accidental kisses it became hilariously ridiculous. Unfortunately the majority of kisses between Ruk and IG, even when consensual and not accidental, are cute but frozen in time dead fish ones. The other couples go at it with gusto: not these two!

A fun watch, though not as good as Love Poison! It might be also that the novelty wore off pretty quickly as well: the first time was amazing, the second serving of the same is not as amazing. Production is low budget but they managed to make it look nice, nothing exceptional but nice.

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What would you do for love?

"It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all!"

I have a huge headache!

I should stop trying to find logic in time travel movies! It is impossible to find seeing how complex the very notion is.

I saw the series a couple of years ago, I have no memory of it only a vague feeling of total incomprehension and loss: all that travelling back and forth was headache inducing. The movie is just the same only shorter. So the headache arrives really quickly!

I think that the movie is loosely connected with the series. Again, it is a story of lovers who travel back in time, using a walkman, in order to save the loved one from dying! Eventually I realized that there were four different persons trying to change the past. Unsuccessfully!

Only when they learn the lesson quoted above (and at the end of the movie) can they sort everything out!

It is a sci fi movie so let's just leave it in the realm of fantasy and enjoy it for what it is , a fun ride! So I have no intention to nitpick and overanalyze the plot point and the travel plans.

I liked it better than the drama: it is shorter. The actors are back but did Greg Hsu sign a contract demanding to be the only good looking person in the movie? Alice was made to wear frumpy clothes and horrible wigs and Patrick a moustache!

The music was nice though if I never hear Last Dance by Wu Bei again it will be too soon! The rest was better since we heard it less!

Anyway, the movie is fun. And now let me go and get a paracetamol! My head is killing me!

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That music....

Well, I know why this movies has relatively low rating. It is definitely not for everyone and the problem is not only the content but the pacing as well.

The story follows two lonely people yearning for companionship and family. He is a bank teller and she is a teacher in the cram academy across the road from the bank. They keep bumping into each other and though she is well aware of his existence, he seems not to notice her. When she invites him out for a meal, he rejects her coldly mostly because he has a crush on an former schoolmate and a current artist. One day he is left heartbroken when the artist ran away from debts and from him. His favourite pastime after work is watching old surveillance tapes and one evening he sees the teacher on it and realized the mistake he had made. He goes up to see her immediately and slowly they build a relationship.

This is a slice of life slow burn movie and therefore its pace is really slow. The characters are not very likable: he's on the rude side and she is a kind of a busy body. The actors were made ugly with with glasses, bad hair, ill fitting suits and frumpy clothing. The costumes do change towards the last quarter of the movie when they start seeing each other. The actors, portrayed these characters as barely living, monotonal voices and stiff attitudes.
The plot, as I mentioned earlier, is centered on two people looking to get married in order not to be alone anymore and to be happy would be an added bonus. This tells a lot about the korean society and the acceptability within it. The main characters are boring characters, everyday Joe and Jane, there is nothing special about them, they are just ordinary people trying to get through life without too much pain and suffering. Most of the people in the world are like that and though the movie is well made, do I want to watch the movie about my life? No, not really!

The movie is over 20yrs old and the video I watched was not the best of quality so it is a bit hard to judge cinematography. One thing though was nice to watch: rain and shots of umbrellas from above. The rest was nothing special.

What WAS special was the music: JAZZ in a korean romance drama? Umbrellas and the jazzy score at the beginning made me think of all those great american movies. That score was so unexpected and frankly made the movie that much more worth the watch.

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A love story with a twist

Wow, just wow! This movie has been on my list forever and I only got around to it today. Why did I wait so long?

I want to talk about the movie but I am afraid I am going to spoil too much. So I'm going to go just with a few remarks.

The plot: a love story between two piano prodigies Jay and Rain, in a special music class. But the girl misunderstands an event and disappears instead of talking. Then she goes on to confide in a teacher who spills the beans to her classmates who ostracize her afterwards. Good teaching? I don't think so! And of course, who does demolition work in the middle of the night? Still, it did wonders for suspense and the scene was well choreographed: a dance between a piano and a wrecking ball! Still the plot was tightly woven and there were no holes so well done writers!

The music: classical and original piano music, variations on classical themes. Those actors are real musicians and Jay Chou is fabulously talented pianist, composer and actor. Piano battle scene is legendary.

The poster is perfect: the shadow a colonnade in school makes looks like piano keys.

Cinematography is top notch: everything was filmed in warm tones of brown, almost sepia, and combined with the music, leaving you feeling like wrapped in a soft cozy cocoon.

Acting: excellent. They have decent chemistry.

In short, a beautiful movie.

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Remembrance of things past

I am always amazed at cop shows and how the witnesses remember everything exactly as it happened. I do not remember what I had for breakfast this morning nor when I took it. I wonder how many people really remember accurately the events they took part in.

The memory is the premise of this mini web drama. It is interesting to see how people remember same events differently: the gist of it is the same but everything else is different starting with clothes, what they said, where they went....

The main characters are both in relationships with high speed controlling people while they are themselves more easy going and relaxed. When they meet, it is love at first sight and while the woman breaks up immediately with her boyfriend (who does not listen to her...), the man does not have the guts to do the same thing and keeps on lying to his girlfriend. That was actually the only problematic bit here. Other than that, this drama is cute, fluffy, interesting and easy watch. There are a lot of PPLs so I guess this must have been an ad based drama.

The actors had good chemistry and the romance was credible.

Unfortunately, I am not a fan of Hwang Chan Sung having seen him play a baddie in a drama which left me a lasting impression of him as an actor. Even here, where he is playing a cute and a bit lost guy, I keep finding him sleazy and dodgy (which was eventually confirmed when he did not break it off with his girlfriend before dating another woman!). But that's just me.

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Live each day to the fullest

Marigold in 4 minutes is an incomprehensible title the explanation of you get only in episode 9.

Mii is an ambulance worker and Sara is his step sister and a painter. They are in love. But Mii has a strange ability: when he touches someone's hand he can see their last moment. This ability manifested itself when, as a child, he touched Sara's hand and saw she was going to day on her 28th birthday. He decided to save her from that fate. So this is the main plot. Every episode also features an EMS "case of the week" which are a learning experience for Mii and his family.

The drama works very hard to impress upon the viewer the importance of appreciating life to the fullest, living each day as if it were the last and have no regrets, doing what is important and what will make you happy because this is the only life you'd get.

Rather corny and very much obvious. Still, it does not hurt to hear it again and again because we tend to forget what is important and we lose ourselves in tiny details and tend to make a mountain out of a moathill!

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A story of 10 years

I have forgotten how skilled they are at Playlist global in making amazing short web dramas and telling a complete story.

Go, back Diary (what's with the odd punctuation in the title making it incomprehensible?) tells a story of a relationship over 10 years. A vast enterprise but they still managed to put everything in it without making it rushed. From the first crush, to the adult relationship to the obligatory girl best friend who wants to be more, we are shown every stage of this relationship.

The drama shows are the difference in growth of characters. After ten years the girl keeps sending signals of wanting more attention, more of a relationship but the boy is not there yet. He is struggling to find a job and the best friend uses this to drive a wedge in the couple.

The actors are excellent, Lee Jong Won is so handsome and his smile is electrifying. The cinematography is nothing special though they managed to convey the confusion of feelings through some camera angles and foggy scenes. The only really remarkable thing, technically wise, was the awful wig the SFL wears in school makis her ugly and unrecognizable! The music is generic.

This is really a good short watch

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What do you do when you really, but really do not like an actor but would love to see the drama because the theme is supernatural and you love it? So you try watching it, even finish it! But you hate every second of it! Even though you tried liking it. Well, that's me with this drama!!!

So, I am really biased here, but I cannot stand the sight of Lee Dong Wook. He may be a very nice person but his acting is not! He ruined the whole drama for me! He always sports a sinister smirk, a cary half smile which is permanently glued to his face and is immuable like the universe. His only moments of grace, in my eyes, were when he slayed the bad supernaturals. But the rest of the series which he spent pining and swooning and crying ... it was just awful! The only moment I really liked the drama was the very last MINUTE of the very LAST episode. Up to that point, it was draggy and messy. Characters strutting around, being cooly dangerous. Or the main couple being all lovey dovey in the midst of all the chaos! Nice! Major events were being planned and plotted leaving tha main baddie enough time to figure them out and come with a counter attack plan! The main couple seriously lacked chemistry in my book and they were so evidently unhappy when they saw each other again but could not say anything because they spent 16 episodes pining for each other, and offering to die for each other frequently. When the banality set in, they were bored and not interested in each other any more. All those scenes of domestic bliss following the cringy nature wedding (rings made of grass! Original! What else?) felt so false, wrong. Which was proven in the last minute of the drama. Domesticity kills the romance. And the romance was high when they were risking their lives every day but not anymore....

I liked seeing the actor from To My Star being all young and eager: I almost did not recognize him, he was so different here! Well done!
I usually like Kim Bom but here his character felt off, his acting was all over the place.
I liked that grim reaper couple: the husband was so funny with his wife and their banter was great.

What else did I like? The money they obviously spent on sets, cinematography, costumes shows clearly which was nice! And that's it!

And the final remark about Lee Dong Wook: he should be in a vampire themed drama or a movie, as a vampire obviously! That I would watch!

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Manhua puppets

The first thing that came to my mind upon completing this drama was: great production values! And these short c dramas are really surprising! I always considered them as cheep, short, side projects but they are all but that! The costumes, the sets, the music: everything looks rich and luscious! It is a feast for eyes and ears first and foremost!

Another good surprise was the storyline: the usual "fall into book author" is a guy and there is no palace conspiracy in sight. It is about traditional chinese puppet theater. And even though the plot is rather basic: the author facing writing block falls into his own manhua and has to discover the mystery behind a fire. While doing that he falls for the sole survivor of that fire. Once he catches the bad guy, he goes back to reality where he meets the girl again! Happy ending ensues!

What I love about these short c dramas is that they do not bother with unnecessary side characters but are solely focused on the main couple and their trials. That makes the drama smooth flowing and the the pace is steady. Still, the best way to watch these dramas is if you manage to find a full film edit (or automatic playback): clicking to change episodes when they are 7min long is annoying and I was at the brink of dropping this. Changing episodes breaks the flow and my attention is lost!

The acting skills of the main couple as well as their chemistry, leave a lot to be desired: a few more acting lessons should be advised! But considering the length of this drama, it is not as important since the plot moves onwards quickly and you do not have the time to dwell on bad acting in certain scenes:by the time you realize it, the episode is over!

The chinese puppet theater is something I knew absolutely nothing about and this put it in my visor so I got interested and read a little about it: the skills of those puppet masters are amazing and they managed to show a bit of it in this drama! And then they included some dark magic and flesh puppets to make it more fantasy like. Special effects were rather good in those scenes!

The music was also very nice, the songs (except the closing credits' one) were nice and sweet.

All in all, this was an average short c drama, worth a single watch.

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Relationship handbook or how they should be!

Finally, I managed to finish this even though it took me longer than I intended. The reason? This drama is a rollercoaster ride but not in a good sense. It starts slowly with annoying main characters. So annoying, I almost dropped it but since I promised to watch it I persevered. After the episode 6 it suddenly gets better, more exciting and faster only to slow down a few episodes later turning into a boring mess. It picks up again towards the ending when it became necessary to give resolution to different storylines.

This is a love story between a doctor and a funeral director. The doctor has abandoned doctoring because of a personal tragedy (death of a brother) and the funeral director needs to earn some money to ease the burden on her father. But she has a magic touch: when she touches a dead person, they wake up and get to have a last wish granted. After the initial scare, she takes care of 21 wishes she was supposed to get. We discover in the last episode the connection between these 21 people and the funeral director with a magic touch. The drama deals with relationships and what do they mean: family, friends, coworkers, religion and how they help us deal with life and death situations, what is acceptable and how we are perceived by people around us, both known and unknown and how we deal with that!

I liked the story, the fantasy element was original. I liked the overall optimistic outlook on human nature: the vast majority of people are nice and kind and really good. I often wonder if they really are or should this as well be counted under the fantasy element (my cynicism is showing!!)?

After my initial annoyance with the leads: I found the FL brazen and rude and the ML a spineless wimp, they grew on me and were really good together. Their relationship managed to avoid those pesky misunderstandings, influence of a toxic ex and last episode break up only to meet after a time skip! So surprising for a K drama!It was not all smooth sailing but it moved nicely forward without being boring! Well done!

There were some amazing support characters the best of which were two uncles: a single man with a funny haircut and a priest! Their bromance and the banter, verging on a BL, were really funny. Only that makes this drama worth the watch! And of course there is the funeral director's best friend with a crush on her boss, slowly pursuing him, making sweet faces and rolling shyly her eyer until he succumbed. Cute! By the way, why isn't Tae In Ho getting better and bigger roles? He deserves much better than the endless string of support and guest roles!

The music was lovely, the songs were appropriately sweet and slow with enough emotions considering the subject matter.

Now that I think of it, this seems to be another entry in the list of dramas dealing with recently deceased and their wishes and last moments (Tomorrow, Move To Heaven etc.) I must have sen others as well! I wonder why are there often such dramas coming from Korea! I do not remember watching as many western shows with such theme (Pushing Daisies, I Zombie...were mostly comedies!). The comedy here is just to give you a breather between serious scenes! The balance between serious and funny was perfectly attained!

I don't like the drama poster: already seen elsewhere and therefore not really attracting attention: so much so I almost missed this drama! Which was an OK watch but I will never rewatch it since it is not bingeable and it did not strike me as memorable!

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I was bored!!!

I think I might be getting fed up with all these "classical" Sherlock Holmes versions. All of this has been seen so many times and the only originality here is that it takes place in Japan today. The rest is just The Hound of the Baskervilles. I am blessed in a way, since I usually do not remember the plot of these movies (and books - the same is with every Agatha Christie book: as soon as I finish the book, my brain refuses to retain the name of the culprit so it is always new! For me, at least!). So even though I have seen every other version of this story, I cannot remember the plot. All I remember is that it takes place in the countryside.
So that is the case here. There are a couple of murders and kidnappings, rich families and their secrets and an earthquake punishing everyone, one way or another.

Shishio and Wakamiya are back, more annoying than before. Shishio looks like he just came back from Afghanistan, wearing ample robes and looking scruffy and unkempt. Wakamiya is imagining himself a detective like SH but he is too pretty to be convincing so he just struts around, following Shishio and failing at being helpful. There is no more chemistry between them that made the series such a fun watch in the beginning. Shishio just seems bored and Wakamiya is just a lovely wallflower!

What I loved was the cinematography: beautiful shots of mountainous and misty island, scary mine shafts and subdues colours verging towards grey, cold tones! And the music! Something special. The background score evolved as the story progressed, from the cello grating noise to the sweeping orchestral pieces to the final credits beautiful song, "lullaby" by YU-KA.

Last but not least, thank you eveychooey for the subs! I do not regret watching this: having these excellent subs just added to the pleasure of discovering a new exciting movie!

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Three micro dramas wrapped in a forth

A mix of romance, fantasy, adventure and chinese short dramas, Serendipity is a quick and fun watch. The story follows a student who accidentally touches a spiritual lamp and finds herself going from one book to another and finishing quests in order to earn more spiritual energy to get out of the book. She is accompanied by a history professor travelling through books. They go through three books, each adventure taking about three and a half episodes (the length of those micro c dramas!).

This drama is seriously woke feminist: each task the girl is given is about women empowerment be it a housewife, a princess or a businesswoman. The FL is a smart strong kind and beautiful, she has everything going for her. Kudos for the production team: they managed to keep everything streamlined, especially the plot. They did not have much choice, this having only 12 episodes. The pacing was perfect, the cases were fun and watching the romance evolve before our eyes was sweet and cute. The actors had good chemistry. The music was excellent and I loved the final credits song. Apparently this drama had a limited low budget: well it does not show it! The cinematography and the special effects are top notch.

Now for the negative parts: the plot was a bit messy. The explanation of the spiritual book travelling quests were unclear: why was it there? What is the professor doing and why? Wan Wan the book spirit and his role in everything. And of course; that ending. Where were they and what were they doing for two months? No answers whatsoever! And do not start me on those dead fish frozen kisses! Last but not least, why is the ML speaking as if he out of breath, soundlessly. I do not get this need to whisper loudly!

If you overlook these little details, this is a really fun watch! People say c dramas are full of silly damsels in distress. I have yet to watch a c drama to find one. I haven't seen that many, it's true, but damsel in distress? ....well it is not the case here.

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And the point of this being...?

Can I have the time I wasted on this back? Why was this compilation made? It is about 80% recycled material from the series and the rest is useless new event (a shady journalist investigating SH with the help of the naive JW in love). Only to tell us that Shishio is alive and well, three years later fascinatingly annoying like before.

There must have been a point to this special: I guess to remind people of the events in the series just before the movie is released. And reminding we did need since the drama was boring and easily forgettable! I had just finished watching it yesterday and I could not remember half of the cases - That's how invested I was in it!). So I hoped for a better ending with this episode

The guest actors reprised their roles perfectly. But the character of Wakamiya reached the new levels of cringe: crying like an abandoned lover, pretending to be SH and failing pitifully. While he did have some character and a backbone at the beginning of the series, SH managed so well to train him that he became a willing cult follower without his own will, he had become SH's shadow, useless and there!

Fortunately, SH was only heard of but not much seen except for the violin playing montage. I guess he knows how to play only one piece of music.

This was a disappointment. They did follow the original books: SH and Moriarty fall down the Reichenbach Falls and disappear only to show up out of nowhere as if nothing happened some time later. Arthur Conan Doyle tried to get rid of the character who was ruining his life with his popularity but could not and had to bring him back. So he did but it was lazily done. Here it is unacceptable!I wanted to find out more about Moriya, their disappearance, what did he do and why. Nothing! Ep 10 they fall into the bay and vanish and then he shows up at the crime scene three years later. Easy! The magic of Sherlock Holmes?Yeah, right! No thanks!

I'll be watching the movie next, hoping it is better but not really believing it!

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Dans le pays des Bisounours....

In the land of Care Bears everyone is pretty, cute and nice, they care for each other and help each other, there are no conflicts and no bad bears.

Well, this drama is a live version of that cartoon series! That is the only comparison that works actually! I wanted to compare it to a fairy tale but in every fairy tale there is a conflict, there is an evil character (usually a witch of a sort!). So that does not work!

This is a story about two people who meet through the dating app on Monday, get married on Tuesday, fall in love on Wednesday, meet mothers on Thursday, promise to stay together for the next 50 years on Friday and get married again on Saturday! On Sunday, I guess, they rest gazing into each other's eyes with a huge smile while the sparkly hearts and flowers keep popping around them . Well that is what I saw (except for the last thing, which I imagines while I was dying from a sugar overdose induced diabetes coma!)

Somewhere in between gazing lovingly and being lovey dovey, they pretended to work which was just an excuse to be cute and smile and cup one's face with hands. Those poor actors must have suffered severe facial cramps from all that wide smiling!

I cannot stand the grown women in j dramas acting cute! It definitely is a cultural difference for me. Being cute is for kids: when I see kids acting all cute, it is so adorable and endearing. Adults acting that way is distracting, cringy, immature . Why do you think that Japan has a problem with birth rates? When you have adults behaving like children, why make real kids? Just my theory!

Anyway, this was just awful, definitely not my cup of tea! It is a live action manga: and again, for me the plot that works in a comic form, does not necessarily works as a live drama! Just my 2 cents!

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