Flawed but fun

“Love me if you dare” feels a little long at times and has several flaws, but I liked the cast and did have a generally good time with it.

The romance was what I came in for, at first. There’s a bit of a “beauty and the beast” feel to it: a big house, scared “villagers”, a mysterious tenant, and a female lead that sees past the exterior to see the beauty inside (though tbf Wallace Huo’s beauty is also very much showing on the outside) and is gonna bring out that beauty. In Jin Yan’s case it’s pretty clear the dude is no monster, he’s just not very good at being social. They develop a fun dynamic, they have nice chemistry and I like that there’s a domestic side to them. Everything wasn’t rosy, though. I did find the male lead was at times too pushy and intrusive for my taste (I get he’s not good at relationship, but it was still frustrating to see him get his way), and while the progression of their relationship felt organic at first, it suddenly got very rushed, which disappointed me. I did still like them together, but it could all have been done better.

I will also admit that while I really like Wallace Huo, I sometimes found him too wooden, even for a character that is, granted, quite closed-off. He was very cute in his awkwardness, but I wish he'd emoted just a little more in some scenes, and felt he got overshadowed by Wang Kai (in a very likeable role that sadly got inexplicably forgotten by the drama midway ? it’s like they didn’t know what to do with him anymore, despite some very powerful scenes) and Andrew Yin that I was seeing for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed in his bff role.

I really enjoyed our female lead also. At first, I don’t know if there was a sound issue, but Ma Si Chun seemed to mutter all her lines which made the character feel a little flat, but it either got better or I got used to it, and I liked Jian Yao a lot. She’s not made to be a bad-ass but her softness doesn’t make her less strong, and she’s a very empathetic person, which makes her a great partner for Jin Yan. I liked that she does, in fact, contribute to the cases. Jin Yan is still the one doing most of the work because she’s a rookie, but she does participate in the profiling, the interrogations, and contributes.

For a drama with a lot of action, serial-killers and torture, with high stakes, I found that “Love me if you dare” was a weirdly relaxing experience. It’s probably just a “me” thing, but it didn’t feel that intense, except for a few scenes here and there, and I actually liked that.

Now for things that I found less good:

• some pacing issues: I found the drama was at times repeating stuff too much or stretching things. The times where Jin Yan would explain his conclusions would almost always feel uselessly long to me. Also Wang Kai’s character got weirdly dropped so I’m even more bitter since instead of reconstituting a murder scene three times, the time could have been used to develop his character.

• Bo Jin Yan is *too* good at times. I get that he’s very very clever, but he felt borderline magical in some cases.

• the drama is dishonest at times. It happens only twice (I think) but the drama shows us things that did not happen to later surprise us with “haha it did not happen”. Since an unreliable narrator was not established, there’s no reason for this and the drama is not cleverly tricking us, but just *lying* to us, which I find lazy and annoying.

• the drama has several American characters (most of them badly acted) and it was a bit weird to hear them talk in English to Jin Yan and him always answering in English. That, however, was only amusing, not really an issue.

• the last developements in the show did not quite work for me, and the ending didn’t feel satisfying. It does not undo the drama, it just doesn’t make for a good conclusion. It prevents the drama from feeling really complete, at least to me.

That being said, I still did quite enjoy “Love me if you dare”. The cast is good, and I had fun. Some scenes are actually quite moving as the actors do a great job, in particular Ma Si Chun, Andrew Yin and Wang Kai. Also I’m very superficial and Wallace Huo's face is super pretty so that helped. It could have been better, but I’m glad I saw it. Sorry the review ended up so long ;;

P.S. there’s a turtle in that drama and the characters are handling it very poorly and I feel so bad for that poor animal, I was stressed everytime it’dcome on screen T.T

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Heart-warming, fun, and delighful

Peaceful, fun, comforting, positive and moving, Nagi no Oitoma has a great cast playing likeable characters and I loved watching them grow.

For me, it was insta-love with that drama, because I insta-loved its lead character, aka Nagi, played by Kuroki Haru with a lot of warmth. The drama manages to give us a clear and instant picture of who she is, and I immediately empathized with her. Nagi spends her time trying to fit in, trying to conform, so much so that she’s leaving herself no space to exist. Something, the drama says, we all do to some extent, as we’ve been taught very early, as kids, to “read the room” and behave, to make adults happy. The drama, as the mdl description says, is the story of how Nagi decides to just leave everything behind and allow herself to first figure out who she is, and then be that person. A kind, warm, sweet person, with lots of weaknesses but immense strength even *she* didn’t know she had. I admired her and felt vicariously freed by her freeing herself. This dama made me very happy.

At the same time, it does have some bittersweetness to it. Nagi’s taking a break, but I think a break is always implied to be finite. It does not mean what she’s building will disappear, though, as everything she’s making are strong foundations for her future, yet I felt some melancholy in the drama, and I like that kind of mood.

The show puts a strong emphasis on community. Through finding herself, Nagi finds others, and through finding others, she finds even more of herself. I liked all the characters she befriends, it felt good spending time in their company. A big surprise, to me, was how much I enjoyed her ex-boyfriend, Shinji. He’s such an unlikeable character at the start, and I was actively rooting for Nagi to get as far from him as she could, but the drama manages to make him, first, very funny, and then actually quite moving. The strong performance by Takahashi Issei is a big part of what makes it work. I was very moved by these two actually *seeing* each other slowly for the first time. Though I was totally shipping Nagi with her neighbour Gon, haha. Not that he’d be a good boyfriend, but he was so soft, and I’m so weak. Kinda shipped him with Shinji too. (Let’s be real, I just wanted anyone to date Gon so I could date him through them :’D)

That being said, I would not go into this drama for the romance. This drama is not about the ships, it’s about character growth and while romance *is* part of their journey, it’s only a part of it, not the main point. If you go in for the love triangle, you might be disappointed.

But it’s a beautiful show and full of love. Japanese dramas are very good at portraying ordinary things and making them heart-warming and beautiful. Even when the “ordinary” stuff is not so ordinary, as I’d argue Nagi’s break is actually not something common. But Jdamas are just good at finding the authentic, the “human”, and Nagi no Oitoma has both the relatability of simple things and the excitement of a small adventure. It also has a good pace. It felt peaceful yet not a moment was wasted, the characters and their relationships were always evolving.

So, yeah, I loved it.

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Average but charming enough

The first thing to know is that the details of the scam our scammers are running are not important. The real subject of the movie is not the scam but the relationships between the characters and most of the movie is spent in the train, watching them talk to each other as they work through their personnal and relationship issues.

We very quickly learn their last job did not go well and it's very obvious it left them some scars. Tensions, regrets, reproaches, mistrust, and bitterness are all running high in that train. Yet, even though the job they do has its price, it seems they cannot do anything else, and are better at it together. Better at life, together, really, and that journey is their last effort and last chance to fix themselves.

As such I felt it was a shame that while we do feel time pass, we don't really feel the finish line coming closer, and that there's less and less time to fix what has to be fixed. I felt this would have given the movie more emotionnal weight, which it was lacking.

I liked the characters. There's a "found family" vibe to them, and I'm weak to that sort of stuff. They are, as one of them describes them, a bunch of weirdos that only fit in with each other, in the world they make up when they run scams. The issue, though, is that while we're told they don't fit in society and with other people, we're never shown that. The characters are nicely portrayed and we get a good sense of who they are, yet since we never seen them in the world at large, their alienation is hardly felt. And again I felt the movie lacked emotional weight.

The one exception is Tsumabuki Satoshi's character. The movie seems to look at him especially closely (he's the first thing we really see, in a very close shot) and we are shown several break downs where the emotional stakes for him are made clear. Hence, he's the one that brought some "feels" for me.

Another issue I had with the movie is that it's a lot of "telling, not showing", which is fine, but I felt the telling just wasn't exceptional, by which I mean the dialogues didn't feel especially witty or moving to me. They do nothing wrong, they just also don't do anything great. That being said, this should be taken with a huge grain of salt since I do not speak japanese and rely on subtitles that might not do the dialogues justice.

Anyway, this does sum up nicely my thoughts on the movie: it doesn't really do anything wrong, it just doesn't do anything great either. It's okay, I had a good time with it, I just probably won't remember it next year.

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Interesting but not emotionally engaging enough

As has been made clear by other reviews on this page, one should not be expecting a cute romantic comedy from this movie, or they'd be disappointed. The point is not so much to root for the main couple but more to understand why they're having a rough time (which doesn't mean they won't or will end up together). I'm not even sure the characters are written to be that likeable, though we're meant to like Koroki enough to follow him through all this.

Akari, played by Mizuhara Kiko, is not a very likeable character. She seems fake, her mood changes constantly, and yeah, she's the type of woman that looks impossible to go out with. However, the type of crazy the men around her turn into is not on her, and I think it's impossible to really form an opinion on her as a "human being", because the whole movie is entirely presented through the eyes of its male protagonist, Koroki.

He's our narrator, all visual metaphors are meant to express his feelings, the movie is almost *entirely* told from his point of view, and he is a man that litterally described Akari's personnality with the words "you're my girlfriend". He never truly seems to learn to know her, so neither do we. We only see her as he does: an object onto which he projects his fantasies. Now, even knowing this, Akari doesn't sound super likeable, but what I'm saying is: the narrator is unreliable, and I think that's the whole point of the movie.

Akari only exists in the story through Koroki and *for* him, as an object of lust and desire but also as a tool to better himself, although he doesn't seem to realize exactly what he has to fix. I won't say more because of spoilers, but I think the movie takes Koroki's point of view to criticize it, and I find that interesting. Whether or not he does end up learning and "winning the girl", you shall see for yourself.

The issue is that while I liked the cast, and thought the movie had very nice visuals, very slick, as well as a cool soundtrack, I never felt very emotionally engaged. Akari is barely a character, and Koroki's point of view is more interesting than Koroki himself. I love Tsumabuki Satoshi, but even he didn't make me engage with him a lot. Secondary characters are hit and miss (some fun, some annoying) with more hits than misses, but it's not enough. So yeah, I was interested, but not emotionally engaged.

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Underwhelming despite the potential it had

I was sadly disappointed by this drama. I wanted to like it, because I like sageuks and Ji Sung, and because there aren’t many sageuks specifically about Gaya, so that was cool, but the drama was underwhelming to me, for a number of reasons that are individually not big issues (or even “issues” at all, sometimes), but put together, add up to make the drama “not bad but not great either, just meh”.


Thing 1: lack of originality.

The drama takes place in the early times of Korea, at a time of myths and kingdoms (and confederacy in the case of Gaya) being created by legendary kings (born in divine eggs for a lot of them), so it’s not too surprising that Kim Soo Ro would have several things in common with dramas covering similar times. The world of Soo Ro is not exactly fantastical but has a spiritual side, and the story is a “coming of age” one (something common in sageuks in general, true). Our hero is the One, he comes with a prophecy, but does not know of his own status, because of course, we love to root for an underdog. So yeah, he’s the One but doesn’t know he’s the One and will have to face challenges to be worthy of his destiny. That’s nothing new: not an issue in itself. Like, I loved Jumong, and it’s the same concept. Lack of originality doesn’t mean much in itself to me, so all I’m saying here is : there was no special selling point to the basics of the story. Basically: there was no plus, no malus to it.


Thing 2: Soo Ro is not a character I find especially interesting.

Don’t get me wrong: he’s likeable. Ji Sung is a good actor (and also so pretty), he made me want to root for Soo Ro. Plus, Soo Ro is just a cool dude: he’s honourable, fair, inclusive, fights for the weak and stands up to the bad powerful people, etc. He really only has two things to work on: 1/ he’s too impulsive and has to learn to be more mature and think before he acts (though he always acts for the good reasons) 2/ he has to learn to accept his destiny, because he’s basically the only person not aware that he’s perfect to be a leader. Other than that, the dude is pretty good from the start. It’s not that he doesn’t evolve, but he doesn’t have a lot of ground to cover to get to “worthy of kingship” level, and I was happy to root for him but I’d be lying if I said I found his inner evolution complex and riveting. He was nice and likeable, he just wasn’t an epic character, like, say, Lee Bang Won from Six Flying Dragons (Soo Ro has nothing in common with Bang Won, I’m not saying they should be compared, I’m just using Bang Won as an example of what I’d consider a rich character with a very complex character arch). But there’s nothing wrong with “nice and likeable” though ! Rooting for a nice character against adversity is cool !


Thing 3: the “adversity” just wasn’t cutting it for me.

Most hardships felt too easily dealt with, their impact not felt enough. It’s not that Soo Ro is not affected, but I wish the drama had still made him struggle more. I also wish we’d gotten better villains. They’re just so bad at what they do ! Mostly, we get two I can discuss without spoiling: Shin Gwi Gan (the leader of a nearby clan that wants to gain control over other clans) and Jung Gyeong Bi (a powerful lady that wants her kid to be king, and also she’s Soo Ro’s biological mother, which we know from ep1, but Soo Roo doesn’t).

Shin Gwi Gan fails so hard so often I felt almost sorry for the dude, to be honest, and Jung Gyeong Bi doesn’t fare much better. Thematically, they’re written to offer contrast to Soo Ro: Shin Gwi Gan and Jung Gyeong Bi are more similar than they think because they’re driven my personal greed, while Soo Ro isn’t, and it’s precisely because he’s not thirsting after power that he’s right for it. At least that’s what’s implied by the contrast drawn by the show between its hero and its villains. And that’s cool and all, but it would also have been cool to have actually competent villains ? The villains in this show are not especially charismatic nor cunning, and that makes for “meh” confrontations and schemes, which is particularly sad in Jung Kyeong Bi’s case, as her complicated relationship with Soo Ro could have made for really great drama. Are you starting to see the things pile up ? A common start, a likeable but not riveting main character going against underwhelming villains…


Thing 4: the world felt a bit small

I feel this might be just a consequence of how many big sageuks I’ve seen now, though ? The sets were cool, I really liked the temple for example, but it felt like we were spending a lot of time in the same locations and the scale of the world felt small to me, despite the obvious fact that the world wasn’t small: one of our lead is from another country and there’s lots of talk about other countries. Still on an emotional level there was a lack of grandeur to the show for me, I wasn’t wowed by how big it felt. And there’s, again, nothing wrong with that, but it’s yet another aspect of the show I could have been wowed by but wasn’t. In this whole review I’m not trying so much to point out the presence of badness but the absence of greatness.


And what makes me sad about all this is how much potential Kim Soo Ro had, at least to me. It has so many characters that I could have loved. There’s an over-ambitious “never fully on one side” character that should have been my favourite but he’s so obvious in his duplicity that he never seemed clever to me, he only made other characters look dumb. Soo Ro’s rival for the throne, his half-brother, is a character I really empathized me at some points, because all his life he’s been brought up harshly and told he was the One, and suddenly everything slips through his fingers, but the show makes him SO whiny and goes so far in the pathetic and dumb that I just got annoyed. So many characters could have been good, and the show writes so many scenes that seemed to deliver exactly what I wanted to see, but all the things I mentioned before made it all feel so lacklustre, because even the stuff I liked felt too unearned. (also some characters were dropped in weird ways)

The reasons I kept watching were 1/ I’m trying to watch as many sageuks as I can, and it’s Soo Ro was still pleasant enough 2/ I did really like Soo Ro and Ji Sung, and 3 / Hwang Ok.

At first, I thought Hwang Ok was gonna be a cliché annoying character but I was very pleasantly surprised. She’s awesome. I was a little sad that the show didn’t make us feel more how she’s from another country (she only speaks in Korean and the actress is Korean too), I’d have loved for her to bring more of the character’s own culture to the show (though from what I gathered, historically it’s not clear what country Hwang Ok actually came from ? My “knowledge” might be incomplete though). Still, loved her more and more as the show went on, she rocks.

I also did really like the last episode, so the show at least left me on a positive note.

Anyway, I did not hate this show at all. I do not have strong feelings about it at all. Which is the issue. But I like Hwang Ok, and I like Soo Ro, and I like Ji Sung’s face a lot, so there’s that !

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