Lovely show, but it has barely anything to do with "Something in the Rain"!

People in the comments keep saying, "It's better than the original", "It's not as exciting as the original" etc. In my opinion these comparisons are a bit senseless, because the setting & the plot are fundamentally different. I don't mind too much though, let's hop on the meta train!
Something in the Rain had like 8 brilliant episodes, 2 mediocre episodes & 5 horribly bad episodes. Opposed to that, Love the Way You Are produced 20 good episodes & 1 bad episode(just about) & 9 almost good (the above mediocre tier) episodes, well that's pretty much the end of this comparison. There are two important things that they've taken from the "original", namely the red umbrella & the iconic hand holding scene. The first one doesn't really work, because with the completely different cinematography the original artistic intent is completely lost. The hand holding scene felt a bit whelming, perhaps it should've been re-shot, but that's not all, they completely changed the aftermath of it, I was mildly disappointed about that if I want to be completely honest.
So as I said, makes little sense to compare these, moving on...

China has been killing it lately with Noona romances, this one may not be nearly as good as "My Fated Boy", but the drama holds its own, the overall impression is very positive. We could call it a generic low-stress noona romance, but the execution is mostly great. The leads looks fantastic together, have good chemistry, that has become extraordinary nearing the later episodes. The fluff is top tier. There is some angst here and there, but things are resolved relatively quickly. I liked the side couples as well, there is nothing bad I can say about them, perhaps Xiao Mian could've gotten more screen time..
Triangle haters can safely watch this show, the ex gets dealt with relatively early on & as stupid as his redemption ark is, he's been bearable.

FL's father is a rather horrible character, but whenever I started feeling too angry about him, the writers adjusted his stance, or his behavior. I'm not a fan of character adjustments in general, but in the grand scheme of things this is not too bad. (Compared to Pretty Noona's mom he's a dorky angel)

The corporate plotlines have never gotten too annoying, which is unusual in itself, since cdramas that have corporate plotlines can rarely avoid ridiculous happenings. Here we had one plagiarism plot that just fizzled out, the rest is not too bad.
Of course, these work life things are not very well written, the plot involving the semi villainous characters just meanders. One episode she is the devil, in the next "It's fine, it's just a minor test, I don't feel like destroying them" okay Karen, thanks for appearing in this show. Also YiKe's former boss could have gotten dealt with in a more serious way. I would have preferred the cdrama specials over what we've gotten, which is one scene in which YiKe lightly shames him.

The last 6 or so episodes get a bit draggy, not because of excess fluff, but rather the focus shifts onto meaningless work related things that can be fast-forward buttoned without penalty. The ending may not be the closure of the decade, but it's fine.

9/10 may be a bit of an over-exaggeration, but I enjoyed this drama a lot, so it is what it is.

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Very entertaining across the board, especially the first 10 episodes..

This show is about the people that clean up after the messes of stars, so I guess what the title really is about can be put to rest.

The biggest criticism this show gets is about digging wells in "Africa". As stupid as that was, please bear in mind that Sh**ting Stars -first and foremost- has been made for domestic Korean audiences. The average Kim & Park won't be able to name more than two African countries & going with a specific one could have potentially ruffled even more feathers. From the slightly backward Korean perspective this was probably alright!? Personally what I find more intelligence insulting is the act of digging wells. Even the poorest African communities can manage digging wells at places where water can be actually found, the people there can certainly use shovels better than a random Hallyu star.
ML's interactions with that kid were beyond cringy, though admittedly I FF buttoned the *** out of it.


With that out of the way, as a fluffy a romcom this is pretty great across the board, sure it's overly cringy at times & the leads are just way too juvenile, but it's cute enough with acceptable chemistry. This is mostly what I was in the mood for. Triangle haters can safely watch this, it's fine. The side couples were also fun to watch, though everyone is way too two dimensional. This is the least complicated kdrama romcom you'll ever watch.

The plot outside of the romance -what little there is- is about the life at an entertainment agency. Mostly about solving scandals & the work of the PR department in general. As far as borderline procedural kdramas go, this is fairly good. Not awesome objectively, but considering how bad most K-entertainment industry related procedurals are, It's certainly above average in this regard.

The second biggest thing that can be criticized is that episodes 12 & 13 are quite boring. The plot in those is supposed to be the BIG crisis of the show, luckily this is way tamer than usual, but nonetheless it's boring. These crises have ruined dramas for me many times before, though I suppose boring is always better than horrible.

Perhaps rating this 8/10 is a bit too much, but the ending is nice & wholesome. I did not want any complications & the production team has delivered on that 100%. It was very entertaining across the board, especially the first 10 episodes.
A Business Proposal is a far better drama, but shows like these are few and far between...

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I have always liked Lee Song Gyong, but she should eat more, she looked borderline malnourished in this one.

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More than a little overrated

The Good:
- The beautiful (though highly unrealistic) romance
- The "scandals" did not lead to predictable relationship problems.
- The strong child actors
- The lack of a love triangle (the step brother was not nearly as bad I thought he would be)

The Neutral:
- The leads could have had better chemistry.
- Took too long to get officially together.
- The villain dad
- The stepbrother

The Bad:
- The ridiculously incompetent police
- All the "scandals", reporters, victim shaming plots
- The crime related plot is sloppy & mostly uninteresting.
- The story and even the dialog is excruciatingly slow. (this should've been a 3 hour long movie)
- The random side villains serving no purpose, other than wasting screen time
- The emotional impact completely died after the half way point.
- The redemption ark for reporter 1

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I'm not a huge fan of Flower of Evil, but that is a much better drama than this. Compared to Just Between Lovers, or I can Hear Your Voice this one is pretty weak, 6.5/10.

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Not bad not great!

I liked the main actors, all 3 of them did a great job. The production quality had been quite excellent as well. 8 episodes to tell a proper story forgoing cliche twists could have been great. Naturally the biggest weak point is the writing. It's really strange, I must once again question the qualifications needed to become a kdrama writer. The writer is certainly not lacking in creativity. There are some outstanding ideas in the drama, the bare bones frame of the story is pretty good. It's nice that the magic is not over explained, I think this is the reason why the original Star Wars films were so good and what followed later so much worse.. The reason why the writing is ultimately weak is that the pacing is just plain bad and the first 2 episodes were pretty boring as well, focusing on things that are not fun to watch and very Korean in a bad way.. So yes, the pacing. The drama only has 8 episodes, but the first 6 were extremely slow. In episodes 3-6 the drama followed a one wish a week format, but unfortunately the individual backstories of the applicants were not all that interesting, or well acted out really. With that in mind, why just why are the last 2 episodes so rushed and so lacking in impact and emotion. I did not feel much of anything upon finishing the last episode. *shrugs*

Mystic Pop Up bar is a fairly similar drama, but it's hugely better. The writing is much superior, it's much easier to empathize with the characters. That show caters to the Kdrama genre's strengths much more.
Then again Witch's Diner is worth watching just for Song Ji Hyo. Her clothes and her significantly different looks were quite a sight.. (her acting skill too, I guess :P)

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I watched the Reply series in the recommended order (97>94>88), I was still very surprised, this was not at all what I was expecting. Looking at 97 & 94, while they are very special kdramas with lots of nostalgia, especially 97, they are nonetheless quite typical in many ways, they have many of the usual kdrama tropes & have typical love lines with very strong triangles with heavy emphasis on them, and all the flashforward scenes teasing the husbands make them that much worse. I accepted in advance that 88 will be the same & also checked who the husband will be in advance, having read that ppl were upset about the final outcome. I couldn't have been more wrong, I didn't feel sorry for Junghwan at all. I did not feel for a second that he was the main character, also there was no conflict between the male leads at all. I think this is the first time that the "love triangle" trope did not annoy me at all. Doksun is supposed to be the main character, but everyone had a lot of screen time & Bora kind of stole the show. This drama is mainly not about romance, but rather family, friendship and nostalgia. There were many touching sub-stories, there were so many heartwarming scenes. They just don't make shows like this anymore in the west, I don't think. The cast is outstanding, everyone was amazing. I usually don't like the Ajumma characters in most dramas, but here even they were awesome. I think over the course of the 20 episodes (about 25-30 hours) nothing overly melodramatic happened & yet I still felt quite emotional when it ended. (one of the best 4 hour long endings I've seen) In conclusion this show is extremely special. Goblin is still my favorite kdrama, but this one is on the same level, 88 is nearly perfect, this apples oranges comparison is pointless anyway. Even the OST is outstanding, it wasn't jaw dropping, but at the important moments the songs had strong emotional impact. The cinematography & the sets were also perfection, no surprise there though.

~~One flaw I found is that Tek remained Tek 6dan for many years, despite beating 9dan players left & right, I don't think that's how ELO works.

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It's a fairly amusing romcom, but that's all.

The Good
⌲ Actress Guo Shu Yao is even more amusing than her MDL page, awesome!
⌲ Michael Zao - Ellie couple up until they started dating (top comedy)
⌲ I really enjoyed the hand drawn anime special effects. (well other than the shiny stars one)
⌲ Up until the final 5-ish episodes the comedy is very decent across the board.
⌲ As unrealistic as this office workplace is, I really enjoyed all the wholesomeness & the plethora of cute characters.
⌲ The liveliness of a Taiwanese production, especially compared to mainland Chinese shows (though it's not outstandingly lively compared to some other Tdrama romcoms I've seen)

The Average
⌲ The chemistry between the leads felt a bit unnatural.
⌲ The Cupcake Couple
⌲ Michael Zao - Ellie couple after they started dating (Too over the top, I had difficulties with second hand embarrassment)
⌲ I'm not completely sold on the main couple concept of the show, especially the hating money bit. That made it very difficult for me to empathize with the ML & accept his supposed `intelligence`.
⌲ Keke's parents (fun early on, but unbelievably weird in the second half, I don't know)
⌲ The plot beyond the romance and fluff is barely anything, to a fault. (I agree with MDL reviewer Chelsea Black, it's "string thin" indeed)

The Bad
⌲ In the final episodes all toxic parents had been very suddenly forgiven. (though I can see how Asian audiences following Confucianist values could maybe!? appreciate this.)
⌲ Adding to the previous point, It's really crazy how Keke pushed ML and his dad into reconciliation, especially considering earlier plots.
⌲ The mandatory & arbitrary breakup (My big problem with this is not how it happened, or that it did, but rather FL's indifference to it made me feel like she planned the whole temporary breakup thing to teach ML a lesson, being confident that she would get him back, not cool!)

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It's entertaining garbage.

The Good:
⌲ The acting*
⌲ The chemistry
⌲ The comedy in the first 2/3rds of the show
⌲ The whole double Scooby-Doo crew thing
⌲ Ultimately I was entertained enough.
⌲ There were an endless number of cute/fluffy romantic scenes

The Average:
⌲ The romantic story itself could be better.
⌲ The second ML (It's a weak triangle, but still..)
⌲ The special ability (the drama does not follow its own established fantasy rules regarding how the eyes are supposed to work and it's just a really dumb concept.)
⌲ The corporate stuff is quite digestible until nearing the final episodes. (usually this is far far worse)

The Bad:
⌲ The plot goes from silly nonsense to complete -still very silly- chaos near the finale.
⌲ Typically Chinese fantasy shows get an "it's a novel" ending these days, here the plot is completely packaged in that, so it's the first 10 & last 10 minutes-ish.
⌲ The main villain (I mean what is the end goal here, really?)
⌲ The Police in the final episode (I guess the censors needed a little extra push?)
⌲ The mom wakes up after 15 years of coma & she is like your regular cdrama mom from 1 second onward. (my daughter aged 15 years, but everything is FIIINE)


* I've read many posts about people bashing Zhang Yu Xi for her bad acting. I think you all are just lacking context. Had you ever seen a Chinese romcom comic, you would probably immediately recognize all the "silly overacting" postures & various other things. The goal was clearly doing that on screen & the cast did it as well as I could possibly imagine anyone doing.

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It's a bit disappointing from kdrama writer giant Park Hye Ryun, still this is no Start-Up.

Screenwriter Park Hye Ryun is responsible for 3 dramas on my all time top 10 list. Because of that even though Start-Up was a huge disappointment I've let the comment section's hype get to me.
What's good news I suppose that this is far far better than Start-Up. (Which I may have dropped half way or so in, I'm not even sure anymore)
Anyhow the plots and themes in Castaway Diva are very much Park Hye Ryun-like, despite the fact that she is not the only writer, probably the other writer Eun Yeol contributed more to dialog, I don't know. Anyway anyone who has watched the big three dramas I mentioned before (While You Were Sleeping, Pinocchio, I Hear Your Voice) will find many subplots & the general direction of the story in this drama oddly familiar. Near the finale there is a pretty iconic scene that is 1:1 While You Were Sleeping as well. Not that I mind this too much, Park Hye Ryun always heavily built and iterated from her previous works in all her dramas and I absolutely adored them..
So you might ask, why did I rate the writing at 5.5? Well, out of all the preproduced (non live filmed) dramas this was perhaps the most inconsistent (that I can recall anyway). To me it seems like the writers shaped the plot assuming that the general audience won't remember the minutiae of what they've seen 2-4-6 weeks ago. Unluckily for me I binge watched this over the course of 4 days during long daily workout sessions, as such in almost every episode I had several moments where I was rolling my eyes at all the gaslighting that has been presented to me. Also even if I ignore the plot itself and look at the various world building elements, the drama is -even by kdrama romcom standards- just incredibly poorly researched. Pretty much every little detail about the Island was wrong. I understand this is fiction, but it would not have been very hard to ask someone well versed in wilderness survival to give the writers some tips & to use common sense. (I could list countless things here, but just to say a few: potatoes, FL's well groomed-ness, swimming in baggy sweatpants/shirts, the shoes)
The biggest writing related pain point though is that this is like a romcom with most of the romance ripped out of it, but the rest of the things are left as they would be in a really silly drama about a cat shapeshifter or something else like that.
Anyway I did not really feel the leads bonding at any point in time, as opposed to the second lead doing some of that. Basically the love triangle here is very similar to what we've seen in While You Were Sleeping, but with the amazing main romance missing, if that even makes sense xD (meaning the second ML is not a nuisance, it's just this is so weird overall)
If you are curious what a good romance-less romance drama is like, take a look at the cdrama Reset.

Onto the second big problem I had with the drama, which is Park Eun Bin, or more specifically her portrayal of castaway Seo Mok Ha. I have seen this actress before shine in Age of Youth. (I don't think she is lacking in skill, in fact she is probably awesome.) Also while in Attorney Woo I very strongly disliked how she acted as an autistic lawyer. There she did the usual Hallyu version of "person struggling with disability" act and probably did it as well as it is possible, but I always found that incredibly offensive in any drama, but I digress. The point I'm trying to make is that someone had the genius idea to not only cast her for this role, but also make this castaway character's portrayal essentially the same, or maybe because this was her next drama after Woo she did not completely recover from that role which she has taken way more seriously as an actor. I suppose instead of all this ranting I could have just said that she is overacting in this one, but it just feels wrong & weird.

The casting in general is not all that great. I love watching good sismances in dramas, but I did not feel that sister chemistry all that much, though all the back and forth in the plot did not help. Nor did FL have good chemistry with ML, but there was barely any time to build on that, so I could be wrong. Though I must admit the evil dads were quite fit for their roles, despite not having seen these supporting actors in evil roles thus far.

Remember how the final 3-4 episodes of Pinocchio were after due to it being a huge success they extended the run from 16 to 20 episodes? Walkaway Diva has ~8 episodes like that, out of 12 which is obviously not great. Earlier I ranted about the writers expecting the audience to forget stuff, now that I think about it, perhaps that could have totally worked on me too, because I don't think I'll remember much of anything of what happened between ep2 and 10 in a couple of weeks.

I apologize for all the rantish walls of text so far, I too am getting tired of writing this review, so I'll quickly list -in no particular order- what I actually liked about the drama:

⌲ Episode 1 is a great short film, with very talented child actors [10/10]
⌲ Everyone is really attractive, with very pleasant, almost hypnotic voices.
⌲ The entertainment industry related procedural parts are usually far far worse. (they avoided many common themes that tend to ruin things in other dramas about idols)
⌲ The parents -adoptive dad+mom- were adorable.
⌲ The OST and all the singing is really really and I mean REALLY good. (though it's annoying that everything is basically lip syncing, because all songs are perfect studio recordings, where there was no effort made to make them live-ish during editing)
⌲ There are no significant misunderstandings.
⌲ It's a high quality production with great photography & across the board great audiovisuals.
⌲ Evil Dad #2 was a relatively high class kdrama villain & did not overstay his welcome. (similar to other Park Hye Ryun villains)
⌲ There were some very satisfying -power-fantasy like- scenes.
⌲ The dialog has some rather great moments, here and there.

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This is mostly a very satisfying watch.

Generally I don't like revenge-makjang dramas, but I like Park Min Young. I thought, let's just give this a go, worst case scenario I'll just drop it after a while. Overall this is a very pleasant surprise. The whole plot works a lot better than anything else I've seen in this genre before, mostly because villainous transgressions get quick -and smart- paybacks almost every single time and these are very satisfying & overall well written. Outside of Boa's questionable acting the cast did a phenomenal job as well and the whole thing is just very decently done, the production values are really up there with the best. So why is it not a 10 you might ask? In the second half there were 2-3 weak, messy episodes where the plot fell apart a little bit, though the drama managed to recover from these & wrapped up nicely too.

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This show is of course quite good, there are literally no love triangles, misunderstandings or angst, but there is still fun content that's enough to fill up about 25 episodes, unfortunately we had 33. Still the filler is not so bad either, overall it's full of chill swoony stuff. The couples were all great pairings with excellent chemistry. I just feel a bit annoyed how little -meaningful- screentime the side couples had. (especially considering how much filler their scenes could've replaced) One thing this drama did exceptionally well is portraying new couple awkwardness & progress into becoming comfortable with each other. (but then they just had to make several "sleep together in our day clothes prim and proper" scenes to annoy us with)

I've said this before in other cdrama reviews, but saying it again, it felt like I watched an amazing show twice in a row, that's why the rewatch value is low, because I feel I already did it..

Also there were quite a few epic moment opportunities that were intentionally missed. I was really looking forward to some of them too, so that stings a bit. (for example ML meeting FL's cousins, I mean could they have made that any tamer?) Censorship makes dramas like this possible so here it could be considered a net positive, but the blunting effect on the excitement is a bit too much for my taste.

(Also we could talk about how incredibly offensive to women some of these acts of "classic" chivalry are, but hey what else is new? This is still a Chinese drama)

I really liked the proposal scene in this one. I usually cringe whenever I have to suffer through proposal scenes, not here...
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Overall this is one of the better Asian dramas I've seen this year, but it's very far off from the best ones in the chill-conflictless genre. (in fact 'Meet Yourself' is a 2023 cdrama as well that I think is much better)

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It's okay.

The little over four hours have a lot of educational content, a big chunk of that is sex ed. that Asian women desperately need. (I had relatively recent interactions with an Asian girl and It was shocking to hear how little she knew about her body & sex despite being experienced..) My problem with this is that I think many of the scenes the intended audience will find jaw dropping and very interesting have a lot of commercial intent behind them. The net effect is still very positive, but gosh if only they could've dialed down the greed just a little bit more..

As for me, I'm more than well versed in this topic. I have learned -almost- nothing new, so of course for a normal adult from the western world much of this would be very boring. Outside of education the romances were very simple, but at least refreshingly spicy and somewhat entertaining, but there is not enough time to really get invested. The show is very well acted though, Hani was absolutely amazing in this role and everyone else too. As for chemistry, I'm not sure, but it's certainly not the best for either of the couples.

Still the fact that a show like this not only managed to air, but also featured relatively big stars is great for progress, which Korea desperately needs. Not only the country, but the entertainment industry too, because I think the sale value of deadfish kisses & 30+s shy hand holding is not doing it for many anymore.

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Kim Eun Sook is a huge name in the kdrama industry. We could argue how well deserved that is or not. While I do think Goblin is still the best kdrama ever produced, I'm not sure if the script & more specifically the plot is why. With that said Gentleman's Dignity to me is by far the worst of her works I've seen so far. There are so many problems with the script that it's difficult to list them all & frankly this drama isn't really worth watching in 2023. (which I just did for the first time) You could argue that it's just dated & I'm looking at this with the wrong mindset, but then why do I find Secret Garden being so much better in every way imaginable despite being 2 years older?

Even if I ignore the minutiae problems with the plot, the base setting itself is already bleeding from multiple wounds. Out of the 4 male leads two of them are just the baddies, one of them -started out as- a womanizer & another just threw away her lover like a trash bag, because he has fallen in love with someone else. To me If I cannot empathize with the most important characters, then it will be difficult to enjoy any drama. (the other 3 try to help cover up the cheating as well, but then suddenly he is not really a cheater, because the writer decided to completely rewrite his personality to fit the plot direction)
There is also a lot of backward crap about Korean society that I always hated in kdramas.

I could even say this is basically the gutted version of a typical -bad- family drama. By gutted I mean most of the fluff is removed & there are no plotlines involving the elderly. However the whole shebang with a long lost first love & a mysterious high school kid returning home to Korea plot seems very typical.
Also what is Kim Woo Bin doing in this drama? Did they just cast him as eye candy & created a very random inconsequential role for him?

There are some reasonably funny moments, but overall the comedy is not very convincing.

(Much like Secret Garden this drama too has some really cool iconic outfits..)

So yes, I cannot recommend watching this, there are far better retro titles out there. Even the ancient My Girl from 2005 is a far more enjoyable drama than this.

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I think this show is a little overrated, reading other reviews & the comment section I had the impression that this is the most amazing romantic comedy ever. Well it is definitely not, not even close, but 2022 had been quite bleak for Korean romcoms & this one admittedly stands out a little, because it does not really have anything majorly wrong with it & the enemies to lovers trope is something most people -including myself- enjoy. For a corporate kdrama the office slice of life is quite unoffensive, but it's not very interesting either, the hook in the show is just the comedy & romance, nothing else, but the acting is not exactly top tier and the comedy is hit & miss for me. I'm not a huge fan of slapstick & this drama has quite a bit of that & also there are a lot of really juvenile gags. As for the romance it's good, but I'm not a huge fan of the ML in this role & the chemistry is not all that believable. Also the ending felt a bit rushed, did this flop on Korea, so it got shortened to 12 episodes???

I decided to give this 8/10 only, because there were very few good romcoms over the past year & at least I enjoyed this one a lot, though I'm quite certain a rewatch is not in my future.

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It's somewhat flawed, but at the same time incredibly dreamy, magical & thrilling.

Let me start with what's bad. Starting around episode 20 the plot & the pseudo science become rather silly. The science thing is maybe 20 times worse than in the Stargate SG1, if that helps and it takes the main stage in the later episodes. I often say that it's nigh impossible to reasonably explain time travel in a drama, so it's better to leave things to the imagination, unfortunately they tried to explain a lot & not only used terms like quantum cracks, Klein bottles, but walked into these things on their two legs. That's not all, many times in the dialog instead of timelines they use the term alternate realities, which does not fit logically & would lead to rather grizzly conclusions. (I don't think the thought process of "It's okay if people died left & right, there is nothing to feel sad about since we are not in their reality anymore" makes much sense) Though I'm increasingly confident time travel cdramas have an absolute limit on how many times the term "time travel" can be used before a show wouldn't pass censorship, so if the narrative demands more they just go with alternate realities or dimensions, even if that makes no logical sense.
The dubbed voices sound too much like studio recordings, there is no believable ambiance.
Finally the main villain's motivations are somewhat ridiculous, but censorship might have something to do with this as well, more reasonable serial killers probably cannot be shown on Chinese television. I've seen far worse than this, it's bad, but at least the writer truly tried to make his character work and it almost does.

That was the all the bad I can think of right now, moving on..


Everything is else is from good to incredible. End of review.. just kidding of course.

The romance is fantastic. Both the main couple & second couple's romances are incredibly magical, I certainly got the feels & the chills many times during the romantic & sentimental scenes that this drama had. In fact I don't think I have ever seen a cdrama with a side couple this memorable, a secondary romantic plot this touching.

The genre of this is Romance + Thriller & surprisingly enough this is probably the best Chinese Thrilling experience that I've had so far, there was even a touch of horror here and there & even a little Squid game influence in the final episodes perhaps. I tend to rant on and on how Asian drams Chinese & Korean alike almost always suck at this, not here. I saw a book on Amazon described as "utterly gripping crime thriller with edge-of-your-seat suspense " and I think that's an apt description of many of this drama's scenes. Impressive!

The plot up to episode 20 is very nice, even though I had a strong suspicion of the villain's identity from the very beginning, which is not that surprising considering that I recently watched "Meet Me @ 1006", but the plot flows very nicely & it was interesting even in the later sillier episodes. If I make an effort to ignore the horrible fake science, then the ending feels rather nice too, it's far more hopeful then what we've gotten in"Your Name", it's not nearly as open ended, you don't need to use your imagination to know what's going to happen in the future. (though checking the ending in advance without context will lead to a lack of understanding..)

The OST is absolutely incredible, right now of the top of my head I cannot think of a single cdrama where the tracks & mixing are both so great. It's not as good as Goblin's, but it's not too far off, if anything the mixing is better here.

The visuals are in my opinion very nice. I have seen a lot of people bashing the bad CG, this is hugely unfair, making a believable cruise ship in CG would have needed the budget of Avatar & even then it would have been obvious it's CG. I think this is the best CG i've seen in a -relatively speaking- low budget cdrama. The environment on the ship is extremely unrealistic, but that's hardly on the CG, but rather the production team went for a really dreamy, otherworldly vibe. I understand why this is a hit and miss for the audience, but for me it's mostly a hit. In fact I had very distinct Final Fantasy 8 vibes while watching some of the scenes on the ship.

I talked about the great visuals & OST, but the amalgamation of these things truly leads to an incredible audiovisual experience. I think the drama would be worth watching just for that, even if the rest was completely trash, which it is not, not even close.

TLDR: Go watch the drama, it's totally worth it! The 7.8 rating on MDL seems unbelievable to me.

edit: There might be an epilogue with the usual "it was just a book" shebang, fortunately I have not had the chance to watch this. The final episode of the drama I watched did not have this.

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