Short review:

The drama is nothing life-changing, but it is entertaining. If you like funny rom-coms on a bit cheesy side with some cringe-worthy moments sprinkled in between, and if you don't mind typical kdrama cliches here and there, give it a try. The humor is a bit cringe-worthy at times and there really isn't a deeper message, but the show can be fun to watch. I would say that it's a drama similar to Marriage, not Dating and maybe Go Ho's Starry Night without the reverse harem .

Regular review:
Although the story is nothing new and the characters are very one-dimensional, I actually enjoyed this drama. It is pretty entertaining, although not everyone will be a fan of the humor in this. We have a traditional chaebol-poor girl romance with the unavoidable tragic past that resurfaces later, but fortunately gets resolved without dragging it too long. We also have a rather lackluster second lead. The main male love interest is not only ridiculously rich and capable, but also unbelievably good-looking ( though I would personally disagree with this; I mean, who came up with the lead's hairstyle in this??) and arrogant. Although amazingly popular with women, the heir to the conglomerate is a lone wolf who doesn't trust women to the point of not letting any woman ever touch him. The only woman who is by his side is his trustworthy secretary who is not only amazingly efficient, but also quite good looking. How lucky for our protagonist! I think that the main difference between this show and any other office based rom-com is the unusual way of telling the story. We meet the vice president and his secretary when they are already a very strong team and have worked together for 9 years. However, to the ML's dismay, the secretary decides to suddenly quit. This leaves the male lead puzzled and annoyed. I found the first episode to be hilarious and I quite quickly became attached to the flawed, but lovable male lead and his near-perfect office assistant. I think that the story slowed down a bit too much after episode 10, but it was still enjoyable to watch.

I didn't really care for the second lead's story. I loved the actor in 'W' and I was very excited to have him in this show, but his story was really unnecessary. I wish his character was a bit more developed and a bit less like a kicked puppy. As I mentioned earlier, the characters here are very simple. There is an incompetent secretary, a lonely and trustworthy president, a workoholic co-worker etc. Though they provide a nice background to the story, there isn't much depth to any of those characters. There are many romantic, but quite cheesy moments in this show, and there is quite a lot of bickering between the leads.

All in all, I found it to be a nice break between more intense dramas and recommend watching it when you want something to not think too much about.

Citeste mai mult

Initially, I wanted to give this a solid 10, but after thinking about it for a while, I came down to a 9.

I loved everything about the first 10 or so episodes: the first meetings between Bo Jin Yan and Yao Yao, the mansion scenes and the first cases those two (those four, to be exact) worked on. I also loved how the scenes were shot. There was darkness, close - ups and mystery in all the right places. That got me invested into the story. However, let me just say that the story got progressively creepier and I had a hard time binge watching the last couple of episodes because of that. I have a very vivid imagination and even if the torture scenes were not always explicit, my memory overcompensated for them. The last 8 episodes were too much: the crimes were too perfect, the pace was too fast for me and the tricks were just too well thought out.

I was also not a huge fan of the romance in this drama. It progressed too quickly and it wasn't all that great. It did move the story forward, but it didn't make my heart race. I liked the initial attraction between the main leads, but I didn't think they fit together as a couple.

Wallace Huo really is an incredible actor. He does a good job in the first half of the show, but a remarkable job during the couple of last episodes. There are scenes acted out by him that blew me away. I liked his scenes with Sandra Ma, but I can't say I loved her equally much in this. As usual with East Asian dramas, a lot of the non- Chinese actors were so so. I do think that LMiYD had better English speaking actors than most of the shows out there, but many of them were not even half as good as the Chinese protagonists. That ruined some scenes for me. It was difficult for me to rate the cast because of that.

Overall though Love Me if You Dare is really a great show and I recommend that you watch it and see for yourself.

Citeste mai mult

I honestly loved this drama to pieces. I almost didn't want to watch it, but decided to just give it a go in between other, more emotionally demanding dramas. I think that the main advantage of this drama are the dialogues and the dynamic between the main characters. It's just pure joy to watch. The other great advantage of this show is a clever usage of music. It had me laugh out loud many times. That being said, I was not as engrossed in the lives of the office couple as I was in the story of the two friends. I really liked the fact that I was able to relate to many of the issues in this drama. The characters are just regular people who have dreams or are just trying to survive. It's also an interesting analysis of the Korean society in which we see that having a certain position makes you immediately more attractive and seemingly raises your value as a person. I went through similar issues myself. Things like friendship, confusion, awakening feelings, moral dilemmas, struggles of finding employment and climbing the corporate ladder.. are a part of life. I loved how real the problems in the story were at the beginning of the drama. It gets a little more fairy-tale like towards the end and we also have an unexpected turn during the last couple of episodes, but nonetheless the show is just really enjoyable to watch. I actually watched it twice already even though I don't re-watch dramas too often. In many ways it reminded me of Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo and the Sassy Go Go, but it seemed to be a more adult version of those shows. If you liked WFKBJ, I think you will enjoy this drama as well.

Citeste mai mult

I don't think this is a show with mass appeal, so it appeals to only certain audience. Unfortunately, it did not appeal to me. I watched it as it aired, so I actually saw the entire thing, trying to slowly find a reason to find it good. The story is really meh, even if we take the genre it is supposed to be into account. The characters are not really likable to me and I didn't find myself rooting or feeling attached to any of them. The way how people treated each other in this show was sometimes appalling. Why would I want any of them to get together? So I ended up just slowly paddling along and waiting for some miracle to happen. I did come across one episode with a slow motion scene that had me laugh loud the entire time, but left me craving more quirky, weird scenes like that. Overall, this was just really not a good show and personally I would not recommend watching it.

Citeste mai mult