Saturday, December 26, 2015

175. Bubblegum 풍선껌 (2015) Korean

Lee Dong Wook, Jung Ryeo Won, Lee Jong Hyuk, Park Hee Bon, Bae Jong Ok

Drama Rating: 6.5/10     Neck Score: A

tvN needs to stop advertising shows as fluffy RomComs when they are emotional cry fests.  I had a feeling this one would be a cry fest, but I didn't expect it to be 75% crying.  All of the drama was literally family and disease related and the love triangles were not even existent.  You just felt sorry for the other peeps because they didn't really ever have a chance.  Like ever.  That's what you get when the lifelong BFFs finally realize that they should just date.  So, the mom drama was frustrating.  But that actress did a fairly good job with the Alzheimer's believability.  She was the nicest more innocent Alzheimer's patient, but whatever.  I was just glad that she wasn't putting a torn in the romance.  While I'm not like a huge fan of Lee Dong Wook, I do think he's a great actor.  I'm just not in love him with like Lizabreff and her mom are.  But, he and Jung Ryeo Won (who I am a big fan of) were literally one of the cutest couples ever.  They did the BFF/practically siblings turned lovers perfectly.  You knew how much they loved each other and how comfortable they felt with each other.  It was perfect.  However, them being torn apart for that many episodes was way too much crying.  Gosh, that needed to stop.  Then when it did, and it was all cute, suddenly it was over.  So it was a little draggy and anti-climatic?  I don't know.  It seemed like their break up was over nothing, because it was.  Whatever, I guess they learned from it and grew up a little.  Sweet and cry fest about sums it up.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

The Nicknames of The Heartless Cruel City

A while back I finally got around to watching Cruel City.  It was amazing.  My queue is filled with melodramas, dramas, and heavy thrillers that I want to watch but usually put off as I waste my time with the fluffy romcoms.  I get around to them eventually, but not as quickly as they deserve.  But I'm glad I finally got around to this one, because it was really good.


I actually really love crime noir things, which is why I try to save them for a special time, when I can really savor them, but it usually turns out that I never have time for them and end up not watching them for forever.  I'm learning to just start them and make time for them.  Because they will be that good.  One thing that is always good about crime noir is the rich assortment of characters who all deserve a great set of nicknames.  Half of them only have nicknames in the show anyway, because that is apparently how the crime world works.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

183. Nine Seconds - Eternal Time 9초-영원의 시간 (2015) Korean

Lee Joo Seung, Na Hae Ryeong, Lee Jae Hyeong, Mina Fujii, Park Lydia

Drama Rating: 4/10     Neck Score: A

I wanted this to be special, because I love Lee Joo Seung.  I literally only watched it to see what he would do with a lead role.  But this drama was blase at best.  So we've got a angry transplanted girl from Seoul who is now in the country, where her mom ignores her because of her new job.  Then you have a quirky boy next door photographer.  All good until you make that quirky photographer boy have an eye disease that is slowly making him go blind.  Boo.  Then you throw in every other trope, like the evil mom who is ignoring her one minute, and then telling her to never see that boy again, because you know, blind boys are bad boys.  Then you have car accidents, comas, and dreams.  And a magic camera which makes everything better... maybe?  All this in seven 15 minute episodes.  You can see why I'm not impressed.  I think I was playing games on my phone the whole time I watched it.  Things I actually liked: Lee Joo Seung's acting.  His easy-going, matter-of-fact, quirky character was likable.  I liked Na Hae Ryeong's character too.  She wasn't the typical Seoul brat.  She just had typical change issues.  I liked how their friendship and romance blossomed, even though it was pretty typical too, it was still nice and less forced.  It had it's cute moments.  The ending was weird though.  A little too opened ended, especially for a seven episoder.  Did they even try?  Did they try too hard?  Shrug.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

177. Cruel City 무정도시 (2013) Korean


Jung Kyung Ho, Nam Gyu Ri, Lee Jae Yoon, Son Chang Min, Kim Yoo Mi, Choi Moo Sung, Yoon Hyun Min 

Drama Rating: 9/10     Neck Score: A+

While this was an amazing drama, the ending was still super hard for me to watch.  Mostly because WHY DIDN'T HE TAKE THE FREAKING GUN AWAY FROM HIM!  SOMEBODY COULD DIE THAT WAY!  Freaking Two-Faced Ahjussi.  Omo.  This drama is so good.  So dark.  I heard someone say they were watching this for them romance.  Um... what romance?  Do you mean bromance?  That is clearly the most important thing in this show.  I could start a drinking game: take a shot every time Soo is used as bait for a trap and almost dies.  Haha, I still love you, Fish bangs, and definitely love you in those suits. Rawr.  I was already in love with Paksa, so this was just a big indulgence to watch him being bad-a.  I think the best part of this show is the characters.  Not necessarily the police, although they are ok, but the drug peeps though.  Imo Noona was awesome.  I loved her, like a serious cool kids crush on her, because she was so cool... even though she was a little silly at times and had a weird crush on Paksa (but really, can you blame her?).  I loved how consistently loyal she was to all her friends.  Even Sapari Samchon was super relatable and well-rounded.  It was a good mixture of predictable and a bit less predictable, but that is me being too good at predicting.  But it had me on my toes, which was nice.  I do have to say that another thing I kept counting was how many times people were obviously drinking and driving.  Not shocking since everyone was constantly drinking, but then they would always have a brooding driving shot right afterward.  Um, no, Paksa, you shouldn't be driving after drinking multiple glasses of that strong liquor.  Haha.  Anyway, brilliantly good.

176. Because It's the First Time 처음이라서 (2015) Korean

Minho, Park So Dam, Kim Min Jae, Jeong Eugene

Drama Rating: 5/10     Neck Score: A

I started this drama because the Bromance, you know Paksa and Fish Bangs (Jung Kyung Ho and Yoon Hyun Min).  That was probably a stupid reason, since they were only a cameo. However the behind the scenes clip I saw done me in and I watched, because by the time the cameo happened I was invested in the characters already.  I think it was too long.  For a web drama it was a bit draggy in how stupid Minho's character was.  That was probably the worst part, now I have a desire to punch Minho in the face that I never had before.  I would just make fun of his dorky puppy looks, but now when I see his face I realize that he just wants a punch.  His face is just asking for it.  Just stop looking like a dorky puppy trying to act cool! (punch!)  But now that I've finally finished it, that has lessened (probably because Ji Ahn did punch him in the face).  Ah, Ji Ahn.  He's so cute!  Little smiley baby G-Dragon with a sexy man voice!  Aw.  I was super angry because I thought they were going to pull the first love crap.  They did, and it was still lame, but it wasn't nearly as lame as I thought it would be.  I thought it was going to go all I Need Romance on me, especially since it's written by the same lady, but it didn't, so it wasn't too bad.  But I did have to wait and read the recaps to see if I really wanted to finish it because FILWM Syndrome or something.  It was cute, but super messy.  A little annoying because it was so messy.  And why'd he have to go and make my classy Jeong Eugene cry?  Bad, Minho!  Go get punched in the face!

174. I Am Sorry, I Love You 我的鬼基友 (2015) Taiwanese

Jasper Liu, Bryant Chang, Andrea Chen, Zhang Yan Ming, Joanne Deng

Drama Rating: 2/10     Neck Score: A

I hated this show.  Bros before hoes, man!  They ruined one of the best bromances of all time because of some stupid twisted fate crap they tried way too hard to sell.  I didn't believe the characterless girl with the nerd for one second.  NOT ONE SECOND!  In fact they wasted so much time giving us all the drippy backstory with the ghost and the girl that all we wanted was for him to be alive again so he wouldn't be hurting anymore (didn't care about her one way of the other she didn't have any character).  Well, I guess her character was "nice and pretty" and "not afraid of ghosts" and "guilt complex."  I was shipping the childhood friend and the nerd so hard I had dreams about it.  They even made her in love with him, but then dropped it so hard it made me cry.  The end made me cry too.  Half because it was like beautifully tragic... well not even half, just partly, but mostly because I was so freaking pissed off!  They didn't even get to hug!  They were never alive at the same time!  I'm so angry!  I even waited a while to write this and I'm still too angry!  Ahhhhhh!  Either don't waste time on making us invested in the past relationship or don't pull this kind of crap with me.  I didn't care about the nard and the girl's love story so much I think I skipped past most those scenes because they were too boring.  Just boring.  I didn't care much about her mothering him until it somehow it became a romance.  Nope, wasn't there.  And that red string of fate triangle... yuck.  Just barf.  I just wanted my bromace to be alive together and they ruined everything.  Hate, hate, hate.  That Aaron song still gets stuck in my head, and I loved the bromance, but the show was total crap.