284. Bride of the Water God 하백의 신부 2017 (2017) Korean

Nam Joo Hyuk, Shin Se Kyung, Lim Ju Hwan, Krystal, Gong Myung

Drama Rating: 4/10     Neck Score: A+

I wasn't going to watch this one, because it was obviously going to be not amazing.  But I kept watching all the clips and spoilers about it, and hearing about it from others, that I thought I would give it a chance.  Plus, I was having Gong Myung withdraws after Revolutionary Love finished, so I need to see it.  Plus, as everyone said, it's got a lot of pretty in it.  That's pretty much all it had in it.  It's rare to see something so fabulously bad as this.  It wasn't just because the actors were not the best.  I've seen Nam Joo Hyuk and Shin Se Kyung do decently well before, just not in this drama.  Although neither of them were so terrible that I wanted to cry or die even (most of the time), they were both not on their form at all and left much to be desired.  Really it was a combination of bad acting, directing, and writing.  I blame the writing the most for my lack of enjoyment.  It was just so bad, I didn't feel connected to the people who should.  I didn't care about the people I should, it was all just a big mess.  A big, pretty mess.

So, my biggest problem is that I just didn't care about the plot of the drama.  It just wasn't compelling to me at all.  In fact, I was probably watching it for all the wrong reasons, because I was way more compelled by the secondary couples and antagonist than the main couple.  It probably wasn't the best idea to watch a drama for Gong Myung when he wasn't even really in the first four episodes.  But he remained one of my favorites in all the other episodes.  I also related and cared about Lim Ju Hwan's character and story way more than anyone else.  So here is a list of the things I liked and cared about:

Women Who Make Me Watch Dramas Against My Will: Second Leads and "Bitcas" Edition

I am so glad that as I was deciding to do this list, that there were so many wonderful women that I love that I could produce just as many of these lists for the actresses I would watch anything for, as for the actors.  I thought I would start with the ones that I fell in love with as they played the second female leads, the bitcas, if you will.  I love girls who play strong women, who play jerks, or even crazies, and are still so lovable and even the best thing ever.

They have such acting chops that even if I hate their character, I have to also grudgingly like them because they make them so sympathetic and real all the same.  You hate them, but also hate that you hate them because you love them too.  Or you hate that you love them, since they are being so evil... It all comes down to really loving them because they are awesome and play those evil or annoying roles like a boss.  So here are some of my favorite bad girls, who aren't your sweet young things, although they could play them like a boss too, because they are amazing.

215. Uncontrollably Fond 함부로 애틋하게 (2016) Korean

Kim Woo Bin, Bae Suzy, Lim Ju Hwan, Lim Ju Eun

Drama Rating: 5/10     Neck Score: A+

This was a pre-produced drama that was written and edited as if it was a live shoot drama.  If they had all that extra time to produce and edit it, couldn't they tighten up the writing, make the second half decent, and not overuse flashbacks?  No?  Well, I guess not then.  While I'm not wholly unimpressed with this show, it definitely fell short of its potential.  Especially in the writing department.  By the end of this show it was so ridiculously over dramatic about dumb stuff that we just laughed.  I couldn't even cry.  The characters were so flip floppy and all over the place that it made them less sympathetic, and the ridiculous stunts they pulled at the end were hilariously bad.  Couldn't they have come up with something better?  Nope.  However, there were things about this show that consistently impressed me.  The OST was pretty amazing, as was the not OST but overused New Empire song A Little Braver.  It was fun to sing along to.  I was consistently impressed with Kim Woo Bin.  Even though his character was written stupidly, his acting was amazing.  He really acted those sick scenes really well.  I was also impressed with little things like the blood when he ripped his IV out.  Yes, there should be that sort of thing if you are ripping a needle out of your body in such a rash manner.  Little things like that were impressive.  Im Ju Hwan, aka Luscious Locks, had some nice moments, but he ended up being so pathetic.  Sad day.  He acted it well too.  Suzy... did the best she could, but her character was pretty lamely written, which proved to be too much for her acting chops, but she did try, which was good for her.  Crazy Eyes, well Lim Ju Eun did fabulous, but that character was just crazy.  The bad guys were all pretty over the top, and there were lots of annoying or hateful characters.  Then they tried to redeem people way too much at the end, which is  little dumb and made it draggy.  They just had horrible pace and timing, so especially in the second half, the show was just ridiculous.  Oh well.  Woobs was amazing still, even if he character wasn't that likable a times.  I blame the writers and not him.  He was great.

161. Oh My Ghostess 오 나의 귀신님 (2015) Korean

Park Bo Young, Jo Jung Suk, Kim Seul Gi, Lim Ju Hwan

Drama Rating: 7/10     Neck Score: A+

You really shouldn't watch a drama over the space of a whole year.  Because if you have a million days in between each set of episodes, then you are going to forget what happens and be less involved with the characters so the feels don't mean as much.  That's what we did, and it was a sad mistake.  So I was watching this with my friend who is really busy, and then I got a job where our schedules didn't align well, so we never had time to watch it.  But she was so determined to finish it with us that I couldn't refuse, so we took a million days to watch it.  Like a whole year.  This meant that by the end, I didn't remember most of what happened earlier.  This was good for Luscious Locks though (Lim Ju Hwan who did not have luscious locks in this one) because it made us way more focused on his brilliantly subtle acting in the last few episodes.  Because literally all the feels came from him in those ones.  He caught our attention from the very start because even when he was acting like a sweet nice guy he was somehow creepy at the same time.  And it was very subtle and it was wonderful.  I do remember really liking all the characters.  However it seems like it was two different dramas.  Jo Jung Suk and Park Bo Young had a cute rom-com going there with the ghost possessing and seducing, which was cute and fun.  I loved both Park Bo Young and Kim Seul Gi's portrayals of the ghost.  They were both brilliant.  Sadly I didn't like the normal girl Park Bo Young without the ghost, because she was lame and boring, but she got better, which was good.  So we have a cute rom-com with an adorable couple, and the group of idiot chef boys who were hilarious, especially when they sang "congratulations!"  Then all the sudden it's a super dark murder mystery and really, really creepy.  And there are still random hilarious dorky scenes of the idiot chef boys being weird bros.   Then there is more creepy where Lim Ju Hwan is amazing with his actions and facial expressions, and then we have an needlessly slow last episode that felt really draggy, especially since they had to have a time jump.  Lame.  But whatever.  All the actors were amazing, and I'm sure if you watch it all consecutively it will make way more sense and be lots better.  I still liked it, but I don't know if I can give a fairer review than this, because of my unique experience.

137. Shine or Go Crazy 빛나거나 미치거나 (2015) Korean

Jang Hyuk, Oh Yeon Seo, Lee Ha Nui, Lim Ju Hwan

Drama Rating: 6.5/10     Neck Score: A

This was a very entertaining sageuk, probably because it was not focused on being historically accurate to events, but on an engaging story line.  Also, it had some super stellar actors such as Jang Hyuk and Lee Ha Nui.  The costuming was also super awesome and beautiful.  However it suffers from the typical kdrama complex where the ending just kind of went to crap.  It got super cheesy, wrapped up too quickly, suddenly became boring, broke up the main couple for no reason whatsoever after they finally got together, and then tried to patch it up with an ambiguous band aid of an ending to imply that somehow they will be together, but not really, maybe in the next life?  I don't know what it means, but seriously the second half of the last episode just made me roll my eyes, yawn, repeatedly say "this is so dumb" and tweet about how it was so dumb.  Also, there was way too much Luscious Locks (Lim Ju Hwan).  He was so dumb, his hair was bad, and we hated his face.  He needed to be in this show way less.  We don't care about him, especially when they cut away from our OTP to show him giving up on the girl for good.  They even wasted our time at the very end to show him fixing his life, like we care.  This was HeyCurdy's first drama obsession, and literally first Kdrama she started and sat all the way through, so the ending was extra devastating for her.  But since the beginning was super cheesy, I guess I should have guessed the ending would be too.  But that was 24 episodes, how did they expect me to remember that?  It was very deus ex machina, cheesy, drawn out, and kind of lame, which is sad because it was so good for the first two thirds to three fourths of the show.  Ah well, that's fairly typical for a kdrama.  At least it wasn't Night Watchman bad.  Compared to that, this was a great show.  At least everyone could act.  Also Jang Hyuk = one of the sexiest men who have ever lived.

45. What's Up? 왓츠 업 (2011) Korean

Lim Ju Hwan, Daesung, Lim Ju Eun, Oh Man Seok, Kim Mi Kyung,  Jang Hee Jin, Kim Ji Won, Jo Jung Suk, Lee Soo Hyuk

Drama Rating: 5/10     Neck Score: A

I should actually finish this one before I write a review.  It's not like I didn't like it... I just didn't love it and got distracted by something else, and then forgot about it.  I do want to finish it though... because Daesung and Lee Soo Hyuk... also Jo Jung Suk.  They were the reasons I started (well Lee Soo Hyuk was a bonus since I only knew him from the 2ne1 music video "It Hurts")  I remember thinking the main dude was annoying through...  That might have been a problem.  I have like 6 episodes left I think, so we'll see how this gets updated.... Ok, I finally finished it, and it wasn't so bad.  I actually don't know why I stopped watching, besides getting distracted with other shows.  In all honesty it's really hard to care about shows that center around musicals (just look at my reaction to Heartstrings).  They just don't do it for me.  I just don't care.  So this one... not that compelling to me.  The only things that were compelling to me were the men that I loved (Daesung, Jo Jung Suk, and Lee Soo Hyuk).  I loved the music in it, which is something.  Every time that Daesung or Jung Suk's voice came on I got happier about watching it.  That one girl was annoying, the one that Lim Ju Hwan liked, because she was such a naive and incompetent little kid, but she became less important.  I though Ju Hwan was annoying at first when he was being an angry young man, but he got over it and became likeable.  I didn't think that Daesung was in it enough.  The ending was really open, which was what they were going for, so no worries.  I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either.  The singing and stuff was well done because it was rarely an actual performance and it usually was integrated into the story well to make it more emotional.  For a musical show it was actually quite good, I guess.