342. The Secret Life of My Secretary 초면에 사랑합니다 (2019) Korean

Kim Young Kwang, Jin Ki Joo, Kim Jae Kyung, Koo Ja Sung

Drama Rating: 8/10     Neck Score: A+

How did I forget to review this when I first finished it? I loved this drama and was completely lost when I finished it because I didn't know what to watch! I totally love watching anything with Kim Young Kwang in it, but he really was made for this role. Or this role was made for him? He shined like he never has before in this. I loved it. And now I'm a super fan of Jin Ki Joo too. She's so cute and great in this. I thought she did a super job too. And most importantly, they had the best chemistry, which for a romantic comedy, is super important.

But what makes this drama so delightful was that it wasn't a classic love triangle. I hate love triangles, they are so overdone. They are so badly done half the time too. So having two couples to love was absolutely wonderful. I absolutely loved Veronica Park. Kim Jae Kyung did a fantastic job making a lovable, over-the-top, MVP, rich girl who really was one of the smartest people in the show, even if she didn't mean (or want) to be. I loved her romance, I loved the friendship, both with Gal Hee and her little sister, she was just fabulous!

In-flight Film Time: Intimate Strangers 완벽한 타인 (2018) Korean

Yu Hae Jin, Yum Jung Ah, Cho Jin Woong, Kim Ji Soo, Lee Seo  Jin, Song Ha Yoon, Yoon Kyung Ho

Movie rating: 8/10     Neck score: B

I had been meaning to watch this for a while. Not just because Epik High quoted it's poster for their recent concert series, or because it has Lee Seo Jin, one of my ahjussi loves, but because it has an all around stellar cast, and the premise was super intriguing and it promised to be completely messed up. So when I saw it as an option in my in-flight entertainment, I jumped right in.

It is about a group of best friends for 40 years and their spouses who decide to play a game at a dinner party where they have to reveal their hidden life on their phones. Essentially answering every call on speakerphone and reading every message and notification out loud. Naturally it was going to get messy and tear everyone's lives apart. Not only would cheating and lying be revealed, but true opinions about each other, and their deepest secrets they weren't ready to tell even their best of friends.

338. Her Private Life 그녀의 사생활 (2019) Korean

Park Min Young, Kim Jae Wook, Ahn Bo Hyun, Kim Bo Ra, Park Jin Joo

Drama Rating: 7/10     Neck Score: A

I think the only thing that sold this show for me was the OTP. Ryan Gold and Sung Deok Mi were #relationshipgoals. They were the most mature and well grounded couple in the history of rom-coms. They talked things out, supported each other, and were just generally super cute. That being said, there really wasn't much else to the plot. Nothing was super compelling, and because our couple was so good at working things out, nothing was a huge deal and was resolved in the same episode. Mind. Blown.


I even started calling it: Ryan Golded. When the previews make it seem like a trope is going to happen and it's going to cause the usual drama, but instead they solve it in a logical and swift manner so it's not even a problem. Dramas would be a lot shorter if everyone took this approach. But because of that, I do think that it was a bit less compelling than some. Maybe we're all just so used to a bit of makjang/horror/melodrama/any other genre being thown into our rom-coms that the lack of a strong plot or even something compelling, made it a bit boring. I was literally just having a conversation with the t-list about this. But I don't think it was the ridiculous drama that was missing, they tried to throw that in a couple of times and we didn't like it (I'm looking at you, episode 15), I just think that the plot wasn't very strong to begin with. It was a series of little instances that all centered around a group of people, with the OTP at the head.

339. My Fellow Citizens 국민 여러분 (2019) Korean

Choi Siwon, Lee Yoo Young, Kim Min Jung, Tae In Ho, Kim Eui Sung

Drama Rating: 7/10     Neck Score: A

While I loved this one a lot, I also think it could have been better. I loved those moments where the couple became a power couple, working together to track down and catch the bad guys. He had the conman brains and she was the muscle that made the thugs run. It was awesome. But, that didn't happen as much as I wanted, and a lot of the show was full of instead their marital problems caused by the fact that he was lying to her about being a conman and felt super guilty about it. The driving force of the show was that he would do anything to keep her from finding out, because then, being a cop, she would probably leave him.

So, with that being said, it was still super fun. It was a political comedy, the romance was very secondary because they get married at the beginning, so obviously there isn't going to be that "will they won't they" aspect. There is just the "will she actually figure it out this episode" aspect of it. That was also a strong point, because then it could focus completely on the comedy, and really everyone was funny.

340. Kill It 킬잇 (2019) Korean

Chang Ki Yong, Nana, Roh Jeong Eui,  Lee Jae Won, Jung Hae Kyun

Drama Rating: 6/10     Neck Score: A+

I wanted to like this drama way more than I did. It was just strangely boring for a 12 episode action drama. You know for a drama about an assassin, even called Kill It, there was less death than I thought, and the point seemed to be to NOT kill it. It was more of a melodrama than an action drama. And since both leads were chill, soft spoken characters, some of the scenes with them just sitting in silence, totally ok with that, made me fall asleep.

Also, it was short, only 12 episodes, but it still seemed to take everyone forever to figure things out. They just never seemed to put two and two together. She's a cop chasing the assassin, who is trying to hunt down his past. She figures out that is 88 way sooner than she figures out that he's the assassin. Somehow she was able to convince herself otherwise? And I knew what the bad guys were doing the whole time, why did it take them so long to figure it out? Because once they did it would turn into a rampage with lots of death like it did?

332. Never Let You Go 小女花不弃 (2019) Chinese

Ariel Lin, Vin Zhang, Ausitn Lin, Tiara Huang

Drama Rating: 5/10     Neck Score: A+++

I am at the point where I will watch anything for Vin Zhang and I need to stop, because while he is awesome, not all his dramas are. Also, he is usually the broody second male lead who never has a chance. That's why I was so excited for this one. He was the male lead and he wasn't an evil broody one either (not that he didn't have his broody moments, but those are hot, so I wasn't complaining about a few). To make it even better, Ariel Lin is the lead, and I love her, so I was really excited for this one. But, in true C-drama fashion, the drama took some drastic turns to the point that it became completely unrecognizable by the end. But the redeeming quality was that the main couple is cute beyond all reason. Yes, I watched just for them, but it was too long a drama for just that. There was sadly not enough main couple being cute scenes. I would watch 50 episodes of just that, if they'd let us. But no, they didn't do that. There really might only be 5 episodes worth of good content. Sigh.

337. I Hate You, Juliet 너 미워! 줄리엣 (2019) Korean

Lee Hong Ki, Jung Hye Sung, Choi Woong

Drama Rating: 5/10     Neck Score: A-

This was a ho hum drama. It didn't really do much and didn't have a lot to say for itself. It was shorter, 18 episodes that were only about 20 minutes long, so not a lot was bound to happen and of course what little did happen would be resolved super fast. But it had good ideas that just never went anywhere. If it weren't for the fact that I love Hong Ki and Hye Sung, I probably wouldn't have started it and definitely wouldn't have finished it. As it was I forgot I was watching it all the time and only when I was bored flipping through shows and it happened to be there did I remember it existed. So, it's not like I hated it or anything, it was just very forgettable.