179. Reply 1988 응답하라 1988 (2015) Korean

Lee Hyeri, Ryu Jun Yeol, Go Kyung Po, Park Bo Gum, Lee Dong Hwi

Drama Rating: 8/10     Neck Score: A

Well that was a perfectly wonderful drama that fell flat on its face in the end.  Everything was wonderful until they finally did a time jump.  Then all the sudden they tried too hard to wraps things up too suddenly.  You know, the things they'd been neglecting while they spent more time on the gloriously awesome other things.  I mean neglecting all the romance in favor of family and community matters.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the family and community matters.  This show was one big neighborhood romance as opposed to a romance or love triangle.  Well that's what I thought it was until they forced it back into a love triangle husband hunt in the last few episodes.  Narratively, the romance didn't make sense.  I have no idea why they wrote it that way.  Why would they make us care about one person so much that they completely neglected building up the person who was actually going to end up married to her?  Mmmm, no.  Not okay with it.  I cared about every single character in this drama.  I was absolutely in love with Jung Bong, and Samcheonpo (Kim Sung Kyun), and Cheetah Ahjumma, and Jin Joo.  All five of the kids.  Literally everyone was compelling.  Their stories together, the little mundane things.  All of it was so good.  The only thing that wasn't good was the way they handled the romance.  It was like the battle of the 2nd male leads.  They made us care about Jung Hwan by showing us his feelings from episode 1, and then they made both him and Taek do nothing... for the rest of the series.  We never knew what Deok Sun was thinking.  She ended up being an impressionable girl who married the only guy who ever actually did something, after 6 years of doing nothing because the writers are lame, and we never knew what she was feeling the whole time.  I might have given this show a 9 or a 10 if the ending hadn't been so lame, but that really leaves the last impression, doesn't it?  I was actually so angry at the way they played so mercilessly with my emotions that I didn't even want to finish episode 19, and if it wasn't for Jung Bong's scenes being next I probably wouldn't have.  They literally spent so much time making me hurt for Jung Hwan that I literally didn't care about anything else.  That's just messed up.  Literally the only good thing that happened after the time jump to 94 was Sseuregi Oppa.  The end.  They needed to balance the romance with the neighborhood love so we actually have time to care about the couple.  We needed to see the couple grow, not have their love force fed to us in the last two episodes.  Like, they literally rammed it down our throats in such a way that even if I was team Taek I wouldn't have been satisfied.  Like seriously no.  Very badly done.  Narratively, it was a huge slap to the face to all characters involved.  I mean, Cheetah Ahjumma going through menopause was more compelling than the love story, and that is a fact.  So the ending gets a 1 or a 2.  The rest of the series gets a 9 or a 10 (because they made me love them) so that evens out to a 7 or 8.  Since I want to be generous and try to not let the bad aftertaste taint how fun the rest of the show was, I will make it an 8, but that is being very generous on my part.  (She's not even sitting next to him in this poster!)

192. Falling For Challenge 도전에 반하다 (2015) Korean

Kim So Eun, Xiumin, Jang Hui Ryoung, Jang Yoo Sang

Drama Rating: 6/10     Neck Score: A-

This was another cute, short web drama.  I like Kim So Eun, so I thought I might as well watch it since, with 6 nine minute episodes, it is only an hour long.  That always makes things rushed, especially in the romance department.  But this was about working together and growing together.  It's about a struggling club that's purpose is to take on challenges.  It only has two members, both girls, but magically it gets two boys to join (hmm, two boys and two girls?).  One of them is Xiumin, who is a mime, or Pierrot as they call it, in training.  Anyway, I spent the whole show being weirded out by all the people that Xiumin reminds me of.  Basically I would describe it as this: If G-Dragon and Baek Jin Hee were to have a love child... and if Yoon Doo Joon was somehow also related, or at least around to train him in facial expressions, then that about sums him up.  At least I know why he is one of my friend's Exo bias (especially when she also loves G-Dragon) because he's cute and has a great smile.  But he also looks like he's twelve, so I only want to pat him on the head and tell him he's cute, that is all.  It was a good little web drama.  I liked the documentary style.  It made it a bit different, so that was nice.

My Secret K-Biases, Ridiculous Dislikes, and People I Can't Take Seriously

I don't know why I am not completely honest with my feelings, even down to the celebrity crush level.  I guess I am just a compulsive emotional liar, especially to myself, haha.  You know when you secretly like someone but it's so secret that you don't even tell yourself?  It's not just me, right? ... Ahem.  Well, I do this all the time, and then when I finally realize it and admit it, I'm suddenly like "why did I never...?" or "I can't believe I didn't just admit this..." or "what was I thinking?"

I also have unreasonable dislikes for people.  Sometimes they are based on an impression from a drama that remains long after they are no longer playing that character, but I still can't separate them from that character, and sometimes it is because I think their face looks creepy.  I tell you, they are unreasonable and also a total joke (because I actually don't hate them as people or anything, I just like to hate on them).  I also have people that I just can't take seriously and will lovingly laugh every time I see them do anything... anything at all.

Aladdin and the Three Amigos: Chuno is Full of Nicknames

We are the three aAAAAAAAAmigos!  And amigos forever we'll be.... EEEEEEEEEEE!

That was literally the first thing that popped into all of our heads as we started the first episode of Chuno.  And with these three amigos being shirtless hotties, we were excited to watch... at first.  Oh Chuno, so good, yet so draggy.  Once I hit episode 11, it was awesome, but getting to that point was frustrating.  It was frustrating after that too.  But the thing that was consistently good, despite the near misses and frustrating no talk just fight and die mentality, was how good the characters were.  We had names for all of them, like usual.  And even the ones I hated most of the time made me cry by the end.  Nice development.

Curdy and MarlubsGD's Weird Dreamland Adventures

This one deserved its own post because it was kind of long and kind of ridiculous.

I mean, you can't get much crazier than Curdy's dream here...

187. My Girl 마이 걸 (2005) Korean

Lee Dong Wook, Lee Da Hae, Lee Joon Ki, Park Si Yeon

Drama Rating: 5/10 Neck Score: A-

I started this because I have a goal to watch all the Hong Sister's dramas eventually, but also because I needed more fluffy, trope romcoms in my life. You know the kind with forced living situations and ridiculous relationship deals, etc. I've been watching too many melodramas of late. Well, for the first half this really fit the bill, besides being highly laughable while looking at the early 2000s clothing styles and bad hair. I thought Lee Da Hee was Song Hye Kyo from Full House at first because their character styles are literally the same.  Awful.  The curly pigtails and mismatched quirky homespun look.  Shudder.  I'm glad she stopped the pigtails.  They turned a normally sexy woman into a nauseating aegyo fest.  I seriously thought Joon Ki was a girl at one point when I wasn't paying attention closely, because his hair was so bad. Ugh, the mullets. Yuck. That put a minus on the general A score of their necks.  It was fun at first, but super draggy to get to the main point, with them actually falling in love and wanting to get together, and then after they finally did (it took like 12 episodes) they were immediately ripped apart and the rest of the show became a mopey, draggy, mess of boring and overly dramatic. I was so bored trying to finish it.  And the 2nd leads hung on for way too long.  No, stop making my Joon Ki pathetic!  I only want happy Joon Ki and no drunk sad Joon Ki!  Boo.  I do have to say that minus the awful hair Lee Don Wook looks better in this one... tan and not overly pasty like recent dramas he's been in.  Why is he so white these days?  Well, it was fun in spots, but this drama was definitely meh at best.

182. Love Me, If You Dare 他来了请闭眼 (2015) Chinese

Wallace Huo, Ma Sichun, Edward Zhang, Wang Kai, Andrew Yin

Drama Rating: 7/10     Neck Score: A++

I'm impressed.  This actually managed to creep me out a little at one spot.  Like I got little chills and thought "maybe I shouldn't be watching this alone at night" like I was.  But the fact that this was go good in spite of the horrific English speaking actors that had overly large parts in this is impressive too.  The second half of the show takes place in the U.S. so it is chalked full of actors speaking English who are supposed to be American.  There was that Susan FBI Profiler who was better than most English speaking actors in an Asian drama in the fact that she at least tried to sound American, but she also sounded like she was trying to sound cool and sexy all the time.  Then there was the dude from internal affairs who was clearly Russian and struggled with pronouncing his lines.  He acted a bit better than most.  There were a few others who just made me laugh every time they were on screen, like Dr. Barnes and that old dude... hahaha.  But a show can be better than its English speaking actors, which is a relief.  This show was full of hot Chinese men, such as Wallace Huo, who I started the show for.  He was a good pick for this egotistical criminal profiler with a potential dark side, since he plays creepy, egotistical, and cute all really well.  His creepy side is even sexy, which is true but weird to say out loud.  Then of course there is Wang Kai, who has a blessed jawline.  But the neck I fell for the most was Andrew Yin (Yin Zhen) also known as Cute Neck or the Baby GD Best Friend.  I thought he was just cute at first, and then I saw him in a polo and was a goner... happy sigh... Ahem, back to the important part.  The show itself.  There were lots of nice plot twists and darkness.  It certainly didn't hold back in the gruesome crimes department.  They were all pretty bad, which was good for a crime drama, and then when it started getting really psychological in the plot twists, I liked it even more.  There were several times when I thought everyone was going to die it was so good.  Like everyone.  But then there were also really confusing moments with... alternate endings?  I'm not really sure what was going on there.  Like what could have happened and then what really did?  Still confused about that.  Oh well. Also, some of the solutions seemed a bit fantastical.  Well... I guess it goes both ways when it comes to predicting what the hero or villain will do.  I could predict some things, but other things were not necessarily surprising, but not typical, which is generally good.  Basically it was a good, dark, psychological crime romance with good plot twists, plenty of blood, and a bunch of English speaking actors that just have to be tolerated because the rest of the show is good.