This drama actually manages to capture you until the very end, which is about 50 episodes later, no small feat.

I love history, I love historical politics, I love martial arts and sword fights, I love clever, tactical plot twists and to that, a tiny bit of romance. I got served so well....

And I started watching this before knowing that it depicted real-life events and persons, that, of course, made it even better for me.

It is rare to see a true-to-history-drama successfully deliver a good portion of tension and other emotions throughout the whole series, and they managed to do this here. Because of the length and real-time that passes, you grow attached to the characters, and thus when some of them start to change and/or meet their fate, you are right in the middle of it, or at least it feels that way.
Who are the good guys and who the bad, becomes an increasingly blurred line here, and it throws ethical questions right back at you.

I never even once got bored by this drama and never skipped scenes.

And: This drama produced one of my favourite female supporting characters of all time - master of swords, beautiful face (perfect choice of actress), humble demeanor, tragic story.... sigh (more would spoiler it).

If you love historical-political-action - you GOTTA watch this.

Leia Mais

This came close to perfect.

The plot was thrilling, the action scenes were great, the actors were top nodge...
There was a lot of romance...
And surprisingly that's my critique:
It was maybe even a little bit too much romance for such a drama, especially later with
the on and offs going on between them. And then, when you suspect a great romantic ending after so much prelude, there was practically none in the final episodes. It was really anti-climatic in this regard.

But really, I just loved the leading male and female roles (finally a tough girl!).

It is almost as perfect as Healer. Almost. ;)

Leia Mais

This was GOOD.

I never watched such a long drama before, AND it was my first historical one.
And I really loved it.

It was very accurate - from the costumes to the very strategic and clever plot - all done very well.

For me, it is important that plot and characters do behave/develope realistically/logical, and this drama delivered.

It even got me hooked on historical dramas and the real history of Joseon/Goryeo and now I am well
informed about the history of Korea :)

The king of Goryeo here was written and played so well, that he is one of my favourite characters I have ever seen in Asian Dramas.

So, if you like clever stories and lack of comeday doesn't bother you, then try this. It is awesome.

Leia Mais

For me, there are really few dramas out there, where I do not skip a scene here and there, just because I find the whole plot too long and just want to watch the "interesting" parts straight away.

Watching this drama, I did not skip a single scene. The whole series was enjoyable and kept me entertained all the while.

There are so many adorable scenes and moments, you wouldn't want to miss them.

It is an uplifting drama with high entertainment value and superb actors.
And it might be one of the very, very, very few that I will rewatch.

So - watch it and have fun :)

Leia Mais

This drama just cost me the whole night, because I just could not stop watching it. It might be the most addicting drama I have ever seen, surpassing even Healer or City Hunter.

In all, it was AWESOME. You would be crazy to miss on this, especially if you are into history-fantasy-romance - the love story here is phenomenal.

And it manages to be so, although there are a few critique points. But first, what was so GREAT about it:

1) The main character - he is just adorable. Just the right amount of funny, goofy, badass, strong, emotional, all mixed into one.
2) The story - the drama starts with a beautiful and tragic love story by itself which makes a great
start. The pace of the story altogether is great, and the development of our hero especially very believable. There are many highlights and quite some action during the whole plot, and of course there is a big emotional ending.
3) The female leading role can actually fight and is not a princessy princess, which is absolutely great.
4) You will live through MANY emotions, sometimes it makes you laugh out loud, sometimes sad. Thre are many characters who will trigger different reactions, the fate of e.g. the hero's first love is really tough.
5) The suspense at the end of each episode is unbelievable.

And here come the two biggest PROBLEMS I had with this drama:

1) The music - during the most romantic scenes the music is just TOO MUCH. It just doesn't fit this historical-action drama,even if its about love. They totally overdid it, for me its too whiny.
2) The main actress (SUZY)... sigh. I don't know what the heck happened, but about midway through the series she started acting so bad, it really bothered me whilst watching.
First, she was kickass, but then gradually, almost every take of her face showed just a dull staring expression, ALWAYS THE SAME. You cannot miss it. It is EVERYWHERE. Almost no emotions visible or childishly forced eyebrows, her mouth gaping open, especially in the last few episodes - OMG, I so came to hate this mouth because I could just not ignore her bad acting. Plus: When she had to play hurt/sick/fainting - this was on such an amateur level... It was almost emberassing to watch, really.
She was a really bad choice for this tough female character. If the main male role had not been brilliant, this would NOT HAVE WORKED at all.

So, the music and main actress sucked, but still, I am giving this drama 10 out of 10 just because it was 100% entertaining and emotionally versitile - and the love story was huge (I would have wished for a "straight" happy ending, but oh well...)

Leia Mais

(short review)

First of all: It is an entertaining drama. It is worth watching, but it is not stellar.

What surprised me, was that I actually expected (naive of me, I guess), a drama
with lots of military stuff and seriousness.
But it is a total CHICK FLIC :D

This drama gets very cheezy at some points in a weird way, maybe because it
tries to mix romance with serious topics.

The best part about this drama is the humour - it is realistic in a way I am not used to
in K-dramas, I really enjoyed the pranks and funny interactions between the characters
and soldiers. It portrayed humour like everyday people could actually have it.

It was entertaining and I am happy that I watched it. Maybe I will revisit the funny scenes at some
point :)

Leia Mais

I have to say, this is a very endearing drama, and not as slow as I am used from Taiwanese standards.

It has a basic setting like Boys over Flowers, but it is quite different in many aspects.
Here are the points, that stood out to me:

1) The romance is very light for the first half or so, and gets more attention later on, but it never develops to such a single focused matter like in Korean dramas. That is due to
2) the wide range off different relationships that are here depicted. Although we have a main couple, it is more of an emotional network that is portrayed throughout the series
3) The main female character is naive, but to a believable extent, and she shows her martail arts skills throughout the series - which is nice, since many dramas portray strong femal characters as badass in the first two or so episodes and then let them transform to more tamed ones.
4) The mood stays light, until the last 5 episodes or so. Even then, when death happens at last, it is not as heavy as it is usually.

Aaaahhh... all in all - this drama has it ALL, but in a much more lighthearted way.
I really enjoyed it, especially the funny scenes.

Leia Mais

Now, this is weird. I totally expected to hate it... but I did not.

I stayed away from this drama for a long while because of some very bad reviews.
Now that I watched it, it taught me the lesson to not judge a book by its cover...
(and it might have helped that my expectations were not too high)

OF COURSE - this drama is not innovative nor deep nor the king of dramalang.
But seriously - who reads the plot-description and expects it to be? Haven't you
watched at least some of the bazillion cliché romance dramas before?
If you have, then you should know what comes your way.

Agreed, this drama delivers a good roundabout rich douchebag falls in
love with the poor heroine and it does not leave out the bitch, the rowdy guy, the
awful rich family and lots of bullying (and probably some more clichés... was there
the piggyback-ride? I'm not sure).
Hey, but it was totally fine, because when you dive into this, you should be looking
for stuff like that, too.
The acting was fine - I am not a fan of the female lead, but oh well. Her behaviour, too,
was unnerving sometimes, they wrote her character as someone intelligent and decent
but her reactions tended to be flat in many ways. This was the only major "letdown".

If you like the cliché romance stuff with no specific innovations and don't expect much more
than enjoyable entertainment, then this is totally fine.

Leia Mais

This is an in-between-drama, which is enjoyable enough.

I liked the idea of a genius-awkward-weather-girl solving cases, and actually liked the individual murder-cases, too.

Of course, this is a very "light" Japanese drama, thus it cannot be taken entirely serious. It has funny moments and a nice "nerdy" vibe, which makes it fun to watch, although the police work etc. fall flat (which is intended here).

However, the ending falls totally flat. Seriously, it was so weird, that I actually searched for another episode because I thought the actual ending was missing... But, oh well, it was never a "I-can't-wait-for-the-next-episode"-drama to begin with, so you get over it pretty quick.

I don't regret watching it, but there is no reason to do so again.

Leia Mais

This drama is indeed something fresh and new.

It's a slife-of-life story about five female roommates between 20 and 28,, and every one of them has a singular character and background story. We see them struggle with romance, money, fate and life in general. Oh, and there is the "ghost", of course...

While especially in the first half of the drama I cannot deny some dragging moments, it was still entertainning because of the very unique and quirky humour. Talk about sex and armpit hair shouldn't ruffle your feathers. There are dark plot aspects regarding the girls' pasts, but it stays mostly light and you don't have to be afraid of the ending.

I'd say the rewatch value is really high, because all these small moments are so entertaining, that it doesn't matter whether you know how the drama ended.

Yeah, definitely a breath of fresh, pink air :)

Leia Mais

THIS is as close a manga adaptation as you will ever see in real life dramas. So, you have to realize, that this tops the goofyness and weirdness of many J-dramas by quite a bit.
I have never read the manga-version, but you can literally see in each scene the angle and direction of comedy manga-drawins, it is SO MUCH over the top.
Naturally, this is a very light-hearted drama, although it touches here and there some serious intentions of the characters.
The female lead Nodame is this quirky, non-ambitious, a little bit crazy and childish girl, who in fact, is as good a musician as it gets - and this was plotwise the most interesting part for me, seeing her try (for some time at least). The protagonist Chiaki is the typical high-quality musician, who suffers from PTSD and dares not to board a plane or ship to go abroad for studying.
One day Franz Stresemann (oh my God, the Japanese version of this German or Austrian dude, is just....lol), a widely known conductor (and pervert), comes to the school and shakes everything a bit up and Chiaki never gets rid of Nodame again...
There is SOME sort of love story, but not really what you are used to, so don't expect too much in this aspect.
The best part for me was to see the ambitions of most of the orchestra members rise and them trying to reach their goals, whilst listening to some fine music.

If you're looking for some really goofy entertainment right straight out of a manga, then you should give this a try.
(If you want to see the more realistic and longer version, then go to Korea's version - Tomorrow's Cantabile, which I found to be just as entertaining in its own way.)

PS: The thing I loved most about this drama... was hands down the fart-song and how Harisen danced to it. It was DIVINE :D

Leia Mais

Aaaah, this made film history.... (And the book is great, too, btw.) And for that reason alone it should be watched, just like Star Wars or Citizen Kane or classics alike.

I am old enough that I had the joy to watch this movie shortly after its release, so I didn't have to compare it to nowaday standards. Back then, it was top nodge and of course, the story and setting were something totally new to me as a Westerner.

You gotta be warned, if you didn't know this beforehand, but this is not a happy story. Set in a futuristic alternative Japan, each year a class is selected to be sent on an island where the pupils have to battle each other until only one stays alive. Of course, this is a rather radical setting, and one has just to accept it, because the interesting thing is what happens psychologically later. As the fighting continues, many emotional developments occur, as is epected when humans are pushed to their limits. And as a viewer one keeps asking oneself "What would I have done?" It is not a flamboyant fantasy story like Hunger Games (which I always saw as rip-off of this idea here), it is not Hollywood, it is a stab in your heart and your brain, and either are you a viewer who enjoys this ... or not.

Other than other reviewers, I give this a very high rewatch value (I have seen it about 6 times myself), because each time you get the occasion to focuse more on the psychological aspects rather than the slaughter itself. It's just one of those movies, which can offer deep insight if you give it some time.

To those who liked it a lot, I recommend the book, it gives a deeper inside into the persons' feelings and thoughts and enriches the experience by this.

Leia Mais