Tag: Contemporary

Review: Forecasting Love and Weather

Posted July 28, 2022 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Forecasting Love and Weather

Starring: Park Min Young, Song Kang, Yoon Park, Yura
Year Released: 2022
Number of Episodes: 16
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Romance, Office Romance
Country: South Korea
Where I Watched It: Netflix
Recommended By: N/A
Who I Watched It For: Song Kang

A romance drama about the work and love in the office of National Weather Service, hotter than tropical nights and more unpredictable than localized heavy rains.

Jin Ha Kyung is an intelligent and highly organized individual who does everything by the book and is fastidious about keeping her personal and professional lives separate. Due to her cold demeanor, she has few friends at work and has become an “outsider by choice.”

Lee Shi Woo is a free spirit who is always thinking outside the box. Although he can appear clumsy, he boasts an impressive IQ of 150 and is able to achieve anything once he sets his mind to it. However, in spite of his intelligence and abilities, all he cares about is the weather.

Han Ki Joon is a handsome and quick-witted character with a silver tongue. Using his formidable powers of persuasion, Han Ki Joon eventually gets scouted by the spokesperson’s office after struggling in the early days of his career at the service. However, because he has lived his entire life as a model student, he has a hard time dealing with failure.

Chae Yoo Jin is a daily weather reporter. Although she went into her job with lofty dreams of breaking news, exciting scoops, and on-site reports, Chae Yoo Jin was ultimately assigned to the “weather and lifestyle team.” While she was initially disappointed by the assignment, she eventually comes to grow fond of her job.

Park Min Young and Song Kang are two actors that I like so I knew that I was going to watch this one when it dropped. I watched the entire thing and this was one of those shows that while I was watching it, was great. I enjoyed the characters, the romance between the main and secondary leads but the time in between??? Yeah, I was never rushing to watch the new episodes.

The main leads delivered their characters well. I enjoyed getting to know both Ha Kyung and Shi Woo. They were good at their job and I loved how protective Shi Woo was over Ha Kyung’s reputation at work though I felt their romance moved at warped speed in the beginning, I came to really love their mature relationship. I loved how Ha Kyung was all in, honest in how she felt, and quick to apologize when she was wrong. She was a lot better than I am because even when she had an attitude, she was able to set things right without blowing shit up. When the inevitable break up happens, I thought it was pretty dumb and though their romance happened pretty quickly, the pacing of the show as a whole was pretty slow and I think that played a huge role in why it took me so long to gear up to watch the episodes every week.

I did think that their jobs were interesting and never would have paid any mind to forecasters if I hadn’t watched this show. This show paints a realistic picture of how important and how varied the jobs of forecasters and weather people are. At least, a realistic picture in the sense of every factor in the decisions and announcements that they make to the public. Their jobs aren’t easy ones and I loved seeing their work dynamic with their team. The reporters who report the weather have loads to juggle as well and seeing all of these guys in their element made watching the show easier when I was watching it.

I was surprised at how much I came to enjoy the secondary romance. When we first meet the secondary couple, we’re not fans of them. Their story unfolds slowly and goes from I hate them to I don’t care for them to awwww, I hope they make it strange for me since I hate cheaters and these two cheated on the main couple when they were together. Still, all well that ends well and everyone ended up with who they were meant to end up with. I also liked the romance between Ha Kyung’s sister and Ha Kyung’s co-worker. I loved Ha Kyung’s meddling mother and I hated Shi Woo’s dad.

I loved the weather team and seeing them all struggle through their personal lives at the same time trying to provide up-to-date weather reports to the public. I thought the way that they all took their jobs seriously was commendable and I cheered for all of them both personally and professionally. Overall, this show was slow to develop but had a satisfying ending that made me happy. The romance was strong and it was sweet, the weather stuff was interesting and I didn’t think it would be and the show itself was solid. I definitely recommend it.

The OST

Final Rating

via GIPHY

3.5 out of 5

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Review: Twenty Five, Twenty One

Posted July 26, 2022 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Twenty Five, Twenty One

Starring: Kim Tae Ri, Nam Joo Hyuk, Bona, Choi Hyun Wook, Lee Joo Myung
Year Released: 2022
Number of Episodes: 16
Genre: Contemporary, Romantic Comedy, Romance
Country: South Korea
Where I Watched It: Netflix
Recommended By: N/A
Who I Watched It For: Nam Joo Hyuk, Choi Hyun Wook

In a time when dreams seem out of reach, a teen fencer pursues big ambitions and meets a hardworking young man who seeks to rebuild his life.

Na Hee Do is a member of her high school fencing team. Due to the South Korean financial crisis, the high school fencing team gets disbanded. Getting through all the difficulties, she becomes a member of the national fencing team.

The South Korean financial crisis also causes Baek Yi Jin’s father’s business to go bankrupt. This leads to a life change for Baek Yi Jin, from living the life of a wealthy person to a poor person. While studying, he works part-time jobs like delivering newspapers. Later, he becomes a sports reporter for a broadcasting network.

I wanted to watch this show because both Nam Joo Hyuk and Choi Hyun Wook were in it. I was still riding high on my love of Racket Boys and wanted to support Choi Hyun Wook’s new project so as soon as the drama dropped, I was on it.

This drama follows a young protagonist who is determined to be the best fencer in South Korea. She meets a young man named Baek Ye Jin and becomes fast friends with him. Na Hee Do was such a vibe. I loved the hell out of young Hee Do. I also loved the hell out of young Ye Jin. Seeing them meet, bicker, and then become friends before developing romantic feelings for each other was a whole lot of fun. I adored the first half of this show. Seeing high school Hee Do battle her Mom to be able to keep fencing and seeing Ye Jin struggle to find his place in the world now that he wasn’t the rich kid anymore made tuning in every week a lot of fun. Things were hard for Ye Jin but I loved that he didn’t give up and he just kept right on grinding, even though he kept getting kicked down. I loved the friendship that blossomed between him and Hee Do, too. The faith that Hee Do had in him gave him the wings he needed to find his footing. I cheered for the two of them on their own and I cheered for them together.

The romance between these two was one for the books. I adored every moment they shared with each other when they were young. I was oohing and ahhing over every journal entry right along with Hee Do’s daughter. I kept hoping that they would somehow find their way back to each other even though current Hee Do and Ye Jin didn’t seem to keep in touch at all…and that’s where a lot of my issues with this show started and ended. The reasons they broke up and couldn’t be together made no sense with the kind of relationship that Hee Do ended up in. So they had this intense love affair and were each other’s whole world but couldn’t be together because they couldn’t do the long distance thing….and then Hee Do grows up and has a husband that works abroad? How does that make any sense? Grrr….I’m still not over my attitude about that. It sucked that we spent an entire season cheering for a couple, only for them to not end up together in the end. And the reason is just too stupid for me to understand.

Now, aside from my attitude over how everyone ends up when they’re older, my very favorite thing about this show was these guys…

This squad was everything. I absolutely adored these guys. It took me a little bit to warm up to Yu Rim but once she joins the squad, I came to really love her. Things were hard for her and my heart hurt for the sacrifices she felt she had to make for her family but I loved that she was just Yu Rim to these guys and even though I was really shipping Ji Woong with Seung Wan, I wasn’t mad that he ended up with Yu Rim.

As much as I loved everyone in this show, my favorite character was Moon Ji Woong. Hee Do was great. Seung Wan was great. Ye Jin was great. Yu Rim ended up being great. But Ji Woong? He was the best. He was funny. He was sincere in everything he did and I absolutely loved his man crush on Ye Jin. Every time he showed Ye Jin how much he loved him, I laughed so much. I loved how he showed up for his friends and I really loved the way that Seung Wan showed up for him. They were the definition of best friends and I really enjoyed their relationship.

There was a lot to cover in this drama and I thought the actors handled their jobs incredibly well. Had this had a better ending, this would have been very high on my favorite dramas of 2022 list. But I couldn’t get over that ending and the second half of the show made me want to kick a wall so while the first half was great, the second half wasn’t and that bummed me out.

The OST

There’s some great music on the OST though I haven’t added any of the songs to my k-drama playlist. Maybe that’ll change, I’m not sure yet.

Final Rating

via GIPHY

3.5 out of 5

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Review: All of Us Are Dead

Posted July 19, 2022 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

All of Us Are Dead

Starring: Park Ji Hoo, Yoon Chan Young, Jo Yi Hyun, Lomon
Year Released: 2022
Number of Episodes: 12
Genre: Contemporary, Horror, Drama, Romance
Country: South Korea
Where I Watched It: Netflix
Recommended By: N/A
Who I Watched It For: Jo Yi Hyun

A high school becomes ground zero for a zombie virus outbreak. Trapped students must fight their way out — or turn into one of the rabid infected.

*** SPOILER ALERT! The following review will have spoilers (though I’ll try to avoid them as much as possible) so please don’t read on if you haven’t watched this drama. ***

The premise of this drama is pretty easy. A zombie outbreak happens in a high school and the students that haven’t been infected are trying to stay alive by fighting back against the infected zombie students but it ain’t easy. The uninfected are scared, teenagers, and no matter how hard they try, the zombies keep coming, making staying alive harder and harder with each episode.

In the past year or so, I’ve become a huge horror nerd. I used to hate all things scary and horror fell under that category for me. But these days, I love all things supernatural, all things horror, and I especially love zombies. I binge-watched this entire season in one day and I felt all of the feelings while doing so. I was entertained, I was annoyed, and I wanted to fight so many characters but I was invested in the main character’s journey and I was invested in trying to figure things out right along with the students in the high school.

I really connected with pretty much all of the main characters and though I wanted to smack the shit out of On Jo a time or two, I only wanted to push her out the window into the hungry zombies waiting down below like ten times, tops. I didn’t hate her in the end. If there was anyone that I wanted to kick into the depths of hell, it was this motherfucker:

No matter how many times those poor kids killed his ass, he just kept right on coming back time after time again. His determination to stay as alive as he can be and kill Cheong San would have been admirable if it wasn’t so damn annoying. He was a huge factor in why the uninfected would take two giant steps forward in their survival and then be pushed back ten steps. Between him and On Jo, I don’t know who I was more annoyed with. Because On Jo? Yeah, her heffah ass stayed on my damn nerves. The lengths that Cheong San went to protect her from the zombies, going above and beyond a next-door neighbor should have gone, pissed me off because did On Jo appreciate him or his efforts? Of course not but while I didn’t quite forgive her in the end, I didn’t hate her.

Overall, this was a fun way to spend the weekend. I was invested in everything going on. From the students trying to make it out of there alive and in one piece to the side romances that kept the story alive and running. I was rooting for Soo Hyeok and Nam Ra the most but I wanted On Jo for Cheong San, even though she didn’t deserve him, because she was who he wanted. I loved seeing Nam Ra (who I hear is in deep drunk driving trouble in real life, yikes) come into herself. The way that she kept everything at bay and did what she could to do the right thing warmed my zombie-loving heart. I definitely recommend this drama if you’re in the mood for some wholesome zombie-fighting fun. Even though it felt like everything was burning to the ground every episode, it’s a good one, I promise.

Final Rating

via GIPHY

4 out of 5

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Review: Oh My Venus

Posted July 14, 2022 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Oh My Venus

Starring: So Ji Sub, Shin Min Ah, Jung Gyu Woon, Yoo In Young
Year Released: 2015
Number of Episodes: 16
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Country: South Korea
Where I Watched It: Viki
Who I Watched It For: So Ji Sub

Kim Yeong Ho is a personal trainer for Hollywood stars. He reluctantly comes back to Korea to face his family after a scandal with an actress. Even though he comes from a wealthy family background, he suffered a devastating injury during his childhood days. Now, he overcomes his problems with living a healthy lifestyle. Kang Joo Eun is a 33-year-old lawyer who was once the beauty of her school, nicknamed “Daegu’s Venus”. Over the years she has become overweight and unhealthy. She gets dumped by her boyfriend of 15 years.

Kang Joo Eun meets Kim Yeong Ho, who agrees to be her personal trainer to help her get healthier. As they work on her physical transformation, they both discover they have feelings for each other. As they grow closer, they heal each other’s emotional wounds and fall in love.

One of my goals for this year is to write a review for every k-drama that I watch. It’s a thing that I used to do when I wrote book reviews since I was reading so much but since things are changed, k-drama reviews are where I’m taking this blog. I still have quite a few reviews to write to catch up this year but I’m slowly making progress and this is my fourth review of the year. Wish me luck.

Anyway, on with the review. This drama was recommended to me a while ago but I was never really that interested in it because of fat Shin Min Ah. The whole fat girl finds love but only after she loses all this weight message never appealed to me so I didn’t plan on watching this one but then…I watched it and while it wasn’t perfect, I didn’t hate it. I really enjoyed the chemistry between So Ji Sub and Shin Min Ah and the rest of the cast made tuning into this show a fun experience.

I’m not even going to lie. I watched this drama because 1) my Aunt wouldn’t stop raving about it and 2) I saw this picture…

So Ji Sub is fine as hell and watching his fine ass in another 16 episode drama held much appeal for me so without thinking too much about the plot, I jumped right in. It was very easy to fall into this drama and a huge part of that reason was fat Joo Eun. Her character completely won me over right from the very beginning. Her personality was so engaging and so bubbly that I couldn’t help but fall in love with her. Whatever she was going through, I was on her side. Seeing her battle wits with John Kim was so much fun. I love how she kept running into him when she was in the most embarrassing situations. And I loved even more that every single time, he kept saving her. I even came to love that he was on her ass about losing weight because it was what she wanted. He didn’t let her slide on anything and he took helping her lose the weight seriously. Sometimes he took it too seriously but it’s all good in the hood because she more than kept up with him and I enjoyed her character so much.

As fun as Joo Eun’s transformation was, there were times when the story moved a little too slow for my liking. I felt like there was so much going on but a lot of the time was spent watching Joo Eun on the treadmill. But the slowness didn’t last too long so it didn’t turn me off the show entirely. I really liked the other characters, aside from the secondary romance couple. I never really warmed up to either of them though in the end, I didn’t hate either of them. I really loved John Kim’s team and how supportive they were to both John Kim and Joo Eun.

Overall, this was a fast and fun romance with a main couple that had great chemistry and delivered fantastic visuals. They worked well together and delivered a great drama. I’m glad that I gave this one a go and though I didn’t love it as much as my Aunt did, I did enjoy it and that’s what counts.

The OST

I will admit that though I liked the music while I was watching this drama, I never once thought to add the songs off the OST to my kdrama jams playlist on Spotify so while I liked this song when I heard it on the show, it’s not something that I listen to all the time.

Final Rating

via GIPHY

3.5 out of 5

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Review: Our Beloved Summer

Posted July 12, 2022 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Our Beloved Summer

Starring: Choi Woo Shik, Kim Da Mi, Kim Sung Cheol, Noh Jung Eui
Year Released: 2021
Number of Episodes: 16
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Country: South Korea
Where I Watched It: Netflix
Who I Watched It For: Choi Woo Shik

Years after filming a viral documentary in high school, two bickering ex-lovers get pulled back in front of the camera — and into each other’s lives.

Choi Woong seems naive and a free-spirited man, but he wants to have something for the first time in his life. For that, he shows what he holds in his mind.

Kook Yeon Soo aimed to become the top student at her school, but she is now an adult who lives fiercely, adapting to her reality.

I was looking forward to this drama long before it came out. I am a fan of Choi Woo Shik, but also of Kim Da Mi and the premise of this show sounded cute so I was prepared. This drama follows two young characters, Choi Woong and Kook Yeon Soo as they journey through life after filming a reality show together in high school. They hated each other in high school and you know that always leads to a rocky romantic relationship and after a messy break up, they’re brought back together again when they’re approached to revamp their old reality show, ten years later.

When we first see these two again, the viewer is under the impression that the breakup is Yeon Soo’s fault and as each episode passes, we start to see that things aren’t so black and white where the break up is concerned. Both Yeon Soo and Woong are in different places in their lives but of course they still have big time feelings for each other and the battle they put up made for a very interesting viewing adventure.

Choi Woo Shik made a very convincing and spot on Choi Woong. I thought he pulled off the character extremely well and I loved his character so much. There were times when I want to spank him for the way that he acted around his parents but for the most part, my heart went out to him. He was very soft for Yeon Soo and he didn’t mess around about that or with her. He was always up front and even though NJ tried to be a distraction for him, Woong was steadfast in his resolve to always love Yeon Soo. He was a good son to his parents, a great friend to Ji Woong, and when she let him, a fantastic boyfriend to Yeon Soo. All in all, I absolutely loved Woong.

Kim Da Mi as Kook Yeon Soo made sense to me. She plays the reserved and sarcastic heroine really well. She was smart and she had a lot of burdens that she kept close to her chest and as we slowly get to know the real Yeon Soo, my heart went out to her. I loved that her story was slow to reveal just how hard she had it cause when the truth of everything on her end came out, that punch to the chest was something I wasn’t prepared for. Kim Da Mi did a great job with this character and I’m looking forward to more of her stuff in the future.

The romance was sweet and I didn’t mind the back and forth between both characters. I also felt bad for the second lead. He just could not get his timing right and then for him to carry such a loaded torch for Yeon Soo, all of this time and find her again when she’s reuniting with your best friend? Sheesh, how unlucky. As bad as I felt for Ji Woong, I was glad that the love triangle wasn’t a true love triangle with each guy getting a turn at loving her. I wouldn’t have been a fan of that. I’m glad that Woong and Yeon Soo were true in their feelings for each other the entire time. Their love for each other was so strong and so true that time and other distractions were never a factor in keeping them apart for long.

There’s a lot to love about this romance. The pacing, the characters, the romance, they all made for a great viewing experience and I think that k-drama fans who love a good second chance love story will be happy with this one. Choi Woo Shik and Kim Da Mi are a great couple visually and they had great chemistry in this show so I would definitely recommend this show if you’re in the mood for a nice romance. This is definitely a good one.

The OST

Every single time that this song came on the show, my heart was either breaking or so full that it was near to burst. I love this song so much and V, one of my favorite singers, does the song justice. So this OST is added to my list of favorite k-drama OSTs.

Final Rating

via GIPHY

4 out of 5

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