Tag: Recommended by B Nice

Review: Descendants of the Sun

Posted September 10, 2020 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Male Lead: Song Joong Ki
Female Lead: Song Hye Kyo
Also Starring: Jin Goo, Kim Ji Won, Onew, Kim Min Seok, Lee Seung Joon, Hyun Kyu Ni, Lee Yi Kyung, David McInnis, Kang Shin Il, Jo Jae Yoon, Jun Soo Jin, Kim Byung Chul, Seo Jeong Yeon, Jasper Cho, Ji Seung Hyun, Park Hwan Hee, Ahn Bo Hyun, Park Hoon
Year Released: 2016
Number of Episodes: 16
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Romance
Country: Korea
Where I Watched It: Hulu
Recommended By: B Nice
Who I Watched it For: Song Joong Ki

Some relationships are fated, despite the challenges of time and place.

Yoo Shi Jin (Song Joong Ki), the leader of a Special Forces unit, meets trauma surgeon Kang Mo Yeon (Song Hye Kyo) in a hospital emergency room after Shi Jin and his second-in-command, Seo Dae Young (Jin Goo), chase down a thief on their day off.

Shi Jin is immediately smitten with Mo Yeon, and he asks her out on a date. But Shi Jin keeps getting called to duty when he is with Mo Yeon, and the two also realize that they have conflicting views about human life (he will kill to protect his country and she has to save lives at all costs). They decide to break off their budding relationship as a result.

Dae Young also tries to break off his relationship with Army doctor Yoon Myeong Ju (Kim Ji Won) because her father, Lt. General Yoon (Kang Shin Il), thinks Shi Jin is a better match for his daughter.

Shi Jin and Dae Young are then deployed to the fictional war-torn country of Urk on a long-term assignment of helping the United Nations keep peace in the area. After repeatedly being passed over for a promotion because of her lack of connections, Mo Yeon gives up performing surgeries, loosening her principles somewhat to become a celebrity TV doctor and caring for VIP patients at the hospital. But when she refuses the sexual advances of the hospital chairman, Mo Yeon is picked to lead a medical team to staff a clinic in Urk! There, Mo Yeon unexpectedly reconnects with Shi Jin.

“Descendants of the Sun” is a 2016 South Korean drama series directed by Lee Eung Bok. The entire series was pre-produced prior to airing, which is a departure from how Korean dramas are typically produced. The stars and production team spent one month in Greece to film much of the series’ storyline. The drama also is the first project for Song Joong Ki after finishing his mandatory two-year military service.

I watched this show at the recommendation of my friend, B Nice and then I found out that she didn’t even watch it but heard it was good, haha. I still watched it though and though the overall romance was a good one, I struggled with connecting with what was going on and the female lead. I also thought that the male lead was a bit over the top at times but he didn’t annoy me the way that the doctor heroine did.

This show is about two people, who meet and before their romance can take off, the hero does. She’s a doctor and he’s in the military so it’s hard for them to get together because either she’s getting called into surgery or he’s getting called onto missions in faraway places that he can’t even tell her about. So there are some struggles, obviously. They also find out that they have different views on things and then there are more struggles so they call off their budding romance before it grows into anything deeper. They go their separate ways but are brought back together when Mo Yeon is assigned to lead a medical team to run a clinic in Urk, where Shin Jin is stationed. When the two reconnect, sparks fly and the story really picks up.

There’s also a secondary romance between Shin Jin’s buddy Dae Young and an army doctor, Yoon Myeong Ju that is filled with a whole lot of drama. Dae Young’s not the partner that Meyong Ju’s father would have chosen for her and he is very vocal about it. So vocal, in fact, that he consistently abuses his powers at work (he’s one of the higher-ups in the military) to move Dae Young around to make sure that he can’t be with his daughter. Dae Young, of course, doesn’t say any of this to Yoon Myeong Ju, he just goes wherever he’s sent and puts up with the abuse from her father. He kept getting pulled in different directions and his life was thrown upside down at every turn because of his girlfriend so that was some special kind of drama in itself and it drove me just as crazy as the main romance.

I will say that both sets of couples have chemistry in spades. I completely bought everything they were trying to sell and this was my introduction to all of these actors so I was impressed that they can make me feel every single emotion under the sun. I went from happy, to pissed off, to sad, back to happy, back to pissed off, back to sad for all 16 episodes but there was a whole lot of humor from the other characters sprinkled in that my overall experience with this show wasn’t all pissed off.

I’m glad that I watched this show even though it wasn’t my favorite. It introduced me to a bunch of actors I’d like to see in other shows and movies so I’m glad about that. However, this show is made up of a whole lot of stuff that pissed me off that I can’t rate it higher than 3.25 out of 5 stars. I had high hopes that things would turn around but in episode 15, the heroine and the hero were still pissing me off that by then, it was too late for me to absolutely love them. Still, this was a solid drama.

Listen to the OST

Final Rating

3.25 out of 5

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DNF Round Up: Romance is a Bonus Book, Kill Me Heal Me, and Playful Kiss

Posted September 9, 2020 by Rowena in Reviews | 2 Comments

The DNF Round Up is a round-up of the books, movies, and k dramas that I did not finish in the last little while. Sometimes it’ll be a list of all books, all movies, or all k dramas and sometimes it’ll be a mix of the three but if I didn’t finish it, it’ll be featured here. I need the reminder because I be forgetting a whole lot of shit and I’ll start dramas or books that I quit without even knowing. This is my effort in fixing that.

Male Lead: Lee Jong Suk
Female Lead: Lee Na Young
Also Starring: Jeong Yoo Jin, Wi Ha Joon, Kim Yoo Mi,Park Kyu Young, Kim Sun Young, Kang Ki Doong, Kim Tae Woo, No Jong Hyun, Choi Seung Yun, Hwang Se On
Year Released: 2019
Number of Episodes: 16
Number of Episodes Watched: 2
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Country: Korea
Where I Watched It: Netflix
Who I Watched It For: Lee Jong Suk

A gifted writer who’s the youngest editor-in-chief ever at his publishing company becomes enmeshed in the life of a former copywriter desperate for a job.

I came across this show while browsing Netflix. I was interested in it because so many people love them some Lee Jong Suk. I haven’t watched anything with him starring so I wasn’t sure what it was about him that made everyone fall so head over heels in love with him so I started this one, hoping that I’d figure it out.

After two episodes, nothing caught me and Lee Jong Suk’s character was annoying me, I wasn’t a fan of how the heroine kept getting kicked around (reminded me of a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book) so I quit it. I think it was more of a mood thing than anything else and I accidentally started watching Love Alarm at the same time so I actually finished that one and this one got left behind. I’m almost 90% sure that I’ll eventually work my way back to this one to finish it but…not right now. I will say that I was mighty intrigued by Lee Jung Suk and I understood his appeal after the episodes of this show that I watched, and that’s saying something since I was annoyed with his character the whole time I watched this show. LOL.

Will I Go Back and Finish It?

Probably

Male Lead: Ji Sung
Female Lead: Hwang Jung Eum
Also Starring: Park Seo Jun, Oh Min Seok, Kim Yoo Ri,Kim Young Ae, Ahn Nae Sang, Shim Hye Jin, Won Young Choi, Ko Chang Seok, Kim Seul Ki, Lee Si Eon
Year Released: 2015
Number of Episodes: 16
Number of Episodes Watched: 6
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Country: Korea
Where I Watched It: Viki
Recommended By: B Nice
Who I Watched It For: Park Seo Jun

Cha Do-hyun, a businessman with dissociative identity disorder, tries to regain control over his life with the help of Oh Ri-jin, a first-year psychiatric resident who treats him in secret.

I went into this show hoping for some more Park Seo Jun. I love me some him and was all prepared to love him as a secondary character. But, the actual story being told here just didn’t interest me and there wasn’t enough Park Seo Jun in the show for me to continue. After about 6 episodes with not a whole lot of Park Seo Jun and still not being captured by the story, I called it quits. There are too many other shows that I’m interested in and this one didn’t do anything for me. So like Mya, I’ll be moving on…

Will I Go Back and Finish It?

Probably Not

Male Lead: Kim Hyun Joong
Female Lead: Jung So Min
Secondary Lead: Bong Joon Gu
Also Starring: Lee Si Young, Choi Won Hong, Yoon Seung Ah,Hong Yoon Hwa, Jung Hye Young, Kang Nam Gil, Oh Kyung Soo, Choi Sung Kook, Abigail Alderete, Hee Won Lee
Year Released: 2010
Number of Episodes: 16
Number of Episodes Watched: 7
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Country: Korea
Where I Watched It: Viki
Recommended By: Meghan
Who I Watched It For: Meghan

A clumsy high-school girl – Oh Ha-ni – is at the bottom of her class, and she has had a crush on a popular genius, Baek Seung-Jo, ever since she first laid eyes on him.

This was one of my niece Meghan’s favorite shows when she was in high school so she urged me to watch it. I tried telling her that I’m not much of a fan of the older stuff, I’d much prefer to watch shows that have come out in the last couple of years, not in the last decade but she still wanted me to give it a go so I did…and I hated it. The male lead was a dick head, the female lead was a complete klutz for no reason and their whole dynamic left much to be desired. I’m too old to be watching immature kids being mean to each other when they really like each other. Miss me with those kinds of shenanigans. Poor Meghan, she was really hoping that I would share her love for this show and…that didn’t happen. I noped out of this show real quick. Sorry, Meg.

Will I Go Back and Finish It?

Nope

Have you DNF’d anything lately? Share your recent DNF’s in the comments so I know what to stay away from!

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