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Yep, I'm definitely one of the 2018-19 generation who is now experiencing that `watch 10 to find 1 good one' stage. It's tough, but I'm gritting my teeth and perservering... :-D

Horrible service especially why they casted an actor she had zero chemistry with and why did they try a force a relationship that not one viewer cared about. They lost me at episode 6 when i realized they where about to screw me over with this storyline

I have watched it until episode 21 and I love it so much ..everything. however I am longing for the continuation until end

I love this essay! I remember the controversies around Mr. Queen but didn't connect them to YoungSol/NoonaSol. I also didn't think of the contrast between how LR and Someday or One Day dealt with this moral dilemma. SD1D explicitly built the dilemma into the narrative and the tragic-happy ending for the protagonists was to sacrifice their love to save the person whose body was possessed and their friend. They (temporarily) lost their love but grew into better, more ethical and ultimately more loving people because the circle of love expanded to include CYR and MJJ. Lovely Runner was so laser focused on bringing Sol and Sunjae together as the highest priority that the changes to everyone else's lives never factored into Sol's decision making (e.g., Taesung going from an online retailer to a cop, Sol's brother and best friend marrying). Be My Favorite is a good contrast for a lot of reasons, including that the protagonist's emotional journey was about growing past his selfish focus on getting the girl to thinking more broadly about how his actions could result in a disaster for everyone he cared about. I also think that BMF introduced that element of uncertainty to the narrative that you said made Lovely Runner compelling, only BMF did it by having the protagonist travel to the future repeatedly to see what changed as a result of his actions. Anyway, good stuff! Loved this very much.

I started this drama immediately after this video and i absolutely loved it, and its been 2 weeks since and i can't seem to start anything else! Do u have any similar cdrama recommendations? Something that's realistic and not too fluffy but with a happy ending and solid natural chemistry b/w the leads? I neeed something new to watch to get over this show!

FINE!! I am sold. I'll go watch this😂

I just started watching this and I'm loving the aesthetic, the vibe, and the pacing so far. It's gorgeous and wonderful to see a modern cdrama that doesn't have that pink plasticky sheen and an infantilized female lead. While the leads are objectively beautiful people, the characters feel more real than most, and the supporting cast and the setting are important players in that feeling. Anywhooo, I'm pausing your video for now because I don't want spoilers, but it's good to know you haven't been let down in the second half. Oh, and sidenote: This is the third drama I've watched with Li Xian where he is working with the dead. This one, Tientsin Mystic, and Medical Examiner Dr. Qin.

Prison-style food? You've got to be kidding me!

Yeah. I think it's the best song off the the whole ost. And it's her opener and theme song. Not the best fantasy drama, but it looks like they had fun making it.😊

I like how you think 😂😂

Looking forward to the foothold being dislodged and Kdrama no longer being created for the western gaze because of Netflix billions, so we can get some good quality, well written, anti-imperialism, culturally relevant stories again out of Korea

After completing this series, what were your thoughts? I hope you provide a more detailed analysis of the drama.

The weirdest case for me recently has been that of 'Revenge of Others'. I absolutely loved the drama till Episode 11, but the last episode just really disappointed me in multiple ways. Not only was there a rushed ending, the actual perpetrator who the FL was after throughout the series basically gets forgiven easily (using DID in a very non-realistic, excuse-like way - esp with how the FL helps him 'snap' out of his other personality with a few cliche lines?) And then, instead of him being put through a trial, the main antagonist accidentally gets killed/fatally wounded by the ML - and the ML just gets away with that?? I love me some awesome revenge dramas but these things definitely make you wonder where the line should be drawn. ^-^

May be .his very funy love so much look how can get one love .mastic act hangri little difficult take care love honest ..

I absolutely got hooked into the show by the first episode it's a different type of show i have watched

Good video essay

I have just watched the scene where she tells him she doesn’t remember they slept together. And he didn’t sau nothing happened! And here I am. Judging by the comments, he never does, so he really slept with a drunk woman, taking advantage of her. No consent. Oh my oh my. I can’t believe this made the cut. Major red flag! I am still in shock.

Yep dung eun hadn't changed her views when she was on that roof but i also think she still blamed herself for what happened to so hee even though she got justice for her

I didn't feel bad for sumin or the husband because of the way they treated ji won neither one tried to change and take accountability Question what are your thoughts on the show remarriage and desires it's a revenge show

You're wrong about the ending in "My Name." Her partner/lover does try to convince her to go with him and start a new life together and give up her revenge plans, but she won't do it until she kills the man who killed her father. But in the end, she ends up getting her lover killed. It's very sad. If she'd been able to give up her obsession with revenge and choose to put her life first--and the life of the man she loved--imagine what a satisfying life she might have led. But in the end, she ends up alone.

That's why I absolutely hate Korean revenge dramas. Because it is not a hero against a villain. It is like a villain against a villain. They all think that they are Robbin Hood.

This a very important take that a lot of dramas are missing. However, one aspect to consider is that the main character knew what the "villains" were capable of. One of the comments under your video makes a good point about not forgetting the emotional abuse Su min inflicted on the main character. And she is also capable of physically harming the main character which was shown multiple times in the last few episodes. So, the choices the villains made time and time again were not out of not having any other options but rather out of very sinister intentions against the main character.

So I have a question what would you do if that was you in that situation. Sumin was always a terrible friend to her from the beginning, whereas min didn't show his bad side until after they were married. Also the bed where he said what he said was after sumin killed her husband and was on the run. Ji-yuk did what he did because he failed to protect her in their first life and knowing what he knew, about them at ji-woon funeral he didn't care. Also he thought he was still going to die, remember he never tried to switch his fate. I'll be honest if it was me I would do the same thing because they kept pursuing her. She tried to leave min, and she tried to stop being friends with sumin but they couldn't leave her alone especially sumin, she said she wanted to take everything from her since they were young just because her father loved her while sumin mom resented her after the affair.

hiya! new subscriber here. :) so, regarding the fact that su-min hadn't yet done those terrible things (basically sleeping with her husband), she had done other horrible things which ji-won has figured out. as terrible as sleeping with her husband? maybe not, but ji-won knew at that point that su-min had been duplicitous toward her pretty much their entire friendship and was never a real friend. unless i'm misremembering, which is totally possible but i freakin loved this drama so much. i love me some revenge, lemme tell you..... i also watched it right after binging perfect marriage revenge (which, thank GOD they didn't try to stretch that out to 16 eps, because i swear so many dramas could be edited down a few eps for much better pacing BUT I DIGRESS). i love it most of all for cluing me into the wonderfulness that is na in-woo who may have replaced park hae-jin as my #1 lol. have you or are you going to watch my happy ending? it's good but also kind of....convoluted? i'm not sure if i'm going to finish it. i actually ended up spoiling myself for the entire drama and i know i paused it right before a major thing happens which had a lot of folks divided as to whether or not it made the whole thing suck or not lol. anyway, really liking your stuff so far! you came up in my recommended and i've been watching. :) you're hilarious. <3

I wouldn’t say I squeed at the first clip, but I did squeal…the ENTIRE time they were kissing…very loudly…and I was blown out of my mind the first time I saw it…I would also just like to say, I’m sorry to the family members that were there when that scene first came on. They weren’t paying attention, but by the second time they kissed…let’s just say my squealing caught their attention😅

I disagree with your statement about does Sumin deserve that amount of punishment in 2013. Sumin since 14yr old has tortured Ji Won. Sumin devoted her entire life hurting Ji Won till the very ending her death . So Ji Won should only take revenge up to 2013 and still accept her death in 2023 NO lol

BtW, you are very much like Ambika Mod.

We shall wait for a more nuanced look on this gender reversed in-law and marriage thing. Unlike a lot of people (i am guessing) i did not really have much hope from the beginning because, wll the trailer. Did you watch the trailer before starting the series... It's like they gave almost the entire story in that trailer. Hopefully i will be proven wrong but until then 🤷

to add to your excellent point, besides the toxic dynamic, the show is a waste of a talented cast. hye ri is a comedic genius, effortlessly funny without being pitiful, jang ki-yoon can do subtleties of romance beautifully (we saw that in search www) and ha-na makes her character someone to root for. it annoys me to no end that they had all the ingredients for a banger, but the central relationship ruined the whole thing

Love Is For Suckers is two completely different dramas packaged in one for no reason: we have the bff to lovers storyline akwardly mixed with the reality dating show. as for your point, i agree that being in a relationship is a matter of timing as well as feeligns. people can have affection for one another for years, built in shared experiences cemented by time, and not be ready to explore it further, because romance carries a risk. what i enjoyed about their friendship is that it was never a means to an end to romance, they genuinely valued each other and enjoyed spending time together. they had a strong bond even if the show didn't decide to morph it to romance. (we've seen so many instances in media of mostly men hanging around a woman only to swap in when she's vulnerable, it was refreshing to see these two being real friends). the low point of this story is her falling back with her ex, it's realistic, but for me it detracted from her character. she was in a bad place, but to settle for the man who's already failed you because he's rich and available made her passive, which is not the attribute of a lead. not to mention that she'd go on to marry him if he hadn't been caught cheated, another act of passivity. still, i enjoyed the progression of her feelings for park jae-hoon, and that her frienship never contradicted with romance when it arose. on the other hand, the reality tv aspect of the drama is one of the laziest, most moronic mishandlings of serious issues (eating disorders, fat shaming, sexual assault) i've ever seen in a kdrama

i was thinking the exact same thing, just in a less analysed way, great content, keep it up, want to watch more of such videos , gonna subscribe, btw are you indian, if yes then love from another indian sis

In my opinion for every cases revenge could not change the system like in the glory the bullying can again make victims like main character

One point i would like to add is that ji sung almost had a doubt from the beginning and later on by the time she was in jail it was confirmed that she was not the driver..he was just disguted and helpless that the real culprit is free and is such a nuisance for him as well

you made me see this drama from a very different but justifiable perspective...

Perfect ending line! 👏👏👏

Hear me out: it's a Male Power Fantasy. It's exactly what some men want to do to women deep inside -hurt, humiliate, abuse them- but can't put it in a drama UNLESS it has a happy ending, ie hero is half-apologetic, costing him nothing. We don't love it, Koreans do, the high of this kind of story is immediately BEFORE kdramas found huge audiences around the world (2017) and that's not by chance. It shows this narrative is not so appealing, thus they had to abandon or tone it WAY down to appeal to international audiences. case in point: Descendants of the Sun, also enemies to lovers, shenaningans, no humiliation. This is the version that broke ouside Korea, We will always love enemies to lovers, but it's too general a label for this to be put under.

While watching the series i was just very surprised about how willing he was to sleep with her with his career path. As a secretary/personal assistant of a very known CEO he for sure had to go through hours of HR training and had to have gone through the whole consent talk. I was just so shocked at him not even realising how wrong it was not only while having sex but also after. Oh and the worst part fir me was the couple actually getting awards at shows. Like HOW

The writers were so ambiguous and there was so much back-and-forth that I had no idea by the end who was in charge of the actions and decisions of the main character. To what extent was the Queen conscious inside while Bong Hwan's soul was dominant? I assume Bong Hwan did genuinely care about the King eventually but did he actually have romantic feelings towards him too? Who knows. I think there was one internal dialogue where he verbalized this but it was never addressed again. The series did have its moments and the cast was strong, but overall, it was difficult to stay emotionally invested in such undefined circumstances. It didn't help some of the humor was too one-note for me and I'm not a huge fan of historical dramas (enough with people endlessly scheming to kill one another!). The only thing we know for sure is the King mostly fell in love with Bong Hwan's personality and his modern outlook on the world. Or would he have liked the Queen all along if he had known the truth about how she saved him from the well and Bong Hwan's "interference" would not have been needed? I actually expected when Bong Hwan tried to escape in the lake that he would "meet" the Queen's soul and gradually convince her to come back to her body. By helping her to reveal the secret about the well and get the King to open up to her, but this didn't fit with the main agenda of giving the audience cheap laughs.

Sorry for my long comment haha and i forget to add: i love when the revenge is until the end, i can understand a little bit dilemma with romance, to be happy but if it's not a romance drama but revenge drama i want revenge until the end, in My name, yes i enjoy the romance too and i would prefer he didn't die but the revenge action in the end was so satisfying to watch, it would be frustrated if she stops. But i don't like revenge for ego not justice for example: Itaewon Class, the hero attacks the evil father's business not for justice but for ego, he was so naive dreamer idealist not realist person specially in business and life and i hate it specially in business, he made people with realist vision bad people, he wasn't likeable for me and it wasn't for justice revenge because he attacks the evil father and not the son the one who killed his dad! He forget the son and attack the evil dad's business lol. In this drama i love just the 1rst love character, love the scene when she said can't you stop and just be happy, in this drama i would prefer he chases success with his restaurant and collect evidence to put the son in jail and the evil dad to kneel down would be good too but not like this drama did. The evil dad is a good realist business, if he did business with really bad method i would understand it and the hero will do with other method but the hero in Itaewon class choose evil bad method to attack the evil dad's business and he did it to win for his ego, the hero is villain, child villain to just want to win for his ego like the villain dad and i hate it and i gave up the drama because of the hero, not the villain. In Iris, it was also frustrated, i hate the moment when the hero did nothing, is looking for peace or nothing when he's alone with the other girl, there is no romance between them, he still love his lover but did nothing at certain point to have his lover again or for revenge, the hero was so frustrated, do something!!!

I love Marry my husband, jiwon has little remorse but yes because sumin et minhwan didn't change she has less remorse but i love it, i like revenge and play god doesn't bother me because it's changing fate and they are evil, didn't change and Jiwon didn't really murder sumin or minhwan, if she did that, she will be evil like Vincenzo but i like good protagonist or protagonist like Vincenzo. In others kdramas, there are character who kill people to play god but they are villain, or are villain even if they don't think that, i have an example: in Sketch, the girl protagonist can see the future by drawing it, there is an antagonist who has same power but kill people, in Marry my husband the future is known and can't change, in Sketch, the future can be changed. If you didn't see Sketch, i recommend it to you, it can be a good essay, i remember one character who his wife was killed kill the wife of the protagonist because the antogonist manipulate him etc, Bi Rain plays the protagonist. Could you do an essay to how to write a good villain? For me, a satisfying good villain is one who can't change like Sumin, Yeojin, Cheon seojin, joo dan tae etc not like in Mouse, it was frustrated for me, you have remorse in it from the villain/good guy but i don't like it, not good villain. And i love revenge until the end, i can understand a little bit dilemma with romance, to be happy but if it's not a romance drama but revenge drama i want revenge until the end, in My name, yes i enjoy the romance too and i would prefer he didn't die but the revenge action in the end was so satisfying to watch, it would be frustrated if she stops. But i don't like revenge for ego not justice for example: Itaewon Class, the hero attacks the evil father's business not for justice but for ego, he was so naive dreamer idealist not realist person specially in business and life and i hate it specially in business, he made people with realist vision bad people, he wasn't likeable for me and it wasn't for justice revenge because he attacks the evil father and not the son the one who killed his dad! He forget the son and attack the evil dad's business lol. In this drama i love just the 1rst love character, love the scene when she said can't you stop and just be happy, in this drama i would prefer he chases success with his restaurant and collect evidence to put the son in jail and the evil dad to kneel down would be good too but not like this drama did. The evil dad is a good realist business, if he did business with really bad method i would understand it and the hero will do with other method but the hero in Itaewon class choose evil bad method to attack the evil dad's business and he did it to win for his ego, the hero is villain, child villain to just want to win for his ego like the villain dad and i hate it and i gave up the drama because of the hero, not the villain. In Iris, it was also frustrated, i hate the moment when the hero did nothing, is looking for peace or nothing when he's alone with the other girl, there is no romance between them, he still love his lover but did nothing at certain point to have his lover again or for revenge, the hero was so frustrated, do something!!!

The scene that bothered me the most from the morality perspective was Jiwon & Jihyuk showing up at Minhwan's funeral. Completely unnecessary and gratuitously cruel to his mother (no matter how bad her behavior, she lost her son). It made me actively dislike them after I'd been wholeheartedly rooting for them in the early episodes

I really like time travel fiction, which was why I tried this show out (I ended up watching it because I was looking for series with a good OST and someone online recommended this). I'm usually quite interested in the mechanisms of time travel as well but I agree it didn't interfere too much with my enjoyment of this particular show. I was almost surprised in the other direction - I did not expect the writers to have the main character change almost every aspect of his parents' pasts (except for the deafness) yet make no attempt to explain how the main character still ended up the same person despite that (which was extremely unlikely). This was one of those shows where I think the younger child version of characters in Episode 1 endeared me to the character so much that it took awhile for me to reconcile the adult version. I was also very annoyed by the FL in this one for many episodes, which distracted me from worrying about the time travel rules (speaking of which, I expected her to learn to love the cello again given her instrument was also in the shop). I am really interested to try out the other time travel series you discussed in this video (I had to skip over those parts because I hadn't seen them yet). I will add them to my list to watch!

One can't think of morality of revege in kdramas without the ultimate example: The Penthouse. It's fascinating that Su Ryeon's revenge takes place in three evolving stages (corresponding to each season): 1. make villains admit their wrong 2. put them in prison 3. go for blood. and it's only because people fail her that she is forced to evolve her approach, first the villains don't repent or face retrubution, in contrast they become more successful and kill more of her loved ones and then because the justice system let them out of prison. my point is throughout the revenge (also aided by handsome caring man), she never lost her morality and the only trigger she pulled was to save everyone. even so, she felt like her soul was darknened by her revenge, which brought us to that horrible finale. i consider her the perfect example of revenge heroine: intelligence, being 5 steps ahead, being tough but never cruel and having morals that protect the innocent people. she never crossed the line, and there's an argument to be made that maybe she should have, she would be justified

I don't usually watch revenge dramas, but I did this one mainly because I noticed that same actor was in the previous drama I had watched ("Mr. Queen")... I only started watching kdramas recently and picking a new show has been kind of random for me. I think a revenge drama is only fun if the audience sides with the revenge taker, regardless of the grey morality issue (the morality issue did come up for me a few times in this show too). I agree the writers should have cut down on the protagonists' "brute force" approaches (well put) and instead relied on the villains' actual tendencies. In the end, though, I didn't fault the main character in her actions nor saw her as villainness (though good acting helped with this a lot). They did include a few scenes of self-reflection, and while I initially thought Su-min seemingly didn't deserve the fate, the more of her backstory we found out, the more I think she was as bad as the villain husband. She systematically gaslit the protagonist to destroy her self-esteem over and over again, which is long-term emotional abuse. I also hated that gloating scene at the wedding but for another reason. Gloat AFTER once everything works out! I'm actually surprised I liked this drama as much as I did.

Paroma, this is so artistic! 😍 The quality of your videos just gets better and better! And I love this perspective on Ji-won 👏🏼