Sunnyelf's blog review of Asian Dramas and Movies.
This blog is a personal labor of love in a constant flux of improvement.
Please Note:
One * = Didn't like it, Don't recommend. Two ** = Typical. Worth seeing at least once. Three *** = I enjoyed it! Worth seeing more then once. Four **** = It's great! Add it to your all-time favorites list! Five ***** = Epic! Highly Recommended. A totally memorable drama/film.
A psychiatrist with anxiety issues meets a well-known writer of mystery books on a tv program, with a hidden past. A secret of which his big brother has paid for with a lengthy prison stay. Big bro has sworn revenge on Jae Yul for being a traitor to him in court and is looking for an outing that would give him another opportunity to fulfil his threat. Not long after the interview, This Author moves into the shared housing with Hae Soo and two friends. A sort of bantering relationship is started and then complicated as its discovered the scarred results of the author's past in the form of Kang Woo, is set to have him admitted or dead before Jae-Beom is even released.
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Links go to other reviewed shows the actor has been in.
Surplus Princess/ 잉여공주/ Ingyeo Gongjoo/ The Idle Mermaid/ The Mermaid *** (Korean)
10 episodes
Jo Bo Ah as Kim Ha Ni
Ohn Joo Wan as Lee Hyun Myung
Funny take on a rather old plot, complete with playful pokes of seemingly random reference. This one had me giggling from the first to the last episode. The acting was superb, in expressive zanyness, the hated bad guy, or even in the dour straight man. Well done all around! Favorite character: The 2nd mermaid.
A teenage mermaid, with a crush on a human tv chef saves him from a slip, then goes about trying to wrest a stolen bottle of fins to legs potion from the 2nd mermaid. before hearing the rules, she downs the batch and makes like fireworks for shore to meet the man of her dreams. after a bit of re-grounding, her 'uncle' takes her to a shared housing for work potentials. There she attempts to make her way into a job at the building that her target heartthrob works at... a famous food corporation. the path is not without its speed bumps and distractions though, some of which just might leave her exposed and all wet on the ground before her time is up.
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Links go to other reviewed shows the actor has been in.
Mr. Baek/ 미스터 백/ Miseuteo Baek/Mr Back **\ (Korean)
16 episodes
Shin Ha Kyoon as Choi Go Bong
Good story!.. even if it did have a rather drawn out goodbye. Favorite character(s): Choi Dae Han for showing his more vulnerable side in adapting to his fathers changes.
A crazily rich old coot gets into an accident and finds himself with a new, if temporary, lease on life. He quickly adopts an identity and copes with the upheaval of his family and company, then he falls in love and learns more on the value of living in that short time then he had in his whole life. What to do when the time is up though?
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Links go to other reviewed shows the actor has been in.
Well.. whats to say,... the storyline start seemed a fairly good one. Here you have this rather unique vampire boy, on the run with his mother from the bad guys.. Cuz there's this one guy that wants to experiment, making more of them, so he can lord over them in blood-soaked power. The boy grows up to become a surgeon... and stops running. then he meets the bad guy again, who traps him and tries to get some use out of him. Our main lead falls for a girl, and the bad guy now has a bargaining tool... so the good guys all start falling into line to help the bad guy out, unwillingly, because the bad guy will kill their loved ones if they don't. ok, i got it up to this point.. then it turns out the good guy has to die in order to save others, and the bad guy gets shot and dies.. or do they? ...wait a minute...how did..The End.
Now I'm totally lost. What was with that surprisingly lame ending?! Gahh! Up to that point, I thought the show was worth seeing, at least the once but.. the ending dragged it into the 'less than' category. I blame the stinkin writers for this one, folks. Kick the rotten bums back to the drawing board already! boo! hiss! Growl!
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Links go to other reviewed shows the actor has been in.
Not a bad drama really. Not really that much of a cemedy, there were a few moments worth smiling over. A bit of romance. Liked the characters of Yoon Yoo Rae, Hwang Gyo Dong, and Dal-Po's brother. Wasn't too wild about the decision poor Grandfather and father had to deal with concerning their grown children's love. even as I recognize Dal-po's lack of blood relation, having raised them both together for such a long time.. seems somehow wrong.
When Ha-Myeong was yet a boy, his firefighting father died in a warehouse explosion, taking several of those under his command with him. Quickly after, the mother and boys were questioned by a hard-nose reporter, with a bent toward making the missing firefighter a criminal. This tore up the little family completely. Some number of years later, a little girl, suffering from the inability to lie, living now with her divorced father, move to their grandfather's island home. There they discover he has adopted a young boy, naming him after a lost son of his own.
Years later, the girl decides to follow in her estranged mother's journalist footsteps. Dal po follows this path as well, thinking it the best way to get revenge on the woman who tore his original family apart. Practically before he realized it, he discovers his brother who has done much wrong and he re-vows revenge on the woman reporter who left them in such tatters some 14 years before. But the story, it seems, goes deeper then that, and it will take near everything he and the other reporters and friends have to learn the truth behind the massive cover-up.
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Links go to other reviewed shows the actor has been in.
Hyde, Jekyll, Me/ 하이드 지킬, 나 /Haideu Jikil Na ** (Korean)
20 episods
Lee Seung Joon as Secretary Kwon Young Chan
Good idea for a story. I can see the slogan now.. Even alt personalities deserve a chance at having their own life! Up to about episode 16, I happily splashed from one scene to the next, eagerly awaiting what should happen next. Then it all began to slow to an excruciating drag, bogging down in the tears of Robin's refusal to re-meld quietly. To give an actor's credit, The fireworks scene was.. an emotional aria! Pooor Robin was losing something most precious to him! oh goodness, that guy can bawl with the best of them. Someone give this guy a tear-jerk award please! ..and get me a tissue as well.
A cold corporate director, trying hard to follow his stuffy fathers wishes, tries to close down a local circus entertainment site. The new ringleader of the troupe bristles at the hard line and confronts the arrogant man, only to find he possess a softer side to him that none but the closest to him know about. Director Goo Seo Jin has a mental disorder, that has him giving over his evenings to the sweet Robin, master of a famous webcomic series and possessor of the heart of Jang Ha Na.
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Links go to other reviewed shows the actor has been in.
