Splash Splash Love (Movie version)

    

      This drama was very comedic and simple. It definitely isn't as detailed as many other time travel dramas/movies and it isn't historically accurate either. The main character got sent back in time to Joseon and got to meet the emperor and so forth. A lot of the historically inaccurate things probably could've been overlooked because it is a movie after all. But it seemed like the emperor would probably get killed off by assassins with the way he's running here and there and out of the palace with ease. That was my main concern. How is he able to just leave the palace? How are other people in this palace able to just leave? It's a palace with guards and rules and everything that would prevent the royal family from leaving so easily like that the way these characters were. At the same time, being the wife of an emperor would mean that she is heavily watched. Any contact with any other man would've been deemed inappropriate. That is why I think the queen is also not historically accurate but instead driven by emotions in this make-believe drama world. But enough of me nitpicking at how this movie isn't historically accurate. I'll dive into the synopsis a bit more and also my views on the story and characters. 

          It is a very light watch with very cute and fluffy characters. There wasn't much depth to the characters. The story revolves around a high school senior, Dan Bi, who hates math and has given up on her future dreams and even her SATs. On the day of her college entrance exam, she runs away from it and jumps into a puddle which brought her to the Joseon  Dynasty. There she meets the king and is mistaken as eunuch because she called herself a "gosam" (high school senior) which also meant a  eunuch. It was believed that she would help bring rain as the country suffered from a drought. The two begin helping one another as she teaches him more about the more advanced world and introduce the information of the future. 

           I liked the actress Kim Seul Gi because I've watched a couple of her dramas before and I am currently watching one she acts in. Yoon  Doo Joon plays the role of Joseon's emperor. It is a very light watch and a very cute friendship and then romance. It was comedic with the way modern day things were implemented and brought into the Joseon dynasty. 

Cheese In The Trap

Episodes: 16

Synopsis: 

Hong Seol (Kim Go Eun) is a very diligent student who has just returned to college after taking some time off to work part-time jobs to pay for her tuition. Consistently studying and doing her best in school, she strives to be the greatest and hopes to be able to help her family in the future financially.  Yoo Jung (Park Hae Jin) is an extremely popular student (a senior to many of the underclassmen) who has returned to college as an upperclassman after serving his mandatory military service. After Seol notices that Yoo Jung may not be as nice as he appears to be, Yoo Jung begins to make her life harder through small actions and through people. However, one day, Yoo Jung helped Seol get a scholarship that paid for her tuition and she begins wondering what kind of person he is exactly. As she falls in love and deals with school life and friends, the story unravels as she is caught in a romance with Yoo Jung and is also mediating relationships between him and his friend Baek In Ho. 

Review: 

         This drama definitely had a different feel than most dramas. This one combined romance with mystery. It felt like I was watching a thriller at times. This drama had a lot of creepy vibes and almost all of the characters appear to be slightly crazy in some way. In my opinion, the only normal people in this drama were the main character and her two friends. Everyone else all had this creepy element to them that made me think that some of them just weren't sane or mentally stable. It was either that or they were just kind of annoying. However, do not let this be a turn off as to why you won't watch this drama. This drama had a lot of its own appealing factors that allowed me to enjoy watching it. 

         I liked how Hong Seol isn't one of those typical Korean drama characters and the human relationships she holds with other people are also very realistic in my opinion. Hong Seol notices the small details of people and notices certain factors of their personality right off the bat without others having to hint at her. She noticed that Yoo Jung had two sides to him and how he hides behind a kind exterior while manipulating others and situations to get what he wants. She doesn't do what a lot Kdrama characters do which is talk about their thoughts out loud. Hong Seol was able to go about, noticing things, make her mind about things, and so forth while having the entire thought process in her head only. It made me really appreciate her character. Also, she is from a family that does not have a lot of money and so she struggles in a lot of aspects in comparison to her peers. However, she doesn't make it into a sobfest nor does she expect others to do things for her or fix anything for her either. She does everything through her own hard work and expects other people to know that and respect her character. As scary as Yoo Jung sometimes appeared to be, I did like him for certain factors. He was very smart and he was able to control situations without really getting his hands dirty. He had a side to him that was wary of people. He thought everyone had their own motives for things and so forth. He's also somewhat protective at times but also very supportive. He is manipulative (the drama does not try to downplay it) but there are so many other layers to him. Baek In Ho and Baek In Ha were also very interesting case as well. I really liked the difference between Yoo Jung and Baek In Ho because personally I felt that Baek In Ho felt more normal. The thing about a lot of the characters that you see in the drama is that they aren't really just side characters. They are all fueled by different things and all have different personalities. So it is very interesting to watch the characters interact and how some characters reach a breaking point based on the way they interpret things and so forth. I really liked that about this drama. 

      I really enjoyed the drama because it felt so realistic to me. This drama was also set in a college setting and it showed how much Hong Seol worked to get her good grades. It is somewhat motivating for the viewers to also start being as diligent and so forth. I would recommend this drama because the actors did an amazing job and the story line was very realistic. You'll meet all sorts of people in school or at work. Some people imitate you and follow you around, some obsessively like a person, some are manipulative with a kind exterior, some have traumatizing backstories, and some will make others do their tasks for them. This drama was definitely very interesting, realistic, and also somewhat creepy at times. I enjoyed it greatly. 

Reply 1988

Episodes: 20 

Synopsis: 

This reply drama takes place in the late 1980s as five childhood friends live together in the same Ssangmundong neighborhood of Seoul. They played with each other as children growing up and now reply on one another during their transitions from teenagers to adults. Each of the characters came from a different family background and it was interesting to see the way they bond with one another and how they resolve familial issues. Sung Deok Sun (Hyeri) struggles for attention as the middle child in her poor family. She's the goofball among their friends and also isnt the smartest of the bunch. Kim Jung Hwan (Ryu Jun Yeol) is obsessed with soccer and hopes to be a fighter pilot one day. He lives with his parents and his brother (who has been trying repeatedly to get into college). His family became rich overnight and he was the richest among his group  of friends. Sung Sun Woo (Ko Gyung Pyo) is the perfect son and perfect student. Living with his mother and little sister, he holds a lot of responsibility as he struggles with his family's financial issues and holds on to the memory of his past father. Ryu Dong Ryong (Lee Dong Hwi) is the son of the school's dean. Rather than being smart, he focuses on trivial facts such as girls and so forth. He struggles with his parents constantly working and not paying attention to him. Choi Taek (Park Bo Gum) is a genius baduk player who dropped out of school to be a professional baduk player. This drama follows these characters and their families around as they transition to adulthood and move on to new phases of their life. 

Review: 

      I definitely liked this a lot because this drama not only portrayed the times back then but also managed to show off the charm of the neighborhoods back then and the connections between people. The friendliness between the neighbors was endearing to watch and it made a lot of people, not only myself, look back on the simplistic ways we used to live and interact with one another back then. The scene with all the mothers calling for their children to come eat dinner from their doorsteps was very interestingly filmed and brought a lot of life to this drama in the beginning. I loved how all the families were portrayed differently as were the relationships the characters had with each other. The different ways families functioned and their different statuses in wealth and the jobs they did all played a role in making this drama so realistic. That's the thing with the Reply series. The characters and relationships are all portrayed very realistically---a slice of life---and the story lines are also very realistic yet endearing. It's the sort of drama that makes you see the romance in daily life.

     Once again this drama played with our hearts as we tried to figure out who Deok Sun's future husband is. It rotated between Choi Taek and Kim Jung Hwan throughout the drama. I liked both boys because they both really liked Deok Sun but in different ways. I liked the silent watchfulness of Kim Jung Hwan and the way he teased her when confronted on anything. They were playful and normal. You could see he tried to hide his feelings and sort of maintain their old way of friendship while slowly shifting to something more. I also liked Taek's kindness and the way he smiled so brightly around her. Even when he was tired or feeling down, he would always smile upon seeing her. Personally, I was drawn more to Taek but I do know a lot of people who rooted for Jung Hwan. For me, I was always on Taek's side. His simplicity, his smile, and the way he was always the nice, quiet type made me fall for him.
      This drama made me cry so much at the end. Not because it was sad but rather it filled me with nostalgia and gave me all the feels. I think this is probably my favorite Reply drama out of all the Reply dramas. And that says a lot because the Reply series are probably some of the best dramas I've watched. But this one really gave me so many feels and told me to remember to cherish my youth, my friends who are also in their youth, my parents who will never be as young as they are now, and so forth. Absolutely amazing drama about growth, life, and romance. 

Goodbye Mr. Loser (Movie)

This is a Chinese comedy movie about a middle aged man named Xia Luo. He's always been a loser from high school to adulthood. In school, he was the class clown and was often laughed at and never taken seriously. In adulthood, he was lazy and rarely did much to help support his family. When he gets invited to a wedding of his high school crush Qiu Ya, Xiao Luo is determined to at least show up in a cool car and with cool clothes just to put on an appearance of how far he's gotten. However, even in that case, he gets made fun of for past memories and also on how overdressed he was. Xia Luo gets drunk at the wedding and embarasses himself. His wife, upset that he was at the wedding when he said he was going to visit his mother's grave, gets angry at him and exposes his true self to all his friends about how he's been living and how lazy he is.
       After getting chased around by his wife Ma Dong Mei, he locks himself in the bathroom. When he sobered up and walked out, he finds himself back in time and at his high school. He is given a chance to relive his entire life again and so he decides to make the best of it. He decides to chase after his high school crush and he also became famous by plagiarizing popular songs that haven't been produced yet. He gets to relive his life again from high school to adulthood. He becomes rich and famous and looked up to his peers. He got the girl of his dreams. But he soon realizes that he isn't happy with what he has and begins to realize that he should have cherished what he did have instead of wish for something else.

Very funny movie and very interesting to watch how his new life played out and how it changed a lot of his friends' lives as well.

Descendants of the Sun

Ep: 16
Summary: 
Yoo Shi Jin is the leader of a Special Forces unit and meets the trauma surgeon Kang Mo Yeon during an incident that happened with his second-in-command on their day off. Yoo Shi Jin falls for Kang Mo Yeon and asks her out on a date. However, on their date, Yoo Shi Jin gets called to duty and Kang Mo Yeon realizes the difference between their jobs and the differences in the way they view things. She would spend hours in the operation room with the sole purpose of saving a patient while Yoo Shi Jin puts emphasis that he would kill to protect his country. The two decide part ways but their relationship was fated. It just so happened that Yoo Shi Jin and his second-in-command, Seo Dae Young, were deployed to a fictional war-torn country called Urk to keep peace and Kang Mo Yeon and a medical team were assigned to go there as well. The two fall in love again and learn to understand one another, help one another, and overcome many obstacles together. The two also learned to adapt to one another in situations where she can't always be with him or when they have to do long distance for a while.Throughout the drama Seo Dae Young's relationship with the lieutenant's daughter, army doctor Yoon Myeong Ju was an interesting contrast between the main couple.

Review: 
      This drama was absolutely amazing and definitely one of the best dramas I watched this entire year. It pulled on all my heartstrings, it made me fall in love with every single character, it made me ship everyone together, it made me excited, it made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me fall in love with it. This drama is a roller coaster of emotions and I loved the chemistry between all the actors and actresses. They did an amazing job portraying their roles and their characters were all full of life. It is impossible to dislike any character in this drama because you learn to understand them and they are all comedic and realistic at the same time. I liked how realistic the relationships went and how they used the main couple and the other couple as a contrast to each other to show that all relationships are different but sincerity between them two still remain. I really enjoyed this drama and one minute I'll be laughing and one minute I'll be crying. It got to a point where I started watching the drama during my free periods at school.
    I liked the way the guys often treated the girls. From what I remember, there were no yelling or acting like a macho/controlling type of guy. They were all very caring toward their girlfriends and often would talk it out half jokingly/half serious about minor issues and hug one another when it came to serious issues. It definitely made it easier for me to fall in love with the guys because they had a lot of respect toward their girlfriends and both were also very mature when they needed to be. I really enjoyed seeing a very positive and healthy relationship in this drama.
      Definitely an amazing drama with many memorable scenes. It's no wonder that this drama was such a big hit. Highly recommend.

Please Come Back, Mister

Episodes: 16
Summary: 
Kim Young Soo (Kim In Kwon) was a hard-working employee of a major department store. He awas always optimistic and worked so hard that he sometimes disregarded himself and his family. Han Ki Tak is a tough guy who runs a restaurant and has held on to his first love, who is now a celebrity, after all these years. Kim Young Soo dies in what looked like a suicide after a tough day on the job. Han Kki Tak also died on the same day in car accident as he tried to help his actress ex-girlfriend Song Yi Yeon. As the two are on a train bound for heaven, Young Soo decides he has to go back to make sure his wife and daughter are taken care of and so both he and Ki Tak jump off the train. The two end up making a deal with the angel Ma Ya who allows them to go back to Earth to take care of certain matters under certain conditions. The two have rules during the time they are at Earth or else they would be faced with a deadly consequence.
       Upon waking up, back on Earth, the two find that they are in a different body constructed from an image of their minds. Young Soo wakes up in the body of a good looking young man, that by accident resembled Lee Hae Joon, the illegitimate son of the department store's chairman. Han Ki Tak wakes up in the body of an attractive woman. The two learn to work with their new bodies and also deal with any of the new issues that come in the way. They begin to tie their loose ends. One trying to help his family and to also reveal the truth of his death and the other trying to help the woman he loves. The stories of these two become intertwined as Han Ki Tak's actress ex-girlfriend was the ex-wife of the chairman's first son Cha Jae Kook who is battling Cha Hae Joon for the position in the department store.

Review: 
This drama definitely was one of my favorites. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me ship all the characters together simply because the chemistry between all of them was so  good. The acting was also off the charts. I absolutely adored this drama because it was the perfect mix of all that life is: romance, laughter, hard work, family, friends, letting go, happiness, and pain. This drama felt both raw and comical at the same time and it really pulled on all of my heart strings. I wish that the ending could have explained a bit more of what happened to them all and so forth but I also appreciated the beauty of it once again tying together the fates and destinies of people together. There were so many plot twists and moments where you realize all their fates are interconnected. It was absolutely amazing. I loved how mutually supportive a lot of the characters were to each other. I loved the new relationships formed in the new bodies with their old friends and families. Definitely a must watch for all those interested in a drama that can make them laugh and cry at the same time. This drama also has a great share of amazing actors and eye candy that played their roles unbelievably well.

There's not much to say other than that I highly recommend you watch this!!! 

The Imperial Doctress

                                 

Episodes: 50

Synopsis:

The Tan family spans many generations of doctors, with many past ancestors who were imperial physicians. But when powerful enemies frame their family, the royal court passes a ruling that future generations of the Tan family are forbidden from practicing medicine. Thus the Tan family are forced to change their last name to Hang. Hang Yunxian (Liu Shi Shi) secretly learns the art of traditional Chinese medicine from her grandmother and helps to cure plagues and illnesses among the common people. Yunxian overcomes many societal obstacles in her passion and pursuit of medicine. And when she meets Emperor Zhu Qizhen (Wallace Huo), he wields a great deal of influence in Yunxian fulfilling her destiny to become the first female physician of the Ming Dynasty. 

Review:

    I enjoyed this drama for a lot of reasons. I watched it primarily because some of my favorite actors feature in this drama. The main character, Liu Shi Shi, has been a personal favorite since I saw her in the drama Bubujingxin. In this drama, I saw that beauty and strength once again (especially at the end of the drama). At the same time, her character was also very different in this drama but I enjoyed how she gave this very comfortable/familiar vibe. The emperor, Wallace Huo, is also a favorite simply because I absolutely enjoy his acting, his piercing gaze, and everything about him. 

       I appreciate this drama so much in the fact that the characters have both the societal/traditional values of the time back then (as it is a historical drama) but also want the best for our main character with a more advanced kind of thinking. All of the male leads (love interests) have continuously pushed the main character forward in her desire to learn more about medicine and to work as a physician. All of them did have the whole “the man is the dominant one and you are the female” type mindset at one point but they also took pride in the main character’s skills and admired her and respected her. They also slowly started seeing her as their equal as her skills came to play more often. I wasn't surprised when I liked the emperor more than Prince Cheng because I had a lot of issues with the character Yun Xian (our main character) loved. But I was surprised when I began to start liking Ye Xian more (her love interest when the emperor and Yun Xian were captured by the Oirat clan). He wasn't the best at times and had these dominant tendencies in which he would try to force her to do things such as marry him or be with him (etc) but as he developed more feelings for her, I truly saw his respect for her and admiration for her grow more and more. It got to a point where he put her on a pedestal and chose her happiness over everything else. He let her go and never went to disturb the life that she chose for herself.
         The emperor was definitely an all-time favorite for me. During his reign and during his fall, he maintained a benevolent king (hot-headed, yes...but a good king nonetheless). Throughout the drama, he respected her feelings and did not force his or her emotions into doing anything that would make her unhappy. He helped her rise socially so that she had more freedom to practice medicine as a woman. He supported her even when he suffered when he lost his power. He protected her the best he could in all scenarios and despite almost being killed, he comforted her first. His kindness and the freedom he gave her were absolutely amazing. He was also a great husband to the empress. He respected her and was extremely loyal considering he had an entire harem to his disposal yet he only maintained his relationship with the empress. He also had similar thoughts as Yun Xian to not hurt the empress by getting together. It was very evident to a lot of viewers that they definitely had chemistry between one another (Yun Xian and the emperor) but they couldn't be together because of other people, their morals, the situations at hand, and so forth.

        As for Prince Cheng...I did not mind him in the beginning. I was pretty open-minded to her liking him more and wanting to marry him. But I was already turned off in the beginning when he started to try to "temporarily" stop her from practicing medicine just to appease his power-hungry mother and to get married with her. When she chose not to, he would get upset or do something that made me annoyed. He continuously hurt her...on purpose or whatever. He got married to someone else to protect her but his wife would continuously threaten Yun Xian because she had the prince's favor.  When he later took over the throne when the emperor was captured by the Oirat, he became tyrannical over time. When the emperor and Yun Xian safely made it back home, he would get upset every time someone challenged his position as emperor. He would hit people. He would yell at people. He would say hurtful things. One thing that I refuse to forgive this prince for is that toward the very end of the drama, due to his jealousy, rage, and suspicion, he raped the main character (who was technically his consort but still she didn't consent) and afterward when she was evidently distraught he got annoyed that she wouldn't stop crying and defending the emperor. (So if you plan on watching this, I recommend being careful...I think around ep 45. They will have a scene before it warning about it happening so this is just a warning). He was a character I didn't like and afterward the screenwriters tried to redeem his character and make his apology seem sincere. But for me it was hard for me to view him as someone I would ever want our main lead to end up with ever.  However i did google the history in which this drama was based on and the screenwriters did try to keep it as close to history as possible from the emperor, the empress dowager, the kidnapping of the emperor and being held hostage by the Oirat, Yexian letting him go and Yexian's struggle over time, and the Prince becoming emperor and not giving up the throne, and his wives did include a woman with the last name Wang and a consort with the last name Hang (which was our main character's last name). Thankfully, the screenwriters hinted at a relationship forming between Yun Xian and the emperor at the very end of the drama because I wouldn't be happy that she lived her life being loyal to this emperor who was so emotionally abusive. 

          Also the OSTs of this drama were beautiful and befitting for a lot of scenes.
          I did have an issue in the beginning because Yun Xian's constant need to save people and against traditional/societal values that her family were trying to place importance on started to bug me. Her family wanted to make sure her reputation didn't go down the drain but she would constantly fight it. So I didn't like Yun Xian's relationship with her father in the beginning and I wished that she could have more balance since considering the time everything she was doing was unfitting for a woman.