I'll say it - Jayden should have been the lead

What constitutes a good revenge drama: suspense, an intriguing lead, and of course, great revenge.

Doctor Lawyer lacks in all these categories and only makes up for it with the acting of Shin Sung Rok aka Jayden Lee.

The story of a good revenge drama depends on a fast paced and totally lead controlled narrative, but Han Yi Han, the lead here seems to depend upon the actions of others rather than his own to exact revenge. Even when the revenge is served, it feels like a let down when compared to other such dramas.

The acting doesn't help much either, with the other two leads delivering some of their scenes in the stoniest way possible.

The ending was no better, and I don't think the final arc of any character was satisfying enough. Just fell extremely flat.

Admittedly, this is not totally terrible, and has some absolutely brilliant moments too, but in retrospect, the drama could've been a tad better based off of the premise.

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A(n) Unnecessary Love

Before I talk about the best worst thing about this series, let's talk about the actual worst things.

Watching this felt like watching something that should have come out 7 years ago, with all the engineers and their gears, the hazing and the "I don't like men, I only like you stuff", and they somehow made all this and more much worse than it should have been.

Even looking past all this, it's still difficult to enjoy because one or the leads is an absolute horror of a person. Essentially what we got was one of the worst male leads to ever grace our screens. He spends more than half of the series being a rude, abrasive guy who harasses his ex girlfriend, his friends, his juniors, anything that moves and breathes. They tried to give him a redemption arc, but too little too late to the point where you're going just end it, I don't care.
Couple this with another male lead who is just.. dull. That's it, his entire personality can be summed up with one word. One is a pushover, the other is rude, you're turned off by the personalities even before we can get to the romance.

There isn't much in that aspect either, a majority of the episodes is Prot pining over Pluem, and the rest is a bunch of misunderstandings that is resolved in the final episode. All throughout, I could not understand why these two even liked each other, and the acting definitely didn't help in selling their feelings for each other. As a couple, they had a maximum of maybe thirty minutes of romantic screentime. The rest was nonsense conversations, the male lead harrassing his ex, the other male lead pining (and failing because the emotions did not come through) from a distance, and Pluem bullying Prot.

I haven't even gotten to the best part yet. The factual inaccuracy.
They've apparently known each other for seven years. They met when Pluem was a senior and Prot was in the grade below him. The story begins when they're in their fourth and third year of engineering respectively.
Do the math, and it's four years.. right?
Nope, the show insists it's 7 years.

The best, best part though. The SUBTITLES.
Horrendous. Truly bad, I had such a hard time making sense of some of those dialogues. But so funny. Not as funny as some others I've come across, but definitely made the viewing experience a bit better.

It's weird though, because secret crushes aren't a new deal, and neither was this entire story, but I kind of feel like I would have enjoyed watching something along the lines of this story. They did not make it work though, none of it worked.

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I was promised food..

This may be one of my lowest rated J BLs. Sucks when something promising turns out that way. Nevermind that it was riddled with clichés like the returning ex, subpar communication, break ups over silly reasons just to reconcile, no, the biggest problem I had with this was somehow none of the above.

It was the leads. I still can't figure out why they liked each other, except for a small love at first sight moment. What came after was a cute beginning which then dove into the cliché landfill, only to come out with underdeveloped characters and an underwhelming relationship. It certainly didn't help that one of the male leads was so hot and cold, he was sure of what he wanted, until he wasn't.

Now all of this could have been slightly salvaged, if they had chemical. IF. They did for a while, too bad it was just in the last couple of episodes. It's a jump from not being able to understand why they like each other to believing they do, and it just didn't work.

I'm not really angry about the lack of food, (although it would have helped the rating) because there were tiny moments I guess. It sucks though, because I can appreciate a good love at first sight story, but they didn't quite nail it here.

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That was.. a trip..

I'd like to say I understood, but I'm clueless. I mean, I understood and I know what happened, but it's still beyond comprehension.

The plot revolves around Third, a bird watching enthusiast who hires Pai, a social companion to accompany him on a weekend trip to a national park to go bird watching. Each of them are in the midst of their respective personal turmoils and this excursion is the perfect excuse to forget everything and just have a fun and relaxing time. This is where it get convuluted, with the introduction of two other characters who contribute heavily to the plot.

And then just like that, it got.. boring. There was no big plot twist of any sorts because there were literally only four characters, the dots connected themselves way before they actually wanted us to connect them. All this mixed with incredibly repetitive flashbacks (that were also incredibly unnecessary) led to a truly weird ending. That ending literally came out of nowhere and contrasted every word and action of the main characters. They tried to make it seem like an open ending, but again it was incredibly obvious.

I'd like to say I'm disappointed, but that's not it. While everything is clear as it can be in the story, there's just general confusion while watching it because you don't know how you feel, about everything that happens in just two episodes.

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Unprecedented emotions

It feels like as the stories progress, the more risqué they get. The ending of this drama cleared things up well, but that's not to say that things weren't a little confusing all the way through.

The story is about fraternal twins Kun and Korn who are at a point in their lives where they're facing the prospect of not being the most important people in each other's lives for the first time. They're incredibly close, so much so that it takes a while to figure out that they're actually brothers, and when a new student named Tod, and an old friend named Pond are added to the mix, jealousy, possessiveness and the feeling of being unwanted flares up in the twins.

I feel like I need to clarify that this isn't romance (although they made it seem like it was, oof), it's more about the feelings of seemingly losing the person you love the most and them being unable to comprehend and adjust to the situation. The romantical inclination they showed may have been a small mistake in expression, they didn't quite nail the closeness of the siblings in the way they intended.

The ending kind of fell flat though, it was obvious that they would follow their own paths, but there was a better way to do it than have them just ghost each other for months. I would have preferred if they had written it to be a situation where the twins are still involved in each other's lives and still close, but realise that there are some things they're allowed to have that are just theirs. But I appreciate what they tried to do, and it's not the worst miniseries in this anthology.

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Childlike Antics and Stone Cold Superstar

Superstar may be a stretch.

Ja and First have so much potential, and Remember Me (which I'm still trying to forget) and this do literally nothing to showcase the chemistry they share.

Their apparent connection is then overshadowed by childish behaviour, talent managers performing criminal acts, and a second couple with only NC scenes. Really, their scenes together are mostly NC.

Most of the scenes are of them filming the drama within the drama, or Punn and his brother fighting like children, or Achi involved in a weird love triangle that doesn't include Punn, or the two managers throwing insults at each other that are frankly hard to watch. Or, it's filled by the cherry on top, the NC scenes. The scenes that Achi and Punn share are in turn filled with a weird sense that maybe these two shouldn't be a romantic couple. Their chemistry is great obviously, but the way their characters are written, it feels like both of them are in very different stages of life and the ability to be in a relationship.

Achi is definitely a grown up, he's seen life, he knows what he wants and that he definitely doesn't want a relationship. Punn on the other hand is a grown up child, and he's irrevocably in love with Achi or rather the idea of Achi he's got from idolising him. They go through a series of events in which Punn shows that he admires Achi, is capable of taking care of him, and even takes a couple of strides in showing that he's maturing as a person. And yet it feels like they go back to square one in every single episode, superstar and doting fan. It's kind of frustrating to see the same thing over and over, just on a loop.

Until the last episode, the character go around in this exact same circle, doing exactly what they did the last 11 episodes. This definitely had it's potential, but there's only so much chemistry can do.

I do need to watch the drama they're filming though, the acting is so over the top, the story seems like a mess, and yet it's the most popular thing out there, I just need to know what it's all about

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It's about the circumstances...

What would you do if you and your friend are caught up in a multi million dollar debt, being chased around by a hoard of gangsters and a very handsome club owner who just so happens to also be your creditor?

You would inadvertently end up creating a comedy of errors.

It's made very clear from the beginning that the lead of the series, Mote, is a victim of his circumstances. He has his rag tag team of friends who have similar situations and their solution is to come up with a "risque" app to get out of this. Obviously, this leads to murder mysteries, murderous henchmen chasing our heroes around and a whole lot of threats. Nothing exactly new or ground breaking.

The charm of this series comes from the circumstances. The lead trio somehow always find themselves in comical situations, and this is not slapstick humour... The comedy is so subtle that it gives the drama life without taking away from the fact that this is not exactly a comedy. Add to all this a very handsome but kind of psychotic Sun (played to perfection by Mond might I add), and you've got yourself a top notch show.

I would recommend it to a friend.

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The blurred lines between law and attraction

The line between love and hate is barely visible, but the distinction between lawful good and chaotic good is clear as day. The very first scenes establish the characteristics of our main characters, Charn, a high profile lawyer who is ruthless and not above bending the law to further his will. One the other side is Tin, a martial arts coach who believes the law is just and the law will do it's job. These two are brought together on several occasions, the most notable being when they meet as plaintiff and defense in the case involving the death of Tin's niece.

The story moves along with Tin and Charn joining forces once Charn realises that something doesn't sit quite right with the case, and from here on out follows the adventures of the gang as they try to figure out the truth behind the accident.

The series is through and through a lakorn, from the gratuitous violence, terrible parents on one end, and incredibly supportive parents and guardians on the other, a villain who's not really a villain, and the plethora of other lakorn tropes that make it interesting (yet sometimes horrifying) to watch. Another great part is that this is also a character driven drama. The story and situation plays an important role in progressing the plot forward, but the involvement of the characters keeping in mind their personalities and allegiances make this a series where it is impossible to predict the next movement of any character. The story is fairly predictable, but the way the characters interact with each other in addition to the fact that you can never predict what exactly they're going to do next keeps it interesting on all fronts.

The best part though is the chemistry. Charn and Tin have this undeniable chemistry between each other, and they seem to have it with everyone else as well. The dialogue flows when they interact with each other and during those moments you almost forget how their relationship started out.

This is a genuinely good series, and while it does have its fair share of gruesome scenes (some of them were hard to watch), it's definitely worth a watch, especially for the romance.

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A SHORT AND SWEET LOVE STORY

What do we expect when we start a series?
In accordance to the tags, or the trailer, or the review, we expect it to be a certain way.
So, in keeping with this theory, when you watch this series, you should swoon, feel the love and finish it in a small amount of time, and you will.
Honestly, you could finish the series in the time it takes you to read this review completely.
(Just kidding ?. This will take 3 minutes at the most)

See You After Quarantine? may be an extremely short series, and I mean one that you could finish in one and a half hours short, but there is quite evidently no problem in the story telling or the acting. Even the production value seems high, considering the series was filmed entirely using a phone.

The series tells the story of Bo Chun and Itsuki Sato, who although from different countries, find common ground through an antique camera, leading them to form a friendship, that turns into a relationship.

This story of mistaken identities and love at first sight has been written in a way as to reflect not only the time of the pandemic, but in a way where it would be genuinely possible to happen at any and all times.

Ultimately, if you want to watch a series with literally no drama and just tons of cute moments, this is the one for you. So if you find yourself with a little time to spare, do give this a try.

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The Girl Next Room series strikes again, this time with a story about forbidden love. This was admittedly not one of the most popular parts, but it certainly holds up well against the rest and might I even say better than some. It’s modest and funny and seems very likeable, but all of these virtues do not hold a light to the way the leads are written. View Wiwa seems conceited and airy, but that’s just a character she portrays. Underneath all that, she is just a simple and down to earth girl, quite evident from the very first episode. Faigun. Man, Fai is honestly the best character I’ve ever encountered. He’s funny, smart, handsome, hardworking, truthful and so much more, but his most endearing quality is that he’s real. This is a couple you can honestly root for and rightfully so.

THE STORY:
So, View is an up and coming actress who moves into the dorm. Fai is this down on his luck character, who gets the security job at View’s dorm after saving P’Jam from a burglar. He also saves View from predators and she starts falling in love with him, but there is this evident gap between the two, causing cracks in what seemed like a smooth journey. Jealousy, a gap in financial income and societal status accredit to some of their issues. What will become of their love? That’s the main theme followed.

THE ACTING:
I’ve seen Gigi in a few other series ( Yes I’m talking about Pam ), but this is the first series of Kao’s I’ve watched and I can already say I love him. He just portrays Fai in a way that nobody else could. Also how cute was his intro?! Kao is one of those actors who just seems to thrive in every role. He has the acting chops to carry out those happy scenes as well as those serious scenes. Neo as usual is awesome.

THE PRODUCTION:
In my review of Richy Rich, I said that it had the best production, oh boy was I wrong. This one is right up there. I think it’s mostly because of Kao and the way he portrays Fai. Fai has been written as this sweet and innocent guy with an unwitting genuinity. Kao portrays him exactly as such. That’s what’s so endearing about this production. You can actually see the hard work that went into this. Also that reference to Kao himself in episode 4? Golden.

THE OST:
Still pretty standard stuff. Nothing different from the rest.

THE NEGATIVE:
The way View is treated by her manager and everyone around, no wonder the only person she is herself around is Fai. She’s being spoken for and one of the worst things you can do to a person is toy with their individuality. At this point she is being treated as a mere sexual figure and nothing more. Honestly, how disgusting do you have to be to demand sex from someone as a favour ? So frustrating!

THE ENDING:
What a cute ending! Remember the grilled fish shop Fai wanted to open? Well he did, and he set it up just like View asked him to, with the karaoke and gumball machine. ( Also well played GMMTV, with the Off Gun reference ). So now that she’s well established and so is he, they get back together and all is well. The rap at the end though. So cute! It gave us an update on all the couples after a year and spoiler, they’re all still together. A great ending to a great series.

I know this has been turned into a Faigun fan page, but don’t let that take away from the fact that this series is worth checking out. The story is cute and quite drawing. I hope everyone gives this a try because it’s worth the watch. Thank You!

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IF LOVE WAS ENOUGH, BREAKUPS WOULDNT EXIST.

This line is uttered by Earth in episode 11 and there could not be a more suitable tagline for the show than this. In life we are all separated into three factions, the few of us who have no idea what to do with our lives, the others who do know, but have no means to achieve them, and the rest who are perfectly clear about their life's timeline. The characters of this show can also be classified in these categories. None of their lives are perfect, even if it looks perfect on the outside. Filled with real life problems, the show is relevant, but underwhelming.

THE STORY:
The series follows the life of a group of people, some friends, some acquaintances and some relationships. Cheating, lying, and trust issues form the crux of the story. While some may argue that these problems are dealt with everyday in real life, it gets exhausting after a point, both in life and in the series. The title is very well suited as the characters contemplate everyday as to whether they must leave the friend zone, and enter a relationship. All in all, most relationships within this show were toxic to the extreme, with very few exceptions, them being Boom and Earth's friendship and the brief relationship between Boom and Bern. Good and Boyo's relationship begins with a one night stand, Boom and Tor deal with his insecurity towards her job, Amm and Bern have a give and take and never give back relationship, while Sam and Earth's relationship is ruined by Stud, Earth's snake of a friend. As the show progresses each of these problems, with their relationships only get worse. Boyo falls in love with Good, but he does not reciprocate because they had decided to keep it just purely a one night stand. Tor believes every rumor about his girlfriend without consulting her first, leading to their breakup. Amm doesn't believe Bern would be able to do anything but use her money, and they breakup. Sam cheats on Earth with Stud and they breakup. The rest of the story follows the aftermath of these events.

THE ACTING:
I've got to give props to every single actor who worked on this series. They've all played their characters very well. It takes serious skill to make you want to slap a character, but they've managed to do it. Special props to Singto, Namtan and Plustor. They really bought out every quality of their characters exceptionally.

THE PRODUCTION:
The production could have been handled better. It was very dissapointing to see the characters go through no actual growth throughout the series, and for the characters that did grow from their mistakes, it was ruined by making them return to their old habits.

THE OST:
Nothing to hit home about. Your standard OST.

THE POSITIVES:
Though this series had a ton of negativity, there were several positives spewed her and there. The friendship between Boom and Earth was just beautiful and not toxic at all like some other friendships in this series. Another great example was how Boyo handled her sexual assault attempt. She handled it extremely well and with the utmost bravery. Other than that there is nothing else to rave about with this series.

THE ENDING:
Among all the things to be dissapionted in within the series, the ending takes the cake. Every piece of character growth was thrown out the window just for them to end up exactly the way they started out, miserable. Boom and Tor start dating again, and Earth gets back together with Sam. The only person you could actually see the growth in at the end was Stud. Every other character does nothing but fall back into old habit for the sake of the storyline. Very dissapointing indeed.

Overall this show does a good job at keeping you reeled in with the drama, but it soon gets annoying and repetitive. The story doesn't exactly hold up well and if any lesson is to be learned through this series, they are certainely not good lessons. Hopefully all the characters get a half decent storyline in the second season and actually go through some character development. I hope this review helped anyone struggling with the decision on whether to watch this series. Thank You!

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23.5 + more wasted potential

There's been a lot of talk about 23.5, ever since the pilot teaser was released, and for good reason. But as of this moment, I'm just a bit dissapointed.

It took me a while to actually clear up my thoughts on this and write a review that was cohesive and not spoiler heavy, because despite my disappointment, a lot of the series is worth watching. A cute and fluffy rom - com that looks like it's been engulfed in peach lighting, it truly did have it's wonderful moments. Unfortunately, the bad almost edged out the good for me here.

Let's start with the positives: a positive and playful setting, supportive friends, supportive family (mostly), supportive teachers, a lot of cute moments between all the couples, and some wonderful supporting characters. It doesn't seem like much when banded together, but there were individually quite a few good moments. But this is also where the list of positives end.

With the rosy lens they used to shoot they series, it's almost like they forgot that sensitivity is important when you try to address important and relevant conversations. This is one of the major reasons my rating fell, hard. The (almost) complete disregard of awareness in the storytelling absolutely boggled me, characters not facing any sort of repurcussions for their actions, slightly troubling behaviour from the leads being glassed over to display forgiveness and understanding, writing off a character's genuine worries and fears as her first being weird and then others being mean, this is just part of the bad writing of the characters.
Not that this was helped much by the plot, it was set up in the way that the plot only magnified the problematic stuff that the characters did. From Ongsa manipulating Sun's feelings, to Sun gaslighting Ongsa, I was incredibly frustrated with a lot of the plotlines they had in place. I realise that these are strong words and I don't have a problem when dramas exhibit these behaviours for what they are, what really ticked me off was the fact that they trying to keep passing all this off as minor arguments, and the fact that they tried to convince us that all was perfect and healthy, when it wasn't.

As I write this, I can say I have no problems with plots where nothing happen. Even if it's just two people falling in love without much else happening, I can appreciate it for what it is, but this felt like an attempt to create something where a lot happens, but towards the end, nothing has truly happened. I honestly would have preferred something that was boring as opposed to this. Maybe try fleshing out the characters a bit more, giving them time to grow into themselves and establish relationships with the other characters? What we got was a ton of half developed characters in a bid to rush along a nothing plot, which meant that when it came time for us to understand why certain characters behaved totally out of character, we're left scratching our heads.

That leads me back to the characterisation. I feel like the characters were split into two: the ones who get development and the ones who don't. They had so many wonderful characters, and only about two or three of them had actual growth and context, and even then, just half done. The rest of them were perfect as they were, needed no growth, could do no wrong which only made it more frustrating when they did something wrong. I'm circling here so I'll conclude the review.

I realise this an incredibly long review, but I guess I just had a lot to say. And for all the faults I found, I will say that they truly did try to make something worthwhile, and they almost did. It genuinely did have some moments that made me so happy, but now I'm just so sad because I was expecting to love this a lot more. The acting was good, the chemistry was decent and like I mentioned, a few of the supporting characters were amazing. But the writing just let everything down.
I've said this before, but bad acting, subpar cinematography and editing can be supplemented, but a bad story? Drags everything down.
I really wish it hadn't.

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Could have been better

The fact that every apocalypse/disaster series seems more and more similar to one previous is nothing new, it may as well be one of the reasons I'm quickly losing interest in the genre.

Surprisingly enough, they managed to keep it fresh while still maintaining the same formula. They accomplished this by incorporating small details, establishing the story and workings early on, and focusing on the subsequent aftermath.

But even subverting the usual "everything is going to hell" trope, the story is bogged down by clichés you would usually witness in the genre, from the act first, think later characteristic that runs amok amongst all the characters, to the one - dimensional characterisation. There's the usual "who's the real villain?", and the darkness of human nature, everything you would usually see in the genre.

What seemed to be innovative started to take the usual, cliched route the minute it hit the halfway mark and just like that I began losing what little interest I had.

I put this on my list for Koo Kyo Hwan but also because despite my recent disinterest in the genre, I wanted to give the drama a try, and while I can't say I'm dissapointed, I can't say I'm impressed either. The short duration meant a perfect binge watch, but ultimately I didn't rate it as high as I thought I would after the first couple of episodes.

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What-

If a drama was a question mark, this would be it.

I still don't quite comprehend what I just saw, a bunch of trainees who signed up to be actors, but are being trained to be idols instead, a lot of interpersonal drama, around five couples, a sabotage plot.. I haven't even covered half the things in the series.

Every storyline was started up, had minimal movement and didn't conclude. So many characters disappear for episodes on end and pop back up like nothing ever happened, but even then it was completely filled because there are 20+ characters who all have around the same screentime.

There was no investment in anything as far as I was concerned, from my side as well as theirs. The only couple I actually cared about didn't have much going on, and like all the other characters, had nothing going on as individuals. There was no distinction between who they wanted us to like and who they didn't, because not one of them had the depth to give us something to care about. It's all a blur in my mind, plots come and go, characters come and go and no one seems to bother.

Finally, let's talk about that finale-
Wow. I have never seen a worse one. I've seen shows worse than this, but even there, the finale was something that served as a tie up. This did nothing of the sort. Not one single arc was concluded. Not a single one.
They also chose the last episode to try and talk about something important and serious, and didn't. It was concluded in a horrible manner, might I add.
Everything was left up in the air, and I was left with my hands up in the air in frustration.

So save yourself the torment, this isn't it.

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