Reviews

I didn\''t really have high hopes for this drama at first... but before I knew it I was sitting at the computer for hours anticipating each episode! I was practically watching Dream High for Jason and Pil-suk though. Jason and Pil-suk are so~ adorable together :) In the end, I liked Hye Mi\''s decision but I was not very satisfied with the ending... as long as they make a second Dream High with the same main cast I\''ll be okay with it. The OST of Dream High is one of my favorite of the year. Obviously I am now a fan of Wooyoung and 2PM Oh yes, and I forgot, the loan shark guy- you could never tell what he was up to...

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Regardless of the previous reviews, I'm going to go all out on this one. Firstly, the story: It isn't a deep-meaning or soul-searching drama so if you're looking for that: this isn't one for you. This has a light-hearted feel to it, nothing too serious or too emotional but memorable nonetheless. Breezy, even though the angsty-like plot lines get a little old; they help carry this drama and also leave a deeper impression on you. The cast is made up of amazing actors and I really feel that Kim Jae Won fits his role perfect. Main pairing is too cute for words, but it's hard to just pick one guy in this drama (for me atleast). :) Soundtrack is one of the best of it's time, definitely worth checking out.

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Following a review by my fellow comrade, amrita-sshi, let me now share my two cents on this drama.



Story: Good storyline and after a long staple of rom-coms where the woman falls in love with a rich guy and the comedy that follows the story, this drama started a new genre of "noona love" - the romance between an older woman and a younger man. However, this drama still follows the long-proven formula of rich man and average/poor woman with a refereshing twist of realism. My Name is Kim Sam Soon (MNKSS)is the pioneer in rom-coms involving older women and younger men and this is perhaps the secret of its success. It is also a story between an average Jane Doe with the "prince", making this drama the first to depict the relationship between the average everyday gal with a fairytale-like man. The script was well written. The story has a form of realism in it mixed with the usual comedy. All in all, it is a drama that teaches the audience about being realistic in love and that even though one may fall in love, one may also one day fall out of love, but that should not stop us from living our lives to the fullest and enjoying the moment.



Acting/Cast: Overall, it is a wonderful cast and acting was good. The actress playing Kim Sam Soon had to gain weight in order to fit into this role - something many actresses in Korea would hesitate to do. So, kudos to her for her sacrifice. She successfully depicted the average korean woman - slightly "meaty", loud, occasionally foul-mouthed and with a big appetite for life and love. As for Hyun Bin, I must say that this is not his best acting, partly because this is one of his earlier works, hence the lack of experience. The other characters were very well done and I have no complains there. The only thing that got to me is the lack of chemistry between the two main leads. No matter how I look at it, they fail to bring out the "ah~~~" feeling from me when they kiss or fight. The interaction between them was so neutral that you know you are watching an act. There was zero chemistry between them. My heart did not pound, my breath did not get caught, I did not wait for the next kissing scene etc. Most times, I had the sneaky feeling of watching an older sister bullying her younger brother in scenes where they were supposedly having a lovers' fight. Therefore, I gave the acting a 7/10, recognising the talents of the cast but also the essential lack of romantic chemistry between the leads.



Music: What can I say - I am not a big fan of its OST. The OST is a patch-work of work from various artists put together with only a couple of songs that are originally made for this drama. Hence, I would say that the drama did not have a big focus on OSTs.



Rewatch value: When you run out of dramas to watch and you just want a lazy evening on the coach with a glass of wine to relax, this is a possible choice. It is safe, neutral and no fuss (you do not need your brains and tissues to watch this one).



Overall: Considering the impact it first aired and the then new concept of love between an older woman and younger man and the concept of love between an average woman and the arrogant rich man, plus its good cast but neutral chemistry between the leads, plus the average OSTs....I give this drama a 7/10. Also, I was thinking of all the crappy k-dramas I'd watched and compared to those crappy ones, this one is still considered ok. Just do not let the lack of chemistry between the leads get to you overly much.

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I am well aware my numbers for this show are all over the place. That's because I'm trying to be fair and at the same time true to myself. I'm not sure I am succeeding.



In order to be fair, I have to give this drama what is its due. Script, acting, direction, music are VERY good. The script is downright brilliant, with many lines worth of being quoted. Kim Sun Ah is fantastic: self-ironic, convincing, funny and determined. Hyun Bin has to portray a distasteful character, and does so with a seemingly effortless performance. All the side characters are wonderfully characterized and likable.

The music is perfectly chosen too, with just the right mixture of irony and pathos-building required by the story.



But I also have to be honest. And to do so I have to admit I didn't like this drama. I spent more time cringing and shivering in embarrassment than laughing or falling in love.

Each character is unique and wonderfully portrayed, but for the duration of 16 episodes I kept on asking myself: why? Why should these two like each other?

When I watch a drama and instead of rooting for the main couple I concentrate on the scenery, the cake, the old mother or the child it means something is wrong, at least for me. And when the first kiss doesn't make me smile in delight, something is even more wrong.

I could never feel sympathy for Sam Soon & Jin Heon. Not as a couple. By the middle I was terribly annoyed by both: by him because he couldn't be a man and decide; by her because she slowly morphed from the anti-conventional woman she used to be into a sort of human ivy, spying on her "man", shouting too much, crying too much, asking for rings, declarations and all the most conventional paraphernalia attached to your usual relationship. Had I been the man in the situation, I would have flown to Mars in order to escape the torture.



Possibly, the acting is too good: had the characters been more wooden or less expressive, I would have felt nothing for them and had had no reason to cringe. How ironic is this?



To summarize: I believe a review has to be fair. When confronted with a good show/movie/book/painting one has to be objective and recognize its value. This is why I gave it an overall 8 when, on a mere emotional and personal level, I would barely have given it a 6.

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I think the writers got a little too overboard with the story line towards the ending of the show. Everything was just hectic, so many skipping time frames, and problems alllll over the place. You would seriously have a "WTF JUST HAPPENED" moment with a blank face watching the last 5-6 episodes. The writers should have ended it after the 11th episode, then it wouldve been perfect. The actors/actress' saved the whole drama from it being a complete downer.THIS WAS THE MOST OBVIOUS PROBLEM IN THE WHOLE DRAMA! SO THIS IS THE ONLY THING IM WRITING ABOUT!



The rewatch value...Id ONLY watch it again only up to the 11th episode (or was it 10) where it shouldve ended. lol

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Its one of the best Taiwanese Dramas that I have ever watched. MUST BE WARNED YOU MUST HAVE A BOX OF TISSUES NEAR YOU AT ALL TIME especially for the first few episode MAN I was an EMOTIONAL WRECK.

Its also fast pace as well and not draggy at all which I love. Van Ness Wu OMG man he is one gorgeous HUNK and An Ady she is soo pretty! The lil kid OMG is so adorable and so bloody mature for his age.

The music was just LOVE LOVE LOVE. Especially the theme song, its on repeat on my itunes. XD

The only reason why I didn't give it 10 out of 10 for the re-watching value is because I really don't wanna go all emo again.

Overall a great drama that is just visually appealing to watch.

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My ratings for this are all over the place, which isn't a surprise given that my thoughts on Baby-faced Beauty is equally as scattered. In an attempt to organize my opinion, I'll just run through the given categories.



Story: I gave this a 6 for story instead of the intended 5 because the story is what initially drew me to BFB. Age is an intrinsic part of how Koreans socialize with one another through their actions and communication. And so it was interesting to watch a 34 year old designer-wannabe struggle to play the role of the complacent youngster who's just a tad bit too opinionated when drunk. However, and this might be just cultural difference talking, her deference bordered on aggravating spinelessness. It didn't help that her immediate environment is populated with the most unlikeable people I've ever encountered both fictionally and non. These people were spiteful for the sake of spitefulness, including her own family, and although some characters are redeemed towards the end, I needed to tap into my reserve of perseverance to endure that long. The story towards the end begins to flag, hitting a rut in which actual narrative tension is replaced with design contest after contest after contest. This might have had to do with the extension given to BFB: it also seemed that during this extension the writer remembered that there was supposed to be a romance, and so decided to throw in as many rom-com cliches as possible to satisfy that aspect of the show. The extension did this show no favors.



Acting/Cast: Really, this rating belongs to Daniel Choi. This show belongs to Daniel Choi. This goofy smile that spread across my face every time he was onscreen belongs to Daniel Choi. My heart belongs to Daniel Choi. The number one reason why I didn't drop Baby-faced Beauty was because I couldn't bear to drop Daniel Choi, who was delightfully immature yet sincere as Choi Jin Wook.



Overall: I wouldn't say that this drama is bad, and there were many moments that I thought were downright great. I finished the last episode with a smile on my face and the happy warmth that usually indicates my love for a show. However, taking into account the MANY times I wanted to give up on this show and how I had to force myself to trudge through for just one more hit of Daniel Choi, the best I can say is that Baby-faced Beauty for me was just watchable.

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The Hong sisters well done for creating another awesome drama!

Mi Ho played by beautiful Shin Min A was just SO FRIGGIN CUTE and so innocent. I love how she was simple minded in terms of "I really really like him" and she never gave up on him and he slowly falls for her!

And man, Dong Joo aka NO MIN WOO. I am IN LOVE with him! He was just OMG he was like a bad ass who was in pain for a thousand years because he killed the love of his life. I just wanted to jump into the drama to hug him and never let him go. Did I tell you how GORGEOUS he is. ALL his airing time made me drool.

The ending of the drama was a tad disappointing, I mean that was so FAKE. Have they just decided to go cheap because it was the end of the drama?



If your into some Rom-com with a bit of fantasy mixed into it. Well here's your drama!

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If you are very, very into politics than you'll like Dae Mul. If you are not, you may not like it. But I liked it a lot and felt it was a pretty good drama. It had a well thought out story with a solid trajectory that shows the progression of a woman who goes from wanna-be reporter/housewife to the President of The Republic of Korea. I found it had enough drama and included enough comic relief to keep me interested and entertained. The politics are mostly believable. There is a healthy dose of political intrigue and sometimes fascinating machinations of politicians both corrupt and hmmm...only slightly corrupt. Along with the politics, there is a background friendship and long standing love that is lovely and sweet.

I wasn't sure how I felt about Kwon Sang Woo before this but I enjoyed his character a lot. He plays an honorable son, prosecutor and a loyal, steadfast friend. He's hot headed, prone to fight and often very funny. Go Hyun Jung is wonderful, as always. I like her so much. She has such range; from What's Up Fox to Queen Seon Duk (Evil Misil!) to Dae Mul, she is an undeniably great actress.

This is one drama that uses its side characters well. They all orbit around the leads in believable ways. They are necessary to the story and not distractions, which if you have ever read any of my reviews, you'll know this kicks up a drama's rating for me.

At 24 episodes, I felt the pacing was just fine. It took me a long time to finish this but I blame the springtime glut of obsessive fare like Greatest Love and others for stalling me on this and not a lagging storyline. This drama is worth your time if you are into politics and more adult storylines. It's written well, directed well and most of all, acted well. There is some strange editing at the end/beginning of some episodes but they always clean up the story during the hour.

I'm giving it an 8 over-all. My Re-watch value is low. Not because I didn't like it but because I'm more apt to watch light romantic fare over and over rather than a long political drama.

Again, this drama is worth it if you like political stories or if you are a fan of the leads. They do a great job in this drama.

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Of course I love the story b/c I have made it a point to watch all versions of this story. Cronologically this one is very different. The history of the characters is not the same as in the other versions. The acting (IMAO) is much better than the Japanese version, even though it is still kinda weak. The dorky laughing is what killed most of this for me. I was never a giggler and hate it when girls do that to act cute. It makes me sick. Watching this drama was almost like watching a Soap Opera here in America (really bad acting) only w/o the continuous relationship changes. I really hated the mother in this one. She was like pure evil in human form. How can a mother lie to her child and not feel guilt. I have an 11 yr old and there is nothing that she could ever do that would make me lie to her like that. I just don't understand her characters pov. She wants what is best for her son yet she does everything she can to hurt him b/c it is not what she wants him to do. As a parent u have to let ur children learn from their own mistakes, not force them to do as u want them to. That is not how they learn or grow. The fact that the father let her do these things make me really mad b/c he should have done something to stop his wife from being such a biatch. I mean really dude grow a pair and deal w/ ur psycho of a wife.



There is obviously a 2nd season to this, and I really want to finish out the story, but I may wait a while b/c this part took so long to get through. I just really hate to leave things unfinished. Which is y I will prolly go and watch the 2nd season of the Japanese version; even though I really hated it. Damn my inablity to leave things unfinished. I will suffer through it just b/c I can't leave the story like it is in my head. Yeah I even make myself finish crappy books too. Stupid OCD.

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There are many things about Full House that are appealing. Rain and Song Hye Go are very charming. Watching their budding romance can be great fun at times. I found myself watching for their angsty and sometimes comedic interactions to turn to love.

Full House has a typical Kdrama set up that puts the OTP in place to live together, bringing on plenty of antagonism, angst and lots of opportunity for cute moments together.

It's a cute story. I liked it. But I didn't love it like a lot of people who watched it. For me, there were a lot of things that made this drama average. There was not enough plot for me. There came a point where I noticed a lot of house cleaning, lame misunderstandings and not enough reason for these two not to just get together already! What I felt was, even at 16 episodes, it seemed to drag on too long.

But I'm giving this a 7 (great) because the interactions of the OTP entertained me a lot of the time. There were a lot of cute moments and some good chemistry between the couple.

This is pretty light fare. There are some laughs and sweetness that I think might make a good rainy day drama for a lot of people.

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I really really enjoyed watching Asuko March! Heck I love the fact that she was one of the very VERY rare girls who attended the school which was brimming with bad boys. Man there were two guys that caught my eyes out of all the guys, Matsuzaka Tori and Kaku Kento they are GORGEOUS! Especially Matsuzaka. I really enjoyed seeing the developments of each and characters in this drama. And I applaud Takei Emi aka Nao in the drama for basically single-handedly changing them all into better people and through helping them she learned some life lessons and made friendship that would last forever.

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Out of the 3 versions of this story, again this was the last one that I got around to watching. The japanese version being my first, will always be my favorite because it's the one that hooked me onto the series to begin with (as well as Arashi / MatsuJun (: ). The Korean version I watched after I read the manga, and although I thought it was a good series by itself, I felt it drifted far off from the manga, and even the main characters seemed to be separate characters. After watching Meteor Garden, I would say I liked this one better than the Korean version.



In the earlier episodes I felt MG did a terrific job on basing it off of the manga. It's expected that there has to be some variation, but most of it, I felt, was right on. As the show progressed, MG started to develop into it's own story. Not to say that it drifted far off, but events were done differently. Through it all, I felt the actors did a good job as the characters. Dao Ming Si's character acted like the original Domyouji, with minor differences. Shan Cai's character was bull headed like the original Tsukushi, hiding her own true feelings even from herself. The rest of F4 was portrayed well.



When I first started watching this show and saw F4 I wasn't sure how I was going to like them. Dao Ming Si and Hua Ze Lei fit Domyouji and Rui well, but I wasn't sure about the other 2. Mei Zuo as Mimasaka even fit, but Xing Men took me a while to get used to. As Nishikado, he looked different. But at the end I found myself liking him as his character. True I liked the japanese F4 better, and even Kim Bum as Nishikado better, but for the Taiwan version he played his part well.



They only had 2 songs in this drama, the opening and the ending. The opening song "Qing Fei Te Yi" (Can't Help Falling In Love With You) they played throughout the drama. It might just be me, but the song didn't get on my nerves.



For a drama that came out in 2OO1, I thought it was really good. You have to keep in mind while watching it that it came out 1O years ago, so of course fashion and technology is going to be different. The cell phones aren't as advanced as they are now. The filming for the show isn't as high quality as it is for new shows. That aside, I think it's a show worth watching. I really think that if I hadn't of seen the Japanese and Korean version I would've liked this drama a lot more. Because this was the last one that I watched, and I'd already read the manga, I found a lot of it predictable. The ending I felt was cute. I'm not sure if I'll watch the 2nd season yet, I'm still debating.



Ohh another thing I liked about this drama was how it included characters such as QingHe (Kazuya in the manga) who were eliminated in the other dramas.

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