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| Jungkook |
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| The same spot, Me (not pictured) |
Had a fun month with a quick Are You Sure-themed trip to Connecticut. Glamping a la Jimin and Jungkook with less diarrhea but a spider bite. Stll have not encountered any AMAZING dramas lately but I'm watching a mix of old and new ones waiting for the next big hit.
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Bon Appetit, Your Majesty
With a last minute change in casting, this time slip drama with a food competition spin is a mostly frothy show with a star turn from Lee Chae-min, but as usual Netflix's half-baked underdevelopment doesn't allow it to stick the landing when things get serious.
Yi Heon (Lee Chae-min) is the King of Joseon and history recorded him as a violent tyrant. But when star chef Yeon Ji-yeong (Im Yoon-ah) finds herself time traveling back to Joseon she meets this royal who starts out as her enemy and eventually her patron, supporting her as the palace's top chef. While he has been tortured by the memory of his mother's death, something about Ji-yeong's cooking transports him and softens his outlook. It asks the question of whether this relationship might change history and stop this king from his tyrannical reign of terror.
So often with these time travel dramas, the time-traveling character just kind of forgets they are from the future. Here, Ji-yeong is a modern person but with her knowledge of cooking techniques through history she can adapt to her adverse the situation. The show also leans heavily on food history and cooking competition TV shows to have Ji-yeong be cooking each week to save her life for a new reason. While ridiculous, it kind of works within the context of the set-up. The show dials up the comedy and tries to "show" the emotional journey of these bites of food (imagine macaron dreams). It can get silly, but it's all in good fun.
Originally, Park Sung-hoon was to be cast as the king but after an online scandal he was replaced by Lee Chae-min. The age gap then shifts from older man and younger woman to younger man and older woman. And it makes more sense that this younger king would be hot-headed and reckless only to grow as a king and leader through this relationship with his chef.
The character of the King starts out a bit more sadistic and it's hard to root for a romance with that. But they soften him pretty quickly after with ample tears over his past trauma. After that, it focus on his intrigue with this mysterious chef who keeps claiming she is from the future. Lee Chae-min between fits of anger, frustration, food ecstasy, and curiosity makes the character work.
Yoon-ah as usual is just smiley and whatever. I feel like she plays basically the same character every time.
But by the time they get through all the cooking competition stuff, no one has bothered to write the rest of the show. They fail to build out the politics of the show, so it just has to hurriedly end with some nonsense magic (which is pretty obvious from the start).
But if nothing else it is solidifying Lee Chae-min as the next It Boy in dramas and we'll see what other dramas he takes on. Someone send him good scripts.
I am a sucker for a longtime crush playing out. So I got sucked into this strange drama, My Troublesome Star, which involved far too many brain injuries to one character to be safe.
Yoon-ah as usual is just smiley and whatever. I feel like she plays basically the same character every time.
But by the time they get through all the cooking competition stuff, no one has bothered to write the rest of the show. They fail to build out the politics of the show, so it just has to hurriedly end with some nonsense magic (which is pretty obvious from the start).
But if nothing else it is solidifying Lee Chae-min as the next It Boy in dramas and we'll see what other dramas he takes on. Someone send him good scripts.
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My Troublesome Star
I am a sucker for a longtime crush playing out. So I got sucked into this strange drama, My Troublesome Star, which involved far too many brain injuries to one character to be safe.
In this drama, Im Sera (Uhm Jung-hwa) is a famous star. After winning a big award, she gets into a car accident and is not heard from again. 25 years later, she wakes up in a hospital not remembering what has happened since that accident. Even though she has lost her memory, she decides to stage a comeback for herself and reclaim her career using her real name, Bong Cheong-ja. She is helped by a police officer Dokgo Cheol (Song Seung-heon) because he thinks her disappearance might be connected with some criminal activity he has been investigating. He's not convinced this is Im Sera. Meanwhile, he had a crush on Im Sera when they met briefly in their 20s.
This show left me with so many questions. They really frumpify Uhm Jung-hwa to a degree that she is more like a bag lady than a quirky middle-aged lady. She also has serious skin issues like an outbreak of rosacea which seems like it would be a problem for being on camera. And with her comeback her make-up artist friend reconnects with her but in no way attempts to help her look better?
Not to drag a woman while she is down but it's just very confusing. It's a shock to her that she is no longer in her 20s but if she thinks she was 20 yesterday wouldn't she dress like that? It's just a baffling character all around.
I don't know why I am trying to bring logic into this...but none of the character stuff ever made much sense to me. Then her stupid niece decides to become a trainee and causes serious problems leading to YET ANOTHER head injury for her.
Everything gets wrapped up neatly without answering any of my questions.
This show left me with so many questions. They really frumpify Uhm Jung-hwa to a degree that she is more like a bag lady than a quirky middle-aged lady. She also has serious skin issues like an outbreak of rosacea which seems like it would be a problem for being on camera. And with her comeback her make-up artist friend reconnects with her but in no way attempts to help her look better?
Not to drag a woman while she is down but it's just very confusing. It's a shock to her that she is no longer in her 20s but if she thinks she was 20 yesterday wouldn't she dress like that? It's just a baffling character all around.
I don't know why I am trying to bring logic into this...but none of the character stuff ever made much sense to me. Then her stupid niece decides to become a trainee and causes serious problems leading to YET ANOTHER head injury for her.
Everything gets wrapped up neatly without answering any of my questions.
But I did love Lee Min-jae playing the young police officer with a goofy crush on this mega star. And Song Seung-heon being the adult version of that guy with no game.
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Tempest
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| As nuclear devices do... |
Tempest starts out as an interesting spy drama with an assassination, drifts into a nonsense sexy bodyguard drama, and then an INSANE political drama. At some point, I could not figure out what the politics of this show were saying beyond "crazy people with money are bad."
This show jumps so many sharks, but Jun Ji-hyun and Gang Dong-won are so hot. I kept watching because of with her deep voiced breathiness and his low simmer sexiness. But this was truly a cuckoo bananas show with no merit. I should have stopped but I could not help myself.
I gave up on this basic level teen romance. It had a nice ensemble of friends but the immaturity of the female lead was killing me.
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A Love So Beautiful
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