Beanie level: Chaebol’s poor doppelganger

I am enjoying THE BLOSSOMING LOVE (CDrama) so much that I don’t even care that the episodes are mostly filler so far. I could watch this for a long time. So refreshing ❤️❤️❤️

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    I’m enjoying it too 😀

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    I was all excited to start this on Viki tomorrow. Until they decided to release Flourished Peony on the same day. 😧 And Moonlight Mystique released yesterday on iQIYI to rave reviews. Meanwhile I’m still trying to decide if I want to continue with Guardians of the Dafeng. And then they announced this morning that Legend of the Female General is being released on January 19 with The Perfect Match around the end of the month. My head is exploding and there are at least 7-8 more c-dramas stacked up right behind them. To say nothing of all the k-drama releases. This is why I’ve retreated into Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo 🙃

    But to respond to your post (lol) I’m really glad to hear you’re liking TBL because it has appealed to me since it was announced and the early trailers were so fun. I’ll definitely be watching it at some point ❤️

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      I want to say to January dramas (K and C) stop it!! IT’S TOO MUCH!! 😭I think my 2025 C-drama policy is going to be to wait to see what the ending is before committing to a watch. I’m excited for The Blossoming Love and Moonlight Mystique, along with many of the other upcoming dramas! I’m also going to let availability do some of the deciding for me, although this may be the year I cave and get an iQiyi subscription 😅 At least TBL is on Viki!!

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        It’s way too much. I’m taking the same approach as you this year (at least for the first half) because there’s no way I can watch all of them live. Darn it FOMO!

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          Yeah I’m going to see how I end up balancing live-watches and wait-and-watches… 3 (!!!) of my live-watches overlap on Saturdays, and that’s not counting Motel California… I love Na In-woo, so I want to watch that one, but I think I’ll wait to watch it later. And I’ll see how things shake out in the court of Beanie opinion with the January C-dramas 👍

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        I totally support your cdrama watching policy. I used to enjoy cdramas much more when I binge watched them after they ended necause for one I knew that it’s a show liked by many and two even if there is a lull (which cdramas usually have around the mid epiaodes because they are too long), I can just ffd and get ahead. In live watching whenever cdramas slow down, I drop them. But it’s hard to gather the time for binge watching.

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          I agree with you 100%!! C-dramas are most fun to binge. The airing schedules are almost impossible to keep up with live… But it’s so hard to find the time!!

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            I can live watch only one C-drama at a time. But it’s not exactly live watching because Viki adds episodes one of two days later.
            And if I watch a pair of new episodes every day, the experience is similar to binge-watching k-dramas.

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      C-drama wants to see fans roll over by way of releasing a Yang Zi drama (Flourished Peony) and a Bai Lu drama (Moonlight Mystique) at the same time *sips tea* 👀 On a serious note, I’m not looking forward to the fan wars that may ensue because of this, as I absolutely love both actresses 🥹😍

      I wonder if many of the networks wanna get some of their heavy hitting dramas out of the way when they can before Xiao Zhan’s Zang Hai Zhuan announces it’s release sometime this year 🤣🤣

      I will be watching all 3 dramas at some point

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        And it’s about time Vin Zhang Bin Bin gets a good drama that brings him out of B-List territory now that he’s done with his previous agency and is managing himself (Zhang Bin Bin Studio). Hopefully The Blossoming Love will do the trick, because he’s not a bad actor by any means 😍

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          I’m 1/3 of the way through Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms (watching verrrrry slowly) and he’s GOOD in it! Crazy that it took so long for him to get roles like the ML in TBL. Hopefully it’s a good drama to the end!

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            … Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms isn’t exactly my favourite Cdrama of that genre (xianxia— basically costume dramas about Chinese gods, folklore, and mythology), but I remember liking him and his character 😊 I feel like his career took a slump after he stopped being paired with Dilreba in dramas, because many of his and her fans were basically just shippers and not actual fans of them or their work as individuals. Whilst her career took off because she has a strong agency behind her (nothing against her, though, I like Reba— I think she’s super fun, goofy, and down to earth behind all of the things her agency tries to do to her to make her the “Chinese Marylin Monroe”)

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      There are too many shows at the same time 🙈
      I think I’ll start Flourished Peony on Viki (Li Xian and Miles Wei are among my favorite Chinese actors) and the rest will have to wait.
      But Moonlight Mystique and Blossoming Love seem interesting.

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      THE BLOSSOMING LOVE was something I started while I waited for FLOURISHED PEONY to start. I wasn’t expecting much, but I am so pleasantly surprised. CLEAR AND CONCISE communication, an irrepressible female lead who has a love that is unrequited but *actually* selfless, the male lead is a lil tsundere, but has quickly admitted he likes the girl and doesn’t rebuff her feelings the 2ML admitting he has feelings and isn’t quite sure what they are,…AND the comedic timing is appropriate and not at all slapstick-y…..Oh I am in love. Like I said, I don’t even care that these first 14 episodes are mostly not going anywhere – I can just watch this go on and on.

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        Sounds exactly like I was hoping it would be! Sometimes dramas are fun to watch just for the feels 😉

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This writer and director actually managed to absolutely RUIN the drama with this last episode of WHEN THE PHONE RINGS. what the devil is wrong with them??! OMG I haven’t felt this upset about a show’s ending since PRINCESS AGENTS. ughhhhh!

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WHEN THE PHONE RINGS ep 9-10 What I loved best about these episodes has been the tenderness and gentleness between Hee-joo and Sa-eon. Oh, love is a beautiful thing to watch :D. I also found the gentleness that underpinned Sa-eon’s interaction in the hospital with his foster dad, AND how kind he was to Do-jae the traitor quite touching and very kind of him. I quite like the layers to our two protagonists: Sa-eon is brusque and aloof, and can be quite mean, and is also kind, thoughtful, gentle. Hee-joo is sweet and vulnerable, and brave and resolute – just magnificent.
Just when I think I have the show figured out, all sorts of loops get thrown in. Does Sa-eon know that his grandfather is his father?! Also, the real Baek Sa-eon was killing other CHILDREN? OMG. All the adults in this drama are despicable! IMO Baek mom is the vey worst of them, along with grandpa.
I can’t wait for the finale, but I really think this show would have benefitted from 16 episodes. It would have been great to see an earlier episode or two from Sa-eon’s perspective (ie Yoo Yeon-seok, not psycho Sa-eon).

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I am all caught up with WHEN THE PHONE RINGS ep 4, and I can’t remember the last time a toxic relationship has had me so enthralled. Usually, I’m very ready to be the feminist killjoy, pointing how horrible it all is, but not here.

I think because in a way, it makes perfect sense to me how the “relationship” got to this point. Like I said somewhere, its obvious looking in that he cares about her, but he laces his words and actions with so much menace that she can’t see it. I also get why he’s refused to learn sign language to communicate with/encourage her, because she’s been nothing but a doormat and a hostage to her mom and others’ political machinations. She cannot actually consent/say yes under all this duress, so I’m really happy he refused her in the beginning till now. All this rambling to say, I see the lack of communication, the abrasive language, the isolation,- the whole damn situation. I KNOW IT’S NOT THE BEST, BUT I GET IT, AND I’M NOT MAD AT IT. I’m interested to see where the story will go – with her taking some initiative, and him learning to soften and be a proper lover and gentleman.

I think Yoo Yeon-seok and Chae Soo-bin are doing a fantastic job (although, not gonna lie, occasionally, I find myself wondering how Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won from QUEEN OF TEARS would pull off certain scenes).

All in all, I’m loving it, and I hope it stays (a lil less toxically) awesome throughout.

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    I like to see Hee-joo as a study in resistance, frankly. I know it’s all going to break down predictably in the way you also predict, but so far, I like to think she’s doing what she can to stay whole.

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      I’d like to see her figure out how to get him much further off-balance before they meet in the middle, yeah.

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      She definitely is. Those little moments of defiance are what I lke about her: rom refusing to stand at the fake wedding till he gave ehr a ring, to insisting on working, to snatching the pillow from his head, our girl is in there somewhere. But she hasn’t come out enough for a true romance yet.

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    I firmly believe that he Does know sign language. He is pretending not to ‘hear’ sign language, and she is pretending not to ‘speak’ with her voice. And I think by the end of ep 4 that is clearly signposted. Especially his words and actions in the sign interpreter interview.

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    I’m in the middle. Sometimes I think he knows, and other times I think he doesn’t.

    Either way, he’s a jerk (but I like him), and it’s going to be fun watching him “learn” sign language from her.

    And yes, the cast is killing it!

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      Even if he knows how to read sign language, learning how to speak it is different. That’s the same for all languages- you can have a good reading/listening vocabulary, but only a small speaking vocab.
      Its both getting your brain around constructing sentences, and also getting your hands/mouth into the physical shapes for the new signs/sounds

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    The drama definitely knows how to hit the right notes. Yes, waiting for them to meet in the middle.

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WE ARE SERIOUSLY BACK TO ONLY BEING ABLE TO POST 200 CHARACTERS MAX ON OUR FANWALLS?!!!

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    Oh hi there! Nice to see you back. The old workaround still works: type your post of any length somewhere else (including HTML tags if you want them), then copy and paste into the comment box using the cursor and Edit functions, not keyboard shortcuts. For example, in Chrome, go to the ‘Edit’ tab and pull down to ‘Paste.’

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ATYPICAL FAMILY eps 1-4. There’s such a mean-spirited undercurrent running through this show – from the fat phobia, Grandma’s nasty words every time she opens her mouth, the hero’s deadbeat dad behavior (depression notwithstanding), and the heroine and her family’s predatory behavior. It gives me the ick, not gonna lie.

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    Maybe Da-hae’s backstory was supposed to make her more sympathetic, but it really didn’t for me. Yes her adoptive mother is a vile excuse for a human being, but she still is responsible for her choices and she’s choosing to scam this family — with a child!! — and she doesn’t even have a sick family member in the hospital whose bills she needs to pay.

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    The show is disturbing, imo.
    Especially the disrespect to In Ha and her mom. The way both of those characters are used in the ML’s story is eww.

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    Thank you! I couldn’t put my finger on what I didn’t like about this show and you just captured it for me. It gave me the creeps – I dropped near the end of episode 2. Very disturbing.

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OMG QUEEN OF TEARS ep14: COME ON, writer-nim! We have two episodes to go – TWO! We should be wrapping things up, not ramping them up! What do y’all have against a good ending and an ample epilogue?!

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QUEEN OF TEARS ep9. Let me put my thoughts here before I go into ep 10.
1. I adore Hae-in, but I am tired of her at this point. She needs to learn how to talk to Hyun-woo PROPERLY, and express her desires properly (no, what she has been doing in the past few episodes isn’t communication). Say: “yes I’d like you to spend the night in my room”, “I’d like you to take the day of if you can” instead of whatever she’s been saying lately. What’s the point of loving someone if you can’t be vulnerable? Free yourself if your walls can’t come down 🙄

2. I like the Hongs too, all of them, much to my surprise, but I am also tired of them. They should have made Mummy Hong face her grief over her dead son and her relationship with Hae-in long before now.

3. Eun-sung and his obsessive delusions irk me to no end. You can’t destroy someone’s family – a family that she’s attached to! – and expect them to fall happily into your arms! Another one that shoulda spent some money in therapy to get rid of his abandonment issues. Returning Hae-in’s mall that you STOLE from her in the first place isn’t something to be proud of, doofus! Surely, even delusional people understand that?! Also, people who don’t understand that “love” must be requited, or else it’s just an obsession, annoy me.

4. I’m tired of Hyun-woo too. If you and Hae-in can’t communicate at your big ages and at this critical juncture, stop crying, cut your losses, and go collect the number of the principal’s daughter from your sis, since the Hongs are very unserious people. Maybe you’ll communicate better with Se-young or whatever her name is.

5. Soo-cheol is another. I’m tired of his pathetic ass too. Get a damn spine and grow up! (he’s a much stupider version of his daddy)

6. Eun-sung’s mama still bothers me. I don’t think she needs a great revenge plot or some tragic back story – people can be greedy, covetous, and opportunistic by nature, so that’s fine (she could just have been a scheming housekeeper who saw a mark in grandpa) – but I still don’t get this long con for 20 yrs. She coulda gotten grandpa to marry her in half the time. Unless, like someone said elsewhere, it’s just a plot device where they were waiting for Eun-sung to grow up. That’s the only way it makes sense.

6. I’m still seated, I still really, really like the show, but I want to smack everyone this weekend. Come on! We have other things to be doing – finding love again, learning sense, learning communication, learning to get a backbone, taking down Eun-sung and his crazy mama all those things to be doing, and instead we’re doing… This.

7. At this point, the Baeks (all of them) are the best thing about this drama. Throw everyone else in rice.

8.  Surprising myself, I’m also invested in the other plot points, but just our romance. That’s something that has snuck up on me, bc I wasn’t like this in the beginning

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    Your *ahem* rant is rather spot on! I love the expression “Throw everyone else in rice“.

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    Correction: NOT just the romance. I’m invested in all the plot points.

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QUEEN OF TEARS ep9. Let me hold judgment till tomorrow, but if Hae-in goes with Eun-sung, I’m gonna be majorly pissed off. Kmt. Don’t waste my time

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    He would need to kidnap her. The look on her face when she realised it was him and she knows he knows her vulnerability now so there is no way she would willingly go.

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      I hope so. She better also not try any noble idiocy

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      And who’s to say he would NOT stoop to kidnapping!!

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        He will definitely go for kidnapping. No one knows where she went so it will take a while for them to notice she is missing. I bet we see a shot of the two cars passing each other on the road. I don’t get why they did make the aunt aware of her hallucinations so she would watch her whenever she is wandering the neighbourhood. It is ridiculous how often she goes off without thinking of the consequences. I also think they should set up the tracking on her phone for those incidents too.
        I have been sweating about the baddies placing a tracker on Hyunwoo to find out where he was he going during the day and evenings.

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Queen of Tears ep 7 and 8: OMG OMG OMG. I don’t even know where to start or what to say, but Baek Hyun-woo, the man that you are!!! You deserve reparations for carrying that entire family on your back!
Also, give Kim Ji-won and Kim Soo-hyun the Daesang right now!!
At the half mark, I can only say so far that the entire cast, writers, cinematographers, crew, soundtrack artistes – everyone should be proud of the work they’ve done so far

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QUEEN OF TEARS ep 5: Ok, the writer needs to fix this ASAP, because I absolutely did not sign up to watch a drama about rediscovering love amid terminal illness!! It’s sposed to be a romance, dammit!!

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QUEEN OF TEARS ep1 and 2: Oh I cannot remember being this enamored with a kdrama opening in recent years. I am absolutely enchanted!! Kim Ji-won, already great, keeps getting better and better in eacjh thing I see her in (Arthdal doesn’t count pls); and Kim Soo-hyun is just brilliant! Also really cute when he’s drunk, so he isn’t lying at all (🤣🤣🤣). I really hope the drama continues as wonderfully as it has begun! (I can do without the slapstick crazy rich aunt though.)

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    QUEEN OF TEARS Writer Park Ji-eun (along with Kim Soo-hyuns’s performance) has accomplished something very, very rare in a kdrama. She wrote a drinking scene that was actually funny and not cringeworthy awful. I am kind of shocked.

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      You know, I saw that seen in the trailer and I was put off by it, and then I saw it in context and cannot stop laughing. You’re so right – she’s done something amazing there.

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        I avoided the QOT trailers so arrived almost with a blank slate of what this drama was about other than we had a married couple with the wife coming from wealth and not so for the husband.

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MARRY MY HUSBAND ep 14. What a waste of my time it Has been to invest in this drama. Forget the viilains… I don’t understand how the chaebol hero manages to be so bland and uninteresting, and how the female lead has the essence of a loser. A Mary-Sue and a loser. Also, this idiotic idea of switching people’s fates….. OMG 14 hrs gone.

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    True, yet I am compelled to see 15-16 despite the meltdown in the writers room! Hoping its not a trainwreck!

    And that Pang the orange cat survives.

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    To be completely fair to Ji-hyuk, he is equally as bland in the webtoon… Not that I am defending him or even his female lead, I’m with you on the disappointment and frustration of the plot, so I have given up a while back (both the webtoon and the drama)!

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MARRY MY HUSBAND ep 9. I’m sorry, but in her 2nd life, Kang Ji won is just a loser and Mary Sue. And Park whatever-his-name-is is just so bland. Eye roll. I’m over it

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CAFE MINAMDANG, ep 5. What a stupid, cliche show. I dunno about the rest of the cast, but Seo In-gook and Oh Yeon-seo are much better than this. WHY agree to such a stupid show?!

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Hi everyone.
Your resident killjoy, back in service for ALCHEMY OF SOULS ep 1. RThis is absolutely not fair, but really, my most prominent thought the whole time was: “Do these people do NOTHING but live their lives looking for revenge?”

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    When there’s nothing to watch on tv, I guess. lol.

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    Yeah, when a drama is about revenge I always focus on something else. So AoS, for me, is about the romance and comedy, I don’t care about the revenge or politics tbh.

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      There are a few revenge dramas thst are wonderful, but I find that they tend to be exceptions, rather than the rule. My favorite is NIRVANA IN FIRE, which truly, was more about serving justice and righting a grievous wrong, than about revenge itself

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        I feel like the revenge is just there to connect the other storylines tbh, so I never really pay attention to it.
        I like revenge I’m movies, tho. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance for example.

        I’m gonna add Nirvana yo my watchlist. Thanks! ^^

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BULGASAL up to ep 10: these men spent 600 yrs walking the face of earth, and didn’t collect nary a speck of wisdom in that time span. And all the reincarnated people too, didn’t learn ANY sense in their new lifetimes. What a waste. Mtcheeeew

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BULGASAL end of ep 4. But of course. Caveats have been introduced : a real big bad (eyeroll). And now , we set the stage for the love story.

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Hmmm, come to think of it, are there any fantasy sageuks anyone can think of? I’d like to watch one.

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Bulgasal…. This female shaman irks my soul so much. What a useless entity!!!! All this exposition would been nice when he was a kid, wouldn’t it? Instead of telling everyone he needs to die. Kmt

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