Second To Last Love Review

Title: Second to Last Love

Genre: Romance, Comedy

Episodes: 20

Broadcast period: 2016-Jul to 2016-Oct

Cast: Kim Hee Ae, Ji Jin Hee, Kwak Si Yang, Kim Seul Gi, Jung Soo Young, Lee Soo Min and Park Sung Geun.

Kang Min Joo (Kim Hee Ae) is a top TV producer for SBC, famous for making a lot of dramas with great ratings. She is known to always get her way by persuasion and sweet talking her way out of situations.

Go Sang Shik (Ji Jin Hee) is a public employee and manager, working for the ‘tourism and environment’ part of his city, where the office works to make get tourists to visit the beautiful parts of the city. He is known to be honest and quite stoic, as well as too cautious and a sucker for rules.

When the SBC gets into trouble for copyrighting a story from a webtoonist, Min Joo is put on the spot to fix it, but the artist Go Mi Rye (Kim Seul Gi) refuses to be persuaded, unless Min Joo can persuade her brother. At the same time Min Joo is put in another spot, as the office of ‘tourism and environment’ refuses to let her film the series at the spot she had hoped. Trying to fix this, she gets on the wrong foot with the manager, who happens to be Sang Shik. Budding heads, the two want to avoid each other, but as fate has it Min Rye is the younger sister of Sang Shik, and Min Jo just happened to move next door to Sang Shik, who lives there with his entire family. To make matters worse, Sang Shiks family friend, who is also living with the family, starts to find a liking in Min Joo.

Though the two can’t seem to stand each other, they soon find out that they have a lot in common. And that their fates are even more entwined than anticipated…

This drama is one of the few types of dramas I usually don’t watch, but I guess the older you get your preference ages with you. It is one of those dramas focusing solely on the destiny and love story of the main couple, and while doing that questions several customs society throws at us. Of course, they add in different ages groups to compare those customs, so that the viewer can detect the differences.

I remember watching Kim Hee Ae in Mrs. Cop, so I had to see this one, and I did enjoy her acting. I generally enjoyed everyone in this drama since the actors were great. The story was well written, but I gotta say they did ruin a bit of it because of the extra episodes – which was a bit unnecessary. It made the drama longer, and a bit heavier.

All in all, a good drama for a mature audience.

☆☆☆☆ / 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥ / 4 out of 5 hearts

Let's Eat Review

Title: Let’s Eat
AKA: Siksyareul Habsida
Genre:  Food, Comedy, Romance
Episodes: 16
Broadcast Period: Nov-2013 to Mar-2014
Cast: Yoon Do Jeon, Lee Soo Kyung, Yoon So Hee, Shim Hyung Tak, Lee Do Yun, Jang Won Young, Jung Soo Young,

The drama focuses on the home and work life of our heroine Lee Soo Kyung (Lee Soo Kyung), a divorced woman in her early thirties who is content to live alone. The one thing she can’t quite reconcile is her abiding love of delicious food, and her inability to eat out alone. She’s a foodie who enjoys trying every new restaurant under the sun, and avidly follows food blogs to feed her ever-growing appetite. Her favorite is a strange blog called ‘Let’s Eat’ that only uploads photos of empty dishes—a sign that a place has to be scrape-your-plate-clean delicious in order to be worthy of a post. Her next-door neighbor to the left is Gu Dae Young (Yoon Doo Joon), a smooth-talking man in his late twenties who tramps around in sweats most of the time, and can be overheard telling a different girl each day that he’s two minutes away from wherever he’s supposed to meet her, even though he’s still standing in his hallway. Basically, Soo Kyung’s first impression of him is that he’s a liar and a playboy.

Warning: Do not watch this drama while hungry, DO NOT! It’s torturing if you’re hungry, and it will make you hungry if you’re full. Solution: watch while eating. You could mostly call Let’s Eat a slice-of-life drama about our heroine, and by extension the three neighbors who share a hallway. You could also call the show a commercial in drama clothing. The food sequences that were featured in every episode were highly indulgent, and often felt like we were taking a legitimate commercial break. What keeps it then, from becoming an extended food commercial, is a thoughtful tone and an earnest portrayal of characters who are consistent and well-rounded. I was pleasantly surprised by Yoon Doo-joon in this role. I think it helps that Dae Young is a quirky character, and a guy with a sunny disposition and a quick comeback for everything. He really has a lot of fun with the Angry Foodie segments—basically once every episode. He totally goes for the comedy, which made me like him. The romance wasn’t one that had scorching chemistry or even a great deal of development, but it was squarely in cute and fun territory.

☆☆☆½ / 3½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥ / 4 out of 5 hearts

Second Time Twenty Years Old Review

Title: Second Time Twenty Years Old

AKA: Twenty Again

Genre: Drama, Romance,

Episodes: 16

Broadcast Period: Aug-2015 to Oct-2015

Cast: Choi Ji Woo, Jung Soo Young, Ban Hyo Jung, Lee Sang Yoon, Choi Yoon Soo, Choi Won Young, Kim Min Jae,

36-year-old Ha No Ra dreamt of becoming a dancer in her high school years, but met her husband Kim Woo Chul when she was 19. After having a child, she focused on taking care of her family and had to give up her dreams. In hopes of becoming a proud wife and mother to her college professor husband and her son Min Soo, she strives to enter college and ends up getting accepted into the same college as her son.

A cute heartwarming story delivered with an encouraging performance by TvN. I really love that channels drama, they are so cheering and not so dramatic and complicated like those typical Korean melodrama. This drama almost made me study for my exams instead of watching it, almost. It teaches the young people that you don’t have to have your whole life figured out now, take it step by step and make sure you’re happy too. The concept really reminds me of Angry Mom, the only difference is that this is in college instead and not high school. I really enjoyed the drama, it was not complicated at all, what I liked was that there were no evil/bad people or good people. They all acted according to their surroundings and very realistically, humanly. The acting was also very good, even the college students were adorable. If I had to point out something negative it would be how weak the main character were, I don’t know why, but weak female MAIN characters bugs me. Like when they can’t do anything themselves and need help with everything. Although Choi Ji Woo (Ha No Ra) had a good performance and her character grew stronger in the end, but she was still dependent on others. All in all a good drama to watch with a nice flow.

☆☆☆☆/ 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥ / 4 out of 5 hearts