Moonlight Drawn By Clouds Review

Title: Moonlight Drawn by Clouds

AKA: Love in The Moonlight

Genre: Historical, Comedy, Romance

Episodes: 18

Broadcast Period: Aug-2016 to Oct-2016

Cast: Park Bo Gum, Kim Yoo Jung, Jin Young, Chae Soo Bin, Kwak Dong Yun, Kim Seung Soo, Jun Mi Sun, 

Hong Ra On (Kim Yoo Jung) is a young woman during the Joseon Dynasty who disguises herself as a man named Sam Nom to support herself by ghostwriting and giving relationship advice to lovelorn men. A love letter that Ra On writes for a client brings her in contact with Lee Yeong, who is the Crown Prince Hyo Myeong (Park Bo Gum), the first son of King Sunjo (Kim Seung Soo) and heir to the throne, as well as his trusted guard Kim Byung Yeon (Kwak Dong Yeon). Through a series of events, Ra On gets sold into the Royal Palace as a eunuch and is assigned to work for Royal Consort Soo Ki (Jun Mi Sun) and Princess Young Geun (Heo Jung Eun). Ra On becomes embroiled in a political power struggle with Queen Kim (Han Soo Yeon) and her father, Prime Minister Kim Hun (Chun Ho Jin), who somehow manage to keep King Sunjo in a perpetually weakened, hallucinogenic state. Prime Minister Kim is grooming his grandson, Kim Yoon Sung (Jinyoung), to take over the throne but that would put the young scholar in direct competition with his childhood friend, Lee Yeong, to become the next king. With Ra On and Byung Yeon by his side, can Lee Yeong fight the power-hungry ministers to claim his rightful place in history? 

This just became one of my favorite drama this year. 2016 has really brought alot of different kdramas, and i’m lovin’ it! And with those dramas, a lot of young, new and talented actors/actress’ are coming to the spotlight. The personal acting chemistry between Kim Yoo Jung as young, fearless and joyful Hong Ra On and Park Bo Gum as Crown Prince Lee Yeong is the heart of the drama. The youthfulness and impressive acting skills of Kim Yoo Jung ( who is only 17) interacting with equally talented Park Bo Gum (who is only 23) is a marvel that lingers in the mind long after we have turned off our computers. One thing this drama has teached me is that politics is a dirty dirty game, but our crown prince knew how to play it! I seriously loved everything about this drama, the acting, storyline, the directing and of course the OST! This is a drama I highly recommend, saeguk fan or not, this appeals to your every need ;)

☆☆☆☆☆ / 5 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥♥ / 5 out of 5 hearts

Reply 1988 Review

Title: Reply 1988
AKA: Answer me 1988
Genre: Family, Comedy, Romance
Episodes: 20
Broadcast Period: Nov-2015 to Jan-2016
Cast: Lee Hyeri, Ryu Jun Yeol, Go Kyung Pyo, Park Bo Gum, Lee Dong Hwi, Sung Dong Il, Lee Il Hwa, Ryu Hye Jung,

The drama centers on the families of these 18-year-olds, as well as the friends themselves. Dong Ryong (Lee Dong Hwi) is the neighborhood "counselor," living in the house across the street. He showers the group with shrimp chips when the bag pops during a movie. Jung Hwan (Ryu Jun Yeol), this boy lives upstairs our heroine Deok Seon (Lee Hyeri), she calls him "Dog," and explains "he's not exactly a human yet”. Deok Seon is direct and extreme, in the only way a teen can be with her feelings and thoughts. Taek (Park Bo Gum) is a genius Baduk player but an idiot, when it comes to anything else. Sun Woo (Go Kyung Pyo) is the most normal person of the group. He's not only normal, he's the prototypical good son, the guy who looks after his little sister and mother.

I’m pretty sure I’m in the same boat as everyone else who watched Reply 1988. The boat floating on desperate feelings over why this drama didn’t have 20 more episodes! I seriously am in love with this serie, I even thought of it as a first placer in all the Reply series, with 1997 as a 2nd and 1994 for 3rd. I’m still hungover from this series, so don’t take that seriously. What I like about this drama, were the 200% realness. The raw emotions portrayed by each character, and how it’s not always by mere “fate” and circumstances most dramas show these days. All the characters were different from one another, and that’s a huge achievement giving how big the cast is. The overall plot were so damn (sorry) good! The Reply series is always touching and relatable, but 1988 just killed it with the dynamics between characters. I won’t go into details about the actors and characters, beause I’m pretty sure im gonna spill the beans soon, so I’ll stop here. No, just one more thing, I don’t think they could have casted better actors and actresses than what they did. Bravo! Even though it ended in 2016, I’m gonna put this into my favorite dramas of 2015! I’m looking forward to a Reply 19XX.

☆☆☆☆☆ / 5 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥♥ / 5 out of 5 hearts

I Remember You Review

Title: I Remember You
AKA: Hello Monster
Genre: Romance, Thriller, Mystery
Episode: 16
Broadcast Period: Jun-2015 to Aug-2015
Cast: Seo In Guk, Jang Na Ra, Choi Won Yung, Lee Chun Hee, Park Bo Gum, Min Sung Wook, Son Seung Won,

A criminal profiler, Lee Hyun (Seo In Guk) who previously work as a consultant at the police department in New York and had given a lot of lectures in Seoul University has received a mysterious mail about his past. Drawn by this mail he returns to south Korea, and gets to work with a special criminal investigation team. Due to his special insight, he can analyze the crime scene and the suspect at one glance. He works together with an elite detective, Cha Ji An (Jang Na Ra) to solve one murder case after the other. Cha Ji An already knew about Lee Hyun since she has been stalking him every time he was in Seoul. Together they unknowingly unlock the mysteries of the past.

The plot make it sound like this drama is going to be a romance drama, I thought it would be like that. Sorry if it’s misleading, but the drama really do start like that, but the more you watch, the more you realize this drama is not focusing on the main couple but rather the main siblings! I really did enjoy the two brothers hate and affection for each other. I don’t know why, but I preferred that over the main couples relationship. The drama is filled with gominams (flower boys)! It was thrilling and pleasant for the eyes at the same time. I can’t believe I wasn’t going to watch this drama, but an interview with Seo In Guk made me want to watch it. Oh boy, this is definitely one of my favorite drama of the summer, maybe the best actually. The mystery caught me from the beginning with all the psycho profiling talk and it made me really interested in profiling. It’s not like CSI or anything, it got its own flavor in this drama, hmm.. maybe that’s why I fell for it from the beginning. The story is filled with thrilling murder cases (one more plus), but because it had a 15 age restriction you don’t get to see any hardcore murder scenes, but somehow they made it creepy anyway. That must have been a hard job for the production crew and writers, but they managed it with awesome results. All of the actors were brilliant, I can’t pinpoint just one, that would not be fair to the rest, they were all amazing with their respective characters. I really don’t know what more to say to make you watch it :b

☆☆☆☆☆ / 5 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥♥ / 5 out of 5 hearts

Bunji's Verdict

After spending a lot of time trying to start, which by the way has a both confusing and quite dull introduction, I managed to start this drama and to my surprise I finished it in matter of 2 days. As profiling/psychological/crime dramas go, this one was quite close to what I expect from a complicated yet interesting plot. As a Korean drama I have to admit it was a bit darker than usual, but still managed to add the ‘typical flavor’ of both overdramatizing and over sentimentalizing both the sob story and the ‘bromance’, as all of us Asian drama lovers adore. To be fair I get all characters – which I very important for me when I am watching a drama – but I felt as if they were too much of stereotypes. It’s not as if it ruins everything, it is just too typical. And I have to say that the romance was weird – not bad – just felt out of place. A lot of you will probably disagree, as it is a typical Korean drama move (the entire know each other from childhood blah blah… and the second lead trying to ruin all), but I was just annoyed most of the time.

On the other hand, this has to be hands down the most decent portrayal of a female cop. So far most female cops in drama are damsel in destress and THANK GOD Korea has understood the meaning of COPS... Like don’t they do training or anything like that... seriously… But this drama showed what I was waiting for, and even if the female would be kidnapped or whatever, she’d kick ass… Though most of the time she’d still be saved by a male, I think that Jang Na Ra was the one fighting the most in this drama... Which is cool. Seo In Guk was cool as always, and those tight fitted suits really suit him!

Okay so all in all, a quite interesting drama, but a bit too typical for my taste – though I liked the darker elements.

☆☆☆☆ / 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥½ / 3½ out of 5 hearts