Scholar Who Walks The Night Review

Title: Scholar Who Walks The Night

AKA: Scholar of the Night

Genre: Fantasy, Historical, Romance

Episode: 20

Broadcast Period: Jul-2015 to Sep-2015

Cast: Lee Jun Ki, Lee Yoo Bi, Shim Chang Min, Lee Soo Hyuk, Kim So Eun, Jang Hee Jin, Lee Soon Jae, Son Jong Hak

Set in an alternate Joseon dynasty, Jo Yang Sun (Lee Yoo Bi) is the daughter of a nobleman whose family loses everything when her father were framed for treason. To make ends meet, Yang Sun begins cross-dressing as a male bookseller, and meets the handsome and mysterious scholar Kim Sung Yeol (Lee Joon Ki). Sung Yeol is a vampire, and he continues to be haunted by the long-ago death of his first love Lee Myung Hee (Kim So Eun) once he meets Myung Hee’s present-day doppelganger: Choi Hye Ryung (Kim So Eun), an aloof nobleman’s daughter. Meanwhile, the evil vampire Gwi (Lee Soo Hyuk) resides in the royal palace and uses his powers and political machinations to prevent the Crown Prince Lee Yun (Shim Chang Min) from ascending the throne.

What’s up with all the vampire stuff in dramaland lately?! Saeguk AND vampires jut the cup of tea I longed to watch… until I actually started watching it. The storyline was good, interesting. The idea about this evil despicable vampire living under the palace, playing with the king and his ministers like puppets were genius. Even the character were dreadful. However, the whole drama is about vampires, so why make them so weak?! I just couldn’t get excited about it at all! Then the nonsense about if they don’t drink blood at full moon, they will die… is this a vamp-werewolf fusion? I don’t like it, never, just stupid. Then Lee Jun Ki, why did you choose this drama, It totally made a black spot on your career, you need to pick a whole other project next time. I don’t want to give up on you yet. And now, Lee Yu Bi, she's a good actress but I just didn't like her character in this drama. No offence to her, but I hated her character so much I just wanted to skip all her scenes. Lee Soo Hyuk and Kim so Eun were brilliant together, I guess they were the most successful and magnificent choices made by the production. In conclusion, I was disappointed much, but I managed to finish it ;)

☆☆☆ / 3 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥ / 3 out of 5 hearts

Bunji's Verdict

Compared to the last Lee Jun Ki drama this one was a bit better, though I am getting tired of his period dramas. I don’t understand why it has to be period dramas all the time, and I am kind of missing the “Two Weeks” Lee Jun Ki now. Anyways, I said better, not necessary good. This drama is too coincidental and is too much “Manhwa” - this is why I dislike Manga/Manhwa adaptions, they never work!  It has too many ‘cartoonish’ elements and as I say, everything and everyone is too coincidental. Even though every actor fits their character perfectly: Jun Ki looks like a handsome undead, so does Soo Hyuk. And they couldn’t find anyone looking more like prince Yi San than Chang Min. Unfortunately, everything else about this drama is a mess. I have to disagree with Kamji - the background story is dumb, I mean it takes them so long to figure anything out.  The characters have no consistency and have bad growth. And I also disagree with Kamji on the second couple. - they were SO boring. Everyone was to be honest. I also felt that the lead actress was an idiot, SPOILER ALERT: Jun Ki’s character changes sooooo many times in front of her, and what she doesn’t notice? What the…

Anyways... My rating is based on the actors and their constant fight to “fix” this drama, unfortunately they fail, but watching them is quite worth the watch - and also I have to give their seriousness some credit.

All in all, not something I would recommend, but the acting is alright and worth a shot in this drama

☆☆☆ / 3 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥ / 3 out of 5 hearts

Liar Game Review

Title: Liar Game
Genre: Mystery, Psychological, Thriller
Episodes: 12
Broadcast period: 2014-Oct to 2014-Nov
Cast: Lee Sang Yoon, Kim So Eun, Shin Sung Rok, Cha Soo Yeon, Choi Jin Ho, Lee Si Hoo, Choi Yoon So, Jang Seung Jo, Kang Ho

Nam Da-Jung (Kim So Eun) is a bright innocent college student, who trust people easily, even if she gets deceived every time. She works hard every day to pay her college tuition, and pay back her dads huge debt, which is the reason he left her alone. She was tricked by an old woman on the street, and gets involved in a reality program Liar Game, a game that rules relies on psychological survival skills, wherein the participants has to trick each other and the one who ultimately succeeds wins the prize money. Da-Jung is tempted by the huge amount of money to finally be able to pay off her father’s debts, so she joins the game. However, she ultimately is conned out of the initial money given to her. Desperately she seeks help from the genius ex-con swindler and former psychology Professor Ha Woo-Jin (Lee Sang Yoon) to help her win the game.


YES, a korean remake! Liar game, the original Japanese one, is by far one of my all-time favorite drama. The suspense, the confusion, betrayal, money and mystery is all what I like in a deceitful drama.  The Korean one is a little bit different than the Japanese, and that’s great therefor it’s not a copy! Anyway the new concept they put over the game were thoughtful, it went well with the original games so they didn’t destroy the core idea in the drama. I loved it, maybe because it’s such a long time ago I watched the Japanese (2008 maybe), it felt like a whole new drama, I of course forgot the rules and how the game were played, so I was pleasant  being deceived by the game yet again.
The actors… Perfect! They couldn’t have picked a better actor to play the Akiyama role. I was so frustrated in the beginning because Lee Sang Yoon really didn’t have the image for being a mysterious psycho professor, but he surprised us all I guess, he was the born actor for this role. Even Kim So Eun did a great job as an innocent girl. Wow and I’ll just point out Shin sung Rok, having pulled out four hit dramas this year is an amazing accomplishment, and he did a good job in every one of them, although he is playing the bad guy, he somehow makes you like and be scared of the character in the same time.
Now it can’t go faster to make a season 2!

☆☆☆☆☆ / 5 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥♥ / 5 out of 5 hearts

Bunji's Verdict

Okay, out of the dramas that are made as remakes this one does a great job being honest to itself. I know I said that Naeil’s Cantabile is the most alike the original drama, but this one (I guess that has something to do with how long it was ago) has the most honesty out of all. It is a different story altogether, though most characters are the same or alike the Japanese drama and the ‘games’ are more completely the same as in the original. I love that they kept it up to date, by making it a reality show, which isn’t what the Japanese drama does, and I love that this antagonist is the villain all the way through the entire drama. The two male leads are perfect – when I liked the one I suddenly found myself liking the other, and then returning the first and so on.

One of the disappointments was the lead actress. I know it’s hard to play a gullible character (which is why I love Toda Erika for being the best at it) but she was quite unlikeable. Her facial expressions were the same no matter how she felt – she was more of a poker face than the villain (JUST KIDDING HE’S CRAZY GOOD). Another disappointment was the rule thingi about the money – you see in the Korean version they get a lot of money (A LOT) and in order to stop playing they have to return half of the money. Now I am not sure the worth of Korean money, but most of the players play because they already spent more than half. I mean seriously.. How much money can you use?! And lastly the ending: which was quite an unnecessary one.

So is it recommendable? Yeah, it has its pluses.

☆☆☆☆½ / 4½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥ / 4 out of 5 hearts