Netflix gets it wrong a lot, and recommends shows I’m not interested in, but they got it right this time.
The show is one part typical high school drama, with popular and unpopular kids, girls doing makeup in the bathroom, talking about boys and dancing to BTS. It’s about bullies and the bullied, the effect bullying has on a teenager and also the lengths they will go to to get justice. But it’s more nuanced then that, which is what makes it especially good.
The leads are all girls who go to a girls high school in Jordan. This includes popular girls, who are externally confident and unpopular girls who claim not to care about their status.
The main lead is not popular with her peers but she lives a good life She is good at studying, has a long time best friend, another friend who seems to have a crush on her, no money worries and loving parents. But overnight thanks to the bullying of another student who has more money and credibility then her, her life is tattered and she loses everything. At first she is miserably depressed and shocked by the sudden change but her grief turns to anger and she becomes determined to get even.
At this point in the show, there are clear delineations of good versus bad. Who to root for and who to dislike. And the revenge plot is fun to watch. At first. But then the mixed morality of the characters is introduced and it makes it harder for viewers to choose one side over the other side so easily, as the characters also grapple with this.
All this is happening as the characters careen toward destruction and possible tragedy in the last episode, which end on the worlds greatest cliffhanger.
The show is a great introduction to Jordan, which is beautiful. It also hits on themes related to Islam, and the role of women and girls within Muslim society. I saw an article that was critical of the show for this reason, but I felt the portrayal was true to life and also showed the tension between modern society, teenage hormones and religious traditionalism.
There were so many facets to this show, all of them interesting, and the acting was great. I was fully immersed in the story by the end, and I highly recommend watching this season and the second one, which is officially coming.
This is my first blog introducing a future blog, but my reasons are good. I hope you’ll like them.
If you’re like me and enamored with high school dramas (I am and I’m not afraid to say it) than I present to you (drumroll please) my upcoming blog series:
Best and worst high school dramas from around the world
I will review new and old dramas full of teens in high school hallways, on beaches, covering up murders and other wholesome activities like that. The shows I think are amazing and addicting and the ones that made me roll my eyes and change the channel.
To start this off, here are the links to my past high school drama reviews:
I offer this series as a public service to you all for the following reasons:
It can help you decide which shows to watch
It may open up a new geographical viewing area to you. So many countries have great shows.
If you have already seen one you can compare your opinions on it to mine and see where we agree and disagree on things like the plot, production, characters, cast talent and hotness.
It can change your mind if you don’t like the high school drama genre
Warning: Series reviews will be sporadic since I work a lot and sometimes I can’t face any more typing when my work day ends, which is why my blogs are posted randomly. Please also note: I will continue doing other reviews of movies and non-high-school themed shows as well.
This show from Mindy Kaling and found on Netflix is soooo funny. It’s about the life of an Indian-American, very smart, slightly lewd high school girl in California. I laughed through every single episode and am extremely excited that there is going to be a second season. Here is my longer review for it: https://wordpress.com/post/ckdrama.home.blog/668
CHINA
Lovely Us
The show is called Lovely Us and it really is lovely. I enjoyed it a lot. It was less of an addicting marathon and more like sips of hot cocoa with marshmallows. It’s a drama about friends, family and first love. This show is funny and sweet. The leads are five high schoolers. Three are underachievers, two who squabble all the time. The other two are top of the class and much more sedate. All of them love each other completely and are loyal to the core. The show is also about their families, many who are struggling in various ways. Marcus Li who played Tan Song stole the show.
Twenty My Life On
This show is about girls in their last year of college who share a dorm together, straddling youth and adulthood. Three of the girls are close friends and one is less than friendly. All of the characters personalities are very different and interesting. The script is great and has one very unique and refreshing quality. Parts of it are far more realistic than most dramas, making it less formulaic and more relatable. I really enjoyed this show and looked forward to every episode. I highly recommend it if twenties slice of life dramas are your thing. Also, I just learned they are coming out with a season two. Yes!
Nothing but Thirty
This show started slow, but then it picked up speed and got interesting. I ended up invested in the characters and watching it through to the end. The story is about three women in and around age thirty and the trials and tribulations they face in their work, home and love lives. And the blessing that friendships can bring. Like Twenty Your Life On, some aspects of this show are more realistic than other dramas. Not all people, including the leads are selfless, not all choices are fair and not all endings are perfect.
I liked Twenty Your Life On better, if I had to choose, but both shows are good and worth the time spent watching them.
KOREA
World of the Married
This is my favorite show of the year. I wasn’t even planning on watching it. But I gave in and watched one episode. Then I was completely hooked. This show is the definition of drama. It’s crazy. But it’s a well written, well acted crazy that makes it a fun ride to go on. Here is my longer review for it: https://wordpress.com/post/ckdrama.home.blog/715
Love Revolution
I adore this show, which is based on a webtoon. It is light hearted, quirky, funny and sweet. The actors, some of whom are amateurs, did a great job. There is no show I looked more forward to watching in 2020 than this one. Here is my longer review for it: https://wordpress.com/post/ckdrama.home.blog/746
Kairos
This may be the best scripted Korean drama I have watched. Mr. Sunshine and This is My First Life were also very well written, so it’s hard to say for sure, but the dialogue and the twists and turns are ingeniously written. The acting was also phenomenal. Here is my longer review for it: https://wordpress.com/post/ckdrama.home.blog/735
Nobody Knows
This is a show about a serial killer and the police officer tracking him. I am not normally into shows like this, but it was so well written and acted that I watched it anyway. I still don’t like shows like this, but I have to give credit where credit is due. It was a truly good drama.
THAILAND
2Gether
This BL is a sweet college romance, with a few surprises in the plotline that make it a little less formulaic. Here is my longer review for it: https://wordpress.com/post/ckdrama.home.blog/677
BEST OLD DRAMAS I WATCHED THIS YEAR
Money Flower (2017)(Korea)
I LOVE this show. It’s about someone getting revenge on a Chaebol family, how they do it and the consequences it has on them and everyone around them. I didn’t watch it before now because I am not always in the mood for a makjang, and when I am, I watch Thai Lakorn’s, which are always waaaay over the top. But the show was on my watch list for a long time, and I was in the mood, so I put it on while I worked, and got completely sucked into it!
The acting is great and the plot is intriguing – and infuriating. This has all the makings of a good makjang including cheating, murder, embezzlement, and revenge. By the end of the show I hated the male and female leads and did not wish them any happiness, but this didn’t make the show itself worse. I don’t think I was supposed to like them both. I ended the drama liking it even more then when I started it and will probably watch it again.
Game Sanaeha (2018)(Thailand)
This is my new favorite Lakorn. It has all the things Lakorn’s are famous for. It has rich versus poor, hatred and revenge, slap kisses, misunderstandings and some really, really stupid decisions. It is also unique because some of the characters are fairly mature and others gained some self awareness, learned from their mistakes and had personal growth throughout the course of the show. It was really refreshing and very entertaining.
Wow. This drama is gooood. The production value is high. The screen writing is top notch. The acting is fantastic, and the OST is nice.
I somehow missed that this show was playing, and randomly came across the reviews for it, which were all about as flattering as mine. I wasn’t confident the story was my cup of tea, but I started watching anyway. I was not disappointed.
Here is the summary:
Living a precarious life as a part-timer at a convenience store, Ae Ri strives to support her mother who is on a waiting list for a heart transplant. Unfortunately, her mother’s worsened physical condition leads her to forgo the long-awaited opportunity for the transplant, and just like that her mother disappears. Things were already chaotic enough for Ae Ri when she receives a phone call from a strange man claiming to be from the same world but 31 days in the future. Ironically, he desperately asks Ae Ri for help. Seo Jin, a father and a husband of a close-knit family, has been living a successful life as the youngest person to become a director at a construction company. One day, it all crumbles down with the kidnapping of his daughter and his wife’s suicide. On the verge of breaking down, he is given an opportunity to restore everything that was lost under one condition, help from a strange woman. To bring his daughter and wife back to life, he makes a phone call as the clock strikes 10:33. Source: KOCOWA/Mydramalist.com
I cannot begin to express how incredible the script is. I never knew what was going to happen next, and the show did something I normally only dream of in action and thriller based shows. They crossed all their t’s and dotted all their i’s.
Almost every action in the entire drama has a purpose, and every decision has clear consequences. It is close to flawless. With the exception of the first couple episodes when I genuinely couldn’t figure out what the cops were doing, which seemed to be breaking every established police protocol. And very occasionally the lead female who made some decisions that seemed more dangerous than they needed to be.
There is no way I could have watched episodes as they aired because the story is too riveting and I wanted to know what would happen next so badly. There is never a dull moment and although some characters were steady all the way through, some were more flexible. There were many surprises along the way.
The acting is great too. The last time I saw the male lead actor Shin Sung Rok was in Perfume, where he made me laugh a lot. This role is very different. Rok plays someone who is at times arrogant, intelligent and distant, and at other times helpful, a great father and a great friend. The female lead, Lee Se Young is also fantastic. She plays a character who is struggling, kind, confused, scared and fearless perfectly. The second leads are incredible too. Nam Gyu Ri is completely believable. I emotionally reacted to her character so many times. Second lead male Ahn Bo Hyun was similarly good.
Every single actor was great. Many played roles that were nuanced, where they were both selfish and selfless, good and bad, and did an exemplary job.
The OST is also good. I am partial to the song Can You Feel Me by Yoon of Winner, which I love.
Note: Thank you to CHTAJU for inspiring me to write this review after a hiatus due to waaaaaay too much work.
I adore this movie and highly recommend it. Tori Girl aka Tori Garu! is everything good wrapped into one. It’s lighthearted and funny, with a great protagonist. And it possesses something that I love about Japanese movies and shows, which is a plot that is about people working hard towards their goals, which is always motivating.
The movie is about a girl, Toriyama Yukina, who enters a college of science, which she is excited about, until she realizes that most of her classmates are dorks.
She gets dragged to a meeting for a “human powered flight” club. For anyone, who like me had no idea what that is, it’s basically a plane made with bicycle parts that runs when the pilots synchronize their pedaling. (Note: It is very similar to the extreme sport Flugtag).
Yukina is not particularly knowledgeable about or interested in human powered flight until… she sees the club president who she immediately likes, especially after he tells her she should join because “she has a good body.” After that, Yukina joins right away, excitedly training to ride into the sky with the club president.
Only, Yukina soon learns that there is another pilot that the President rode with before, who he is also trying to recruit. A big jock like fellow, who spends his time drinking beer and looking mean, named Sakaba Taishi. The two do not hit it off, and spend most of their time squabbling. Squabbling that is extremely entertaining to watch.
Yukina and Sakaba end up having to fly together, just the two of them. Despite their never ending disputes, they somehow manage to perform in the human powered flight competition.
By the time their bike-plane took off, I was so sucked into the movie, and rooting for them, that I realized I was actually holding my breath. And their time in the air was not only suspenseful, but sweet, slightly heartbreaking, and very funny.
This movie is not especially deep or romantic, but it is great. To put this into context, I will only re-watch films or shows after years have gone by because I don’t see the point in seeing something I recently saw. But, I’ll be making an exception for Tori Girl, and will probably watch it again soon because I like it that much.
SHAN SHANS JACKET 