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.
If you haven’t watched a Boy Love (BL) drama but love dramas, you are missing out. Honestly, throw you pre-conceptions out the window. They are truly some of the greatest dramas out there.
I love them because a lot of them remind me of 90’s American high school and college movies like She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You and Never Been Kissed. The kind that are so fun to watch and always have happy endings, but have mostly disappeared. Thai Bl’s are helping fill this void.
2Gether is about a freshman college boy who is basically being stalked by a guy that has a crush on him. At this point the lead is sure he is straight and can’t seem to get the guy to leave him alone. He tries a fake girlfriend and when that didn’t work, he and his friends decided he needed a fake boyfriend instead. It is a little unclear why they went this route or why they picked the guy did, but it was a plot point they had to forward, so I guess it’s ok.
The guy the lead picks to be his fake boyfriend is a school heartthrob who plays in a band but is otherwise quiet, cold and introverted. The heart throb repeatedly turns the lead down until eventually giving in.
The fake relationship turns into real love, as it should since this is what dramas are all about. BUT this evolution isn’t formulaic, which is something I really liked about this show. The person doing the running after the other is unique, and the story behind it and the responses they get are mostly unexpected. There is also some time spent on the lead character trying to work through whether they really like their fake boyfriend or if they are just infatuated with having someone so hot and sought after next to them,
I should mention that the fake boyfriend is PRETTY. Every episode he got more and more attractive to me. Some study found that the humans that people find universally attractive are the ones with symmetrical features and this guys are pretty perfect. The character also turns out to be adorably shy versus conceited so it is too easy to ship this couple.
There are reviewers out there who didn’t love this drama, but I think that it depends on what a viewer is looking to get out of one. I loved it. It was light-hearted, sweet and romantic, I didn’t get too invested in the second lead love triangles, and I ended the drama feeling even happier as a person than when I started it. THAT is what I watch dramas for.
I highly recommend giving this show or other BL’s a try because they really can be adorable and sweet and funny – basically the perfect pick me up. Love by Chance, 2 Moons and Scotus 2 are my fav, and 2gether just got added to that list.
I held off on watching this drama for YEARS because there is nothing I love more than a dance competition story. For instance, Dirty Dancing is my favorite movie of all time I also adore stories about kids who accomplish more than most adults expected of them. Especially when they are based on true stories. My very favorite is Stand and Deliver. Just Dance combines both so I was basically saving the best for last, or at least for a moment when I could reward myself.
Now if only I had known it would be a darker look at the human condition… I still would have watched it, but maybe I wouldn’t have been expecting lighthearted montages of dance practice and memorable lines a la Bring It On like “It’s already been broughtin.”
Instead, I think I went through a whole box of tissues while watching Just Dance. And that’s because it focuses on life in a small town full of what people in Seoul consider “hicks” where shipbuilding is the major industry. The lead, Kim Shi Eun is a girl with good grades and big dreams, constrained by her upbringing. She is the daughter of a widow whose husband died under dubious circumstances. Her mom continually tells her not to strive for too much, pushing her to graduate from her technical high school and get a job on the island.
I could relate so much to the lead. I was born to parents who have little in the way of ambition and though they love me, they have not been interested in assisting me in meeting my goals, which have always been loftier than their own.
My experience is also laid out in this show which lays out its theme very clearly in the last four or so episodes. The theme is happiness and whether it is tied to achieving dreams or simpler than that. Basically what does it mean to be happy, is it attainable and will it be lasting.
This is told through the stories of Kim Shi Eun who wants to get out of her small town and direct films and the ragtag group of girls who ended up on their schools Dance Sport team. Girls who were the children of people with big ambitions for them, no ambitions, alcoholics, grandparent guardians and parents who were worried that their kids would leave for the big city and never be back.
It was also about Mr. Lee the dance sport teacher whose purpose was to help as many girls as possible in whatever ways he could, although he was a supporting character throughout.
There was also a love story between the lead and a boy whose dad was her moms superior at work whose families had drama between them (because it wouldn’t be a k-drama if that wasn’t in it lol). In my opinion the lead boy was adorable. He was sweet and kind and loved the lead as much as any teenager could love someone. Kim Shi Eun, on the other hand was awful to him a lot of time. It is something I loved and hated about this show.
I really appreciate that Kim Shi Eun was not a typical character in a drama. She wasn’t particularly nice or fun to be around. She was sometimes depressed, an elitist, a bad communicator and made some really stupid decisions. I think this was a unique approach and welcome it for its uniqueness and its tru-to-life’ness. It was definitely better than having a lead character who the plot says is amazing but in actuality is not.
On the other hand I was basically yelling at the screen when she was at her worst. Even though I knew it was a show I was so mad at her for the way she would treat her friends and a boy who so clearly loved her despite all of her flaws.
Overall I really liked this show. The theme really resonated with me since I think we all struggle with what happiness is and whether we are truly happy, and if so how happy. I also liked the underlying themes around class and the issues facing people who are just trying to get by since as a single parent that has absolutely been me. It is also the vast majority of the worlds population.
The dance practice and competition parts were nice, but it really was more the glue that held the story together rather than the main theme. As a result, I enjoyed it but it wasn’t the thing that kept me watching. I watched to see what would happen next with the characters, especially Kim Shi Eun, her mom, the boy who loved her and the outcast rebel Park Hye Jin who I would watch a whole show about on its own.
Overall, Just Dance was pretty depressing, definitely not the Christmas cheer I was expecting, but it was because it was so realistic. This show was also interesting, sometimes funny, unique, thoughtful, and very, very smart. If you don’t mind that it’s not sally sunshine than I wholly recommend it. Sometime soon I will be watching the original documentary the show is based on, assuming I can find it with eng subs.
Y’all I highly recommend this show. I had no idea what to expect when I started it, and to be honest, during the first episode I wasn’t sure if I should keep watching. This is because there was strange mix of the realistic, girl wants campus hero and gossips with her girlfriends -and fantastical – she finds a unicorn who grants her a wish, to be with her crush, but the unicorn puts its own spin on it and turns her into a boy.
Thank God I pushed through to episode two because I got to watch a show that I really enjoyed.
Summary:
The main character Love has always been a fan of the popular guy Vier of the famous Great Men Academy but has never had the chance to meet him. One day, she sees the mystical unicorn rumored to fulfill wishes and wished for her love for Vier to get a chance. Unfortunately the unicorn interpreted her wishes in a different way and Love wakes up to find herself… as a guy? (c/o of MyDramalist)
What I enjoyed:
The actors were great
The plot had a little of everything: thoughtful moments, comedy, fantasy, action and romance.
The way the love story played out was both unexpected and very sweet. I won’t tell you what made it unexpected, but I will say I have been hoping so hard that a drama would do what this one did. And it worked!
The story was engrossing and dealt with some interesting dilemmas and ideas around love. The main one was about the capability to love someone no matter what gender they are since the main character transformed back and forth from a girl to a guy. It’s a very Thai theme that I appreciate since I wholeheartedly believe that #loveisloveislove and that everyone deserves to be loved.
What I didn’t like:
There were some moments where I was confused about how something happened, mainly about the unicorn wishes and a contest that students participated in and would have liked some more clarification.
Freaking love triangles. I hate them. The heartbreak of some second and third leads – or sacrificial lambs as someone once ingeniously called them – made me sad.
Random Trivia:
The cast is part of a company created ensemble group 9×9 that also stars in Family We Trust.
Overall:
This drama is fun and interesting and it’s easy to root for the lead. I give it two thumbs up.
This show gets pretty high marks from me because it is ADORABLE. It meets all the criteria of a standard drama, but flips some tropes on their head in the very best way. The actors are great, especially lead actor Bruce Hung who makes this show shine.
Hello Again! is about a male and female who went to high school together but weren’t friends. The female, Chang Ke Ai was the top student in their grade, and the male, Yang Zi Hao was good at extracurriculars, but not a great student. He also rubbed Chang Ke Ai the wrong way for interrupting her speech to the school and study hall with his antics. During an argument between the two they make a bet that if Yang gets into the same school as Chang she will have to carry his bag there everyday.
This motivates Yang to study hard and get accepted. So he wins the bet, except it gets foiled. Watch to find out how 😉
The story centers around their time together 10 years later when they meet back up under very different conditions and end up working together.
What makes this drama different in a way I find refreshing is that instead of a long drawn out hate to love relationship between the two, Yang is very clear that he likes Chang and most of his actions involve helping her and keeping her in his orbit.
He finds tons of cute and ridiculous reasons to get her to spend time with him, like making a business bet where she wins a steak dinner with him as the prize or giving her a loan where the interest is having breakfast with him. In most cases, his secretary, played by Sean Lee is rolling his eyes at Yang’s nutty and immature antics, which is pretty funny. And Bruce Hung acts all this out so charmingly
Hung is another one of those actors that I probably wouldn’t look at twice if I saw him in the grocery store, especially in his earlier days like in A Good Day, but he has officially grown up, and away from the days when he dabbled in the ladies bikini pond 😂😂😂.
OMG LOL
Now when he’s on screen showing off his insanely adorable dimple and washboard abs, and being so sincere while in character, it’s a whole other story. The Chinese idol judges are always talking about auras as a determinant for idolhood and Hung definitely has one.
In the show, Chang has no idea that Yang likes her and never even considered him as a love interest, which is why she is immune to his charm and cant see why he repeatedly takes actions on her behalf. I would not have that problem. In fact this is an open invitation to Hung and his aura to come to the U.S. and have dinner with me anytime 😉
I’m only halfway through this drama, but so far it’s only gotten better, so I can’t wait to see the rest. And I waited soo long to see it. I have had it on my to watch list for awhile now, but it just, and I mean just got English subtitled episodes that are available to see in America up to episode 13 out of 16. For weeks only the first episode had subs and I was dying to know what happened next.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am learning Mandarin, and c-dramas are a perfect way to practice (note: I met a guy in Spain who learned English through a Netflix marathon of an American show which influenced this decision), but my proficiency isn’t high enough to understand entire dialogs – yet. And it’s not always easy to find a c-drama that I love, but this one, I love. At least so far.
My only major critique is that although actress Amber An does a really great job in the role, and is pretty as pie in real life, in this drama she looks like a fairly unattractive mess who dresses herself in the dark. It makes it hard to see why her character, although very smart and spunky, is so attractive to the males (and females 😉 around her, or how she has a job in fashion. Her outfits are atrocious and do nothing to flatter her. Same with her hair. The girl wears banana clips, which went out in the 1980’s last I checked! Her pants are floodwaters, she wears frayed denim on denim and grandma sweaters. There is one scene where the guy is supposed to be wowed by her in a dress he picked out, except that dress is a 1990’s knock off with no shape to it. If Hung or his character actually finds that look attractive I will start wearing mumu’s which they must find equally seductive 😂. My 2 cents: An’s costume designer and hairdresser for this show need to find a new line of work – pronto.
Amber An in real life
Hello Again! is not a work of art (I dont want to mislead you) and some situations are completely improbable, but it is quirky in the best way! It’s lighthearted with some very sweet and funny moments. It has a business storyline where they actually do business (so rare lol). The actors do a great job and hopefully the show continues to grow on me for the 7 episodes I have left.
Note: Just You is still my favorite Taiwanese Drama of all time (and one my fav dramas period) and I hope directors and producers will magically find this post and take note that we need more dramas like Just You and Hello Again! – maybe one starring Puff Kuo and Bruce Hung.
SHAN SHANS JACKET 