Im Ji Kyu

Flash Review: The Reason We Can’t Sleep [Drama Special]

| kfangurl

I really enjoyed Im Se Mi in 2020’s True Beauty, where she plays a feisty, candid older sister to Moon Ga Young’s female lead, so I totally perked up, when I saw that she’s the female lead in this little drama special.

On top of this, I also liked the idea of Im Ji Kyu being her male lead. Essentially, both of them have played so many supporting characters, that I just liked seeing them be the protagonists of the story, for once.

In the end, this does turn out to be a rather pleasant hour of drama. It’s low-key and down-to-earth, yet still sweet and hopeful. That’s not bad, right?

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Review: The Uncanny Counter

| kfangurl

THE SHORT VERDICT:

Gritty, bloody and full of action like many an OCN drama, yet character-driven and full of heart, like you might expect from jTBC, with a fantasy bent like you might expect of tvN, The Uncanny Counter is the superhero-flavored, heartfelt, X-Men-esque demon-hunting story that I didn’t know I needed in my life.

For the most part, Show does a great job of meshing all these different personality traits into an organic whole – except for a late-stage change in writers, which admittedly causes a bit of a wobble, but which Show does recover well from.

Our cast does an all-around great job of bringing this story to life, while making their characters and their relationships pop, and Show works out to be highly engaging, and sometimes, even rather cracky.

Definitely recommend.

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Review: 18 Again

| kfangurl

THE SHORT VERDICT:

Don’t let this show’s silly, farcical trappings fool you; this one has so much heart that it simply never runs out of feels.

Fatherly love, familial love, romantic love and even platonic love; they all get their day in the sun in this drama world, and the result is a deeply heartwarming watch that I never wanted to end. This show made my heart so, so full, and I happily drowned in all of the feels.

Our cast is very strong, but I do sincerely think that this would’ve been a different show without Lee Do Hyun. He delivers such a heartfelt performance, with such a distinct sense of gravitas, that I am completely blown away.

The heart-eyes that I’ve grown for Lee Do Hyun are completely involuntary, and likely permanent. 😍

Unreservedly recommend.

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Flash Review: The Smile Has Left Your Eyes [Hundred Million Stars From The Sky]

| kfangurl

You guys, this is possibly the one show that I ended up watching quite literally by accident.

See, even though quite a few of you had suggested this show to me, I’d put it vaguely on my list for “later,” and my track record shows that “later” often stretches into a black hole void of “maybe never,” mostly because there are just too many newer shows vying for my attention and I can’t keep up with it all.

The thing is, when I saw this available on Viu, I thought I’d click on episode 1, “just to see.” Well, whaddya know. I got sucked in within mere minutes.

This one struck me as immediately engaging the way a classic melo like Winter Sonata is immediately engaging, and by the 30-minute mark, I knew I’d be following this one through to the end. In a drama landscape where a good number of dramas take about 4 episodes to get going in earnest, that’s skillz.

The question is, did Show manage to keep it up all the way through to the end?

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