Hey everyone! Guess what? I got a chance to be a guest on the Dramas Over Flowers podcast again!
Unlike my first guest spot on the podcast (which you can find here, if you missed it!), I don’t talk all about myself in this episode. 😁
Instead, Saya, Anisa, Paroma and I chat about Someday Or One Day, which, as you might know, is a drama that I loved (you can find my review of the show here, and our Open Thread discussions are listed here).
I had a lot of fun recording this with the ladies, and you can listen to it right here!
If you guys have been around the blog for a while, you’d likely know that I loved – like, really, really LOVED – 2019/2020 drama Someday Or One Day (review is here!).
It was basically my drama of the year, in my 2020 year-in-review, coz I felt like it was THE best drama that I watched, in 2020. 🤩
So much so that I picked it as a group watch in December 2021 (Open Threads listed here), and loved it just as much, on my second watch.
(If you haven’t seen the show but are now tempted to give it a go, my advice is to go in as blind as possible; you can use my Open Thread notes as a guide, as you watch it.)
Which means that OF COURSE I’ve been waiting for the movie follow-up, ever since it was announced.
The only thing better than finding a show to love, is finding friends who love the show as much as you do, so today, I’ve got Elaine and MC (who LOVE the drama like I do!) joining me for this review.
AND, as a bonus, we’ve also got a special podcast episode, brought to you by some of our friends on Patreon, Michele, Leslie and JJ, who are huge fans of the drama as well, to talk about their thoughts on the movie.
Yay for this turning into a community sort of response to the movie! Thanks for making the time for this, ladies! 🥰❤️
Show might look like a typical high school story on the surface, but in reality, this works out to be a love story, and a pretty epic one, at that.
Less about time travel than its premise might suggest, Show is more about growing up, and learning to love both yourself and others.
And the epicness of the love story creeps up on you in the best way, so that one day, you’re just gobsmacked by how stirring that love story is, even though you didn’t see it coming.
Our leads Karlina Zhang and Qu Chu Xiao both do very well in their roles, but I have to confess that it was Qu Chu Xiao’s turn as shy steadfast boy Zhang Wansen, that really stole my heart in a big way.
Can you suggest some dramas that are thought-provoking? As in, you get life nuggets from them; dramas that are not easy to watch but are interspersed with thoughtful life lessons?
how do we get over a cracky drama that completely hijacks our brain and emotions, locks us into itself and locks us out of any attempt to move on to another drama?
I have encountered a few of those, that even when I moved on, nothing seemed satisfactory for a long time, I simply craved another one, like for example NirvanaIn Fire or The Rise Of The Phoenixes, just to name a few (there were of course more).
I’m a longtime lurker and have never posted, but I love your “Dear kfangurl” column and think I finally have a question you haven’t already covered.
My question is: what makes a kdrama “cracky?”
Not just good or fun to watch or a classic, but really, truly so addictive that you either binge watch it in just a day or two if it’s an older drama or feel like you’re suffering from withdrawal if you have to wait for new episodes to air?
So, full disclosure, you guys. This wasn’t actually submitted as a Dear kfangurl question.
What happened was, I had written very enthusiastic episode notes for episode 1 of Twenty Five, Twenty One, over on Patreon, and Natalia had commented in response:
“Oh no. Such a great recap but it only makes even clearer what I have suspected for a while: I suffer from KDrama fatigue! I don’t feel like watching anything? Is it serious, doctor??”
..Which made me think, Hey, that would make a pretty good topic for a Dear kfangurl post!
And so, here we are. If you, or people you know, are suffering from drama fatigue, I hope this post will be at least a little bit helpful. ❤️
So, full disclosure, this wasn’t submitted as an actual Dear kfangurl question. Rather, on my post on scene stealers, J3ffc left a comment which included this following paragraph:
“For CLOY, I would have pegged scenes stolen by second leads Seo Ji-hye and Kim Jung-hyun, but then it occurred to me that that might be a category unto itself – second leads that outshine the main leads. A discussion with the good and bad examples of second leads – ones we love and then ones that we hate – would be fun.”
..And I thought, why not?
So here I am, with a list of my favorite and least favorite second leads. I hope you guys enjoy. ❤️
There are major spoilers in this post, for all 3 shows, and what I’d like to say about that, is, 1, all 3 shows are really good, so if you haven’t seen any of them, I do recommend them! And 2, Elaine’s piece is so lovely, that I’d even suggest completing any of these shows that you haven’t seen yet – so that you can come back to read what Elaine has to say.
Thank you so much, Elaine, for offering to write this piece, and for sharing your reflections in such an honest, raw and thoughtful manner. It is our privilege, to step into your heart, a little bit, via this post. ❤️
Welcome to the Open Thread, everyone! Can you believe we are already at the end? 🥲 Thank you so much, for joining me on the journey of watching this very special, very amazing show. ❤️
Some announcements, before we begin:
1. There is no Spoiler Zone this week, since this is the final Open Thread. You can discuss everything about the show now, without spoiler tags!
2. If you’d like to check out my review of Someday Or One Day, you can find it here.
3. I’ve put up a brainstorming post on what we should watch next as a community, you can check it out here, and share your inputs too!
