Welcome to my weekly blog post where I give short thoughts on dramas I’m watching but not recapping.

I’ve finished recapping Bad Buddy so go check out my final thoughts! I’m still recapping Love Between Fairy and Devil and Time and Him are Just Right.

Between Us is still satisfying me, Hoshi Furu Yoru Ni’s second episode delighted me as much as the first, and have a lot of feelings about I Will Knock You’s penultimate episode – but I’m going to wait until the end to post my final thoughts.

This week I started:

Meet Yourself – 去有风的地方 – China 2023

A recently aired Chinese modern drama, I’ve watched 10 of 40 episodes.

A woman who is all work and no play loses someone very important to her. She leaves Beijing to spend 3 months in Yunnan for rest and life reassessment. There she meets charming villagers and a handsome man.

I’ve been hearing good things about this show but resisted starting it, in part because our ML is one of my favorite ML’s off all time, the super-grumpy cat-loving sporty-goth-gamer Han Shang Yan of Go Go Squid. He’s different enough here that it’s easy to see him as a completely different person. 

The show showcases the beauty of Yunnan and I’m aware it’s being sold to me along with some Chinese nationalism. Those moments are annoying, but not so frequent as to get in the way of enjoying the story. Without having to quit my job and travel like the FL, I can escape my life and be in this peaceful city with these well-meaning people with different interesting backgrounds, motivations, and dreams. The conflicts feel real to the characters but not stressfully insurmountable. I’m also a big sucker for a slow-burn romance with a couple that spends a while getting to know each other. 

This week I finished:

Hi Venus – 我可能遇到了救星  – China 2022 

A recently aired Chinese modern comedy-drama with 24 episodes.

This show never fully won me over. I loved some aspects of it, especially the reversal of the typical modern-business-romance-gender roles. He had a high EQ and she didn’t, but she also had a lot to teach him about poor imbalances and his own privilege. They had thoughtful and interesting conversations and communicated well.

But ultimately the humor never worked that great for me, the plot didn’t keep me engaged, I didn’t love her character arc that went from one extreme to another, and I liked the idea of the show more than watching it. I’m not going to go around recommending it, but I think it would satisfy people with a taste for a certain kind of rom-com.

I also finished:

Under the Queens Umbrella – 슈룹 – Korea 2022 (Pictured)

A recently aired South Korean historical comedy-drama with 16 episodes.

This show just got better and better, maybe in part because I figured out who was who and what they were doing. While the occasional habit of withholding information to create suspense cheated me out of being with the characters emotionally, it wasn’t enough to make me dislike the show.

The best part of this show was that it humanized these very distant people (in time, social standing, and location) without overly romanticizing them. The Queen was amazing but she wasn’t flawless. The King wasn’t a perfect king but he was trying. They had royal duties and also simple human desires. Their relationships with one another and how they changed were interesting. There were some really bad guys and some really good people and everything in between. It balanced a large cast of characters in a satisfying way. While I can’t guess the historical accuracy, it was inspiring to see strong feminine characters doing what they could to support each other.

I haven’t watched many Korean historicals but this is probably my favorite and it’s saying a lot that when I finished it I wanted to go back and rewatch it.