I Cannot Hug You / Untouchable [无法拥抱的你]

♥♥♥/♥♥ 

TITLE: I Cannot Hug You / Untouchable  [无法拥抱的你]
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: November 20, 2017 to March 12, 2018 
WIKI: n/a
SEASONS/EPISODES: 2 seasons, 32 half-hour episodes total. 
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2018-11-11): Viki (free w/ads) 

Overview: 
This Chinese drama is based on the Korean webtoon "Untouchable." In the webtoon, vampires have evolved to no longer need to drink blood to survive, but can absorb a human's energy just by skin-to-skin contact. An impulsive young vampiress named Sia Lee becomes obsessed with a human man after a brief (but apparently delicious- haha) hand to hand touch. She has never failed in the hunt before, but this particular prey happens to be germophobic, making him quite resistant to skinship. 

(Warning, if you're interested in reading the webtoon, I would say it's inappropriate for kids based on both the images and content. As a model, the main female character is often depicted wearing little more than underwear for photo shoots. We also read her lustful thoughts for the human male and see her dreams/daydreams of him shirtless, in addition to her male childhood vampire friend constantly saying inappropriate things to and about her.) 

Basic summary: 

Popular model Li Shiya is a modern vampire who feels suffocated by her overprotective family. In this drama version, her father runs a stable and gives riding lessons, a family business that affords many opportunities to casually touch the humans who come to ride horses without absorbing enough energy from any single human to raise suspicions. He drills into his family, especially Shiya, that a vampire should never take more than the minimum amount of energy needed to survive, which is a total of 3 minutes of skin-to-skin contact every day. If a vampire goes a week without consuming human energy, they can die of starvation. Shiya is a bit of a "food"-addict and would love to "eat" as much as she could of many tasty humans every day, but her father is extra strict with her- strangely even moreso than with her older sister and younger brother. 

One day Shiya has had it with her controlling father and runs away, getting her own apartment and setting out to "eat" her fill of tasty humans. She accidentally-on-purpose bumps into a man carrying a stack of books, with the intent of accidentally-on-purpose touching his hand when she goes to help him pick up the spilled books. The touch lasts seconds, if that, but it's a taste Shiya won't soon forget, so delicious it practically spoils her appetite for anything else. The human man isn't pleased and jerks his hand away, shortly accusing her of being a stalker who keeps following him around trying to touch him, before stalking off and leaving her sputtering. Shiya is highly offended and complains to her psychotherapist sister Lanxi and her childhood best friend Simba that someone falsely accused her of being a stalker. And all of her social media... haha. As she's unpacking in her new apartment later, she opens a box that contains... children's books?! It's a misdelivered package that actually belongs to her new next door neighbor, a reclusive author by the name of Jiang Zhihao. Upon attempting to return the package to it's rightful owner, she finds out he's the delicious human from before... he reiterates his stalker accusation over the intercom and refuses to emerge to claim his package. Shiya decides to keep his package hostage then until he comes to apologize and ask for it, at which time she plans to refuse to open the door for him as revenge. After going drinking with her popstar BFF Simba and his human best friend Shihuan, expressing her frustrations by describing her craving for Zhihao as being like craving fried chicken, Shiya saves Zhihao's phone number off the misdelivered package under the name "Fried Chicken." Shiya finds out about Zhihao's germophobic tendencies, and also winds up stopping the REAL stalker from touching him, but to her frustration, instead of being thankful enough to touch her, Zhihao claims she's no better than the stalker anyway. 
Meanwhile Zhihao finds out that he can't just reorder those books from the internet as they are out of stock everywhere now. (We find out later the importance of those specific books!) When he has to go to Shiya to ask for his books back, she has hatched a plan to make Zhihao date her in return for his books. Her plan is that in the course of dating him she will "cure" him of his germophobia so that he'll let her touch him. 

Flow and sequence: 

The plot of Season 1 is half about Shiya's schemes to get Zhihao cured of his germophobia so she can "eat" him and the two of them falling in love with each other in the course of it, and half about a mystery entity kidnapping vampires and performing experiments on them. The plot of season 2 is about Zhihao and Shiya having to overcome each thinking they are protecting the other with their secrecy, but by their lack of communication they are actually making everything worse.  

Cast and acting: 

This drama seemed to be overacted a little for comedic effect, especially near the beginning, but not nearly as much as some dramas I've seen. I think the actors and actresses did a great job with what they were given. I was especially impressed with Xu Kai Cheng's acting skills as CEO Cui and Su Ze Yuan's acting skills as Shihuan. 

Writing and directing: 

The original webtoon was well written and engaging. The characters' behavior was believable. I felt like the writers for the drama adapted it well, keeping it very close to the storyline in the webtoon. Where changes were made that diverted the drama from the webtoon, I feel those changes were beneficial to the film portrayal and kept the storyline cohesive. 

Characters (contains spoilers):
The storyline itself is a fresh take on the old vampire lore, and having the vampire be the female and the human male be a germ-freak makes for good plot twists and a lot of options for turning the old drama tropes around backward. For example, Li Shiya lustily pins Zhihao against a wall at one point and down on the couch at another, as he cringes away afraid of cooties. Then in season 2, we get to see Zhihao being manly and protecting her more, not just taking the lead in their relationship physically when she's shying away afraid to hurt him, but also with his beautiful writer's brain as he expertly goes all Sherlock Holmes and solves the mystery of who is out to hurt Shiya, why, and how.
Simba struggles with abandonment issues from being orphaned and unhealthy people-pleasing and fixation on Shiya as a savior-figure who gave him a home where he was finally understood. Zhihao also struggles with abandonment issues after his mother left him by default when she walked out on his cold workaholic father. Instead of people-pleasing, his symptoms manifest as an OCD.
Season 1 antagonist CEO Cui has tortured himself with the guilt of unintentionally having killed his first love, to the point where he has delusions that even if it took killing Shiya and Zhihao in the course of resurrecting his dead love, doing so would somehow absolve him of that guilt. Talk about serious mental issues. Even Shiya's family struggles with properly dealing with what happened with Shiya's childhood friend in season 2- Shiya's parents and older sister are overly strict and overprotective hoping to not have a repeat of the situation, but instead of giving her the knowledge and power to avoid duplicating her mistakes, they are relying on keeping her in the dark and controlling her. Shiya is chaffing from being so strictly controlled and aching to be free to make her own choices as an adult, and almost repeats a nearly-deadly mistake from childhood in her quest to make her own decisions even if it means direct disobedience to her parents and sister.
The whole series, Shihuan wholeheartedly loves Simba who only has eyes for Shiya. I found the contrast between the wholely unselfish way Shihuan loves Simba and the entirely self-serving way Simba loves Shiya quite profound. He defends him and stands by him, letting himself be used and abused as a human battery/ emergency food supply and never asking anything in return. In the end, he sees Simba starting down the path of evil and finally turns his back on him, which I suspect might have been the only thing that prevented Simba from totally turning evil in the end. After that, unless I missed it, we don't get to see what ever happened to Shihuan. The love Shihuan had for Simba was so pure and unselfish, so unsexual (in the webtoon it was more of a crush-love, but in the drama it's portrayed as a very pure kind of love), that I couldn't help but see beauty in it. Even the love between Shiya and Zhihao was more selfish and far more lust-based at times, making the truly self-sacrificing way Shihuan unchangingly cared for Simba bring me to tears. 

Other: 

If you're not familiar with Chinese dramas, the dubbing may catch you off guard. Many Chinese dramas have all the lines and sound effects re-recorded for volume and accent consistency and then dubbed over the video! In some of the older Chinese dramas I've seen, the dubbing is not in sync with their lips much if at all and it bothered me terribly! In this particular drama, the vocal re-recording is fairly well done and well synchronized (though still obvious it's dubbed over), so IMO one can get used to it quickly and get absorbed in the show without too much distraction. 

Happy Ending Factor? 

Both seasons ended happily for Shiya and Zhihao, though some of the side characters fared less pleasantly. There were some loose ends in the end of season 2 of the drama that were actually wrapped up a little better in the webtoon.  

(SPOILER SECTION! SKIP to Final Summary if you don't want to know how it ends!) 

At the end of Season 1, Yu Ze (the boyfriend of Shiya's manager Xu Quingran) kills himself out of guilt for the atrocities his underlings committed in his name, so if suicide is a trigger for you, you may wish to avoid this drama altogether or at least skip the rest of the episode when it looks like that part is impending. Quingran just thinks he's in prison and we don't see any resolution to that.
At the end of Season 2, Shiya and Zhihao are back together but we don't get any explanation as to how they can be together now after having it drilled into our brains all 2nd season that Shiya is so powerful she could accidentally kill him at any moment. However in the Webtoon, it was indicated that after sharing half her power with Zhihao to save his life, her powers were no longer a danger to him! We see Shiya and Zhihao back together and find out that when the child Shiya was in the hospital unconscious, having given up on her own life after nearly killing a friend, it was a child Zhihao who saved her life. Which brings up the question of what if Shiya and Zhihao have a child together... I don't remember that being addressed in the webtoon and the drama does not clear it up either; no it leaves us hanging on that question with the ending of the first season still lingering in our minds. Remembering the hopeless halfbreed Yu Ze killing himself because he spent his short life sparing no cost to try to live past 30 and wound up buried under the guilt before he could find a cure. So if Shiya and Zhihao have a half breed baby, what will be that child's fate? 

Final Summary: 

Very interesting drama that kept my interest throughout the series. No slow patch in the middle of the series- it mostly kept a steady pace. I think it took me 3 days to binge watch this entire drama! I watched the first season in 1 day, and then took 2 days for the second season. I liked how the characters struggled with deep and profound issues that took more than a few minutes in dramaland to work through. 

Check out I Cannot Hug You [无法拥抱的你] on Viki! 
(Above links based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.) 

Prince of Wolf [狼王子]

♥♥♥/♥♥ 

TITLE: Prince of Wolf [狼王子] 
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: July 03 to October 31st, 2016 
WIKI: n/a 
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 season, 18 episodes, 1 1/4 hours long each. 
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2019-04-20): Viki (free w/ads), HotPotTV (free)  

Prince of Wolf is the story of an herbalist's daughter meeting and falling in love with the heir of a wealthy company who was "lost" in the woods as a little boy and raised by "wolves." This is a Taiwanese take on the classic feral child legends. Tarzan or the Jungle Book or whatnot. This one is super corny, like if George of the Jungle expected you to actually take it seriously. Lol! With the drama My Love From Another Star I wished I could rate the first half like 2 or 3 and the second half 4 out of 5... Well with Prince of Wolf it'd be backward: I'd rate the first half a 4 and the second half a 2 or 3. The ending is really good but getting through most of the second half to get to it is annoying. 

Basic summary:
Mi Mi knows a legend about Wolf Mountain and goes to photograph it, where she gets stranded in the rain and spends the night in a cave with a super buff and unworldly man named Zhe Ming whom she found swimming in a mountain waterfall pool. He becomes her guide and they spend a few days together on the mountain. She gets sick (RAIN touched her HAIR! Ahhhh!) and Zhe Ming gives her a mountain herb that heals her. Later, she is back home and Zhe Ming has moved in with her family in their herb store in the village. Mi Mi teaches him to read and write and her family accepts him and he takes care of them too. Zhe Ming is head over heels for Mi Mi but she's hard to win over. Just when he finally wins her over and they are a couple, things start going wrong. Zhe Ming's uncle is the one who left him to die on the mountain as a child, so when uncle finds out he's still alive, he begins to plot how to get rid of him, keep him a secret, or if all else fails, kill Zhe Ming. 

Flow and sequence: 

Mi Mi finds Zhe Ming and they live happily together on Wolf Mountain.
Mi Mi takes Zhe Ming home with her to the herb store and they live happily there for a while.
Things start going wrong as Mi Mi has a secret and leaves for A YEAR to hide it, meanwhile Zhe Ming's uncle wants him dead and a childhood friend of Zhe Ming's surfaces.
Mi Mi is back. Zhe Ming and Ah Wei are rivals for the company now. Mi Mi needs a personal miracle, Zhe Ming and Mi Mi need a miracle in their relationship, and Uncle must be stopped once and for all... 

Cast/ Characters/ Acting: 

Derek Chang who plays Zhe Ming was only 23 playing the part of a 30 year old- and wow he didn't look a day over 19 IMHO. He's super buff though... The man has muscles for days. 
Amber An who played Mi Mi is like 5'8" tall and Derek Chang/Zhe Ming still dwarfs her!! She was 31 when this was made. So they do look a little lopsided together, both trying to play 30 year olds with 7 1/4 years of age difference. 

Writing and directing: 

Okay this show was SO CUTE for the first half with Mi Mi and Zhe Ming as a couple, but the second half was insanely frustrating. I was SO FRUSTRATED. You know those shows where nothing goes right for a while and then something cracks and everyone hugs and decides to push though together and fight for their happy ending as a team? Yeah no... this one the whole second half was nothing going right. Nothing "cracked" until the very end, leaving a very short time of satisfaction after such a long frustrating time. The writers almost made Mi Mi bipolar, she was so inconsistent. I thought I was connecting with her character but then they ruined it and I was just disgusted with her and all her inconsistent and dumb-as-a-clump-of-dirt decisions. While she was running away, Zhe Ming's broken heart propelled him to become a more jaded, serious, less innocent person and I didn't like the way that happened. It was like the writers couldn't think of any clever way to make him grow up and take his place in the world without killing the beautiful innocent spark of life in his eyes. I was so mad, but I couldn't turn it off: by the time things went down the drain, I was so invested in seeing that Zhe Ming gets a happy ending that I suffered through the second half and it was torture. I'm so glad after all that, that it did get a happy ending!  

Other: 

Apparently the show got some mixed attention for using Huskies to play the wolves. I didn't personally have any feelings on the matter either way. I did find the sound effects they used for the "wolves" to be poorly implemented (corny, eyeroll, cringe).

Happy Ending Factor? 

It was like being drug through broken glass to get there, but there was a happy ending. Barely, but once we got there it was good.

(SPOILER SECTION! SKIP to Final Summary if you don't want to know how it ends!) 

So many characters really tug the heartstrings in this one! Mi Mi's sister loves her very much despite her own struggle with feeling like she was only born to be a donor to potentially cure an incurable illness Mi Mi is afflicted with. The uncle is a mess, hating, hurting, fearing, and regretting at the same time! Zhe Ming's poor sweet mom who has been hoping to find him for all these years and even after he's found she has to wait still because the bad Uncle won't tell her the truth. :'( I even feel bad for Mi Mi's rejected suitor Hao Wei who just got the short end of the stick on pretty much everything his whole life, and still chose to be an honorable person in the end. 

Final Summary: 

I know it sounds like I hated it from my intense whining about the frustrating-ness of Mi Mi's character inconsistencies and the related drama-drama in the second half, but I actually didn't hate it. I love me a good fantasy. If I ever watch it again though, I will probably watch the first 10 or 11 episodes and then watch the last 3 episodes to spare myself the frustration of the episodes between when Mi Mi leaves and the long awaited resolutions and happy ending. That was just too many episodes of everything going wrong for me to handle. 

Check out Prince Of Wolf on Viki!
Check out Prince Of Wolf on HotPotTV!
Check out the Prince Of Wolf OST on Spotify! 
(Above links based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.) 

My Only Love Song [마이 온리 러브송]

♥♥♥♥/♥ 
TITLE: My Only Love Song [마이 온리 러브송] 
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: June 9th, 2017 
WIKI: http://asianwiki.com/My_Only_Love_ Song 
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 season, 20 half-hour episodes. 
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2018-11-11): A Netflix Original  

A Korean legend has it that once there was a princess named Pyeong Gang, the daughter of King Pyeong Won, who was so honorable that she refused to marry any other than the village idiot her father had joked about marrying her off to, lest he be made a liar. Said village idiot, On Dal, was supposedly a poor simple minded peasant, ugly and hunchbacked, but he had a good heart. With the help of princess Pyeong Gang, "On Dal the Fool" rose up to become an honored general, who died bravely in a battle against the army of Silla. 

Basic summary: 

My Only Love Song is a comedic adaptation of the legend of On Dal the Fool- a very very loose adaptation with fantasy elements. I guess it would have to be chock full of artistic liberties, since the original legend doesn't really give much detail to work with.
In this version, a film company is filming a historical drama about Princess Pyeong-gang. The star is Song Su-jeong, a self-obsessed actress with a foul temper and an even fouler mouth. One day during filming, Su-jeong is introduced to the actress who will be playing her love rival in the drama. Not having been told previously that she would even HAVE a rival, and being blindsided by it since there was no mentioned rival in the legend the drama is based on, she flips her lid and storms off in a huff. She winds up driving off in the bus her manager uses to transport costumes and props, and gets lost in some fog before coming to a stop in the distant past. Here, she thinks the people she's meeting are actors in the drama so she plays along, claiming to be Princess Pyeong-gang. These folks don't believe her, and she's locked in jail for the night with none other than a handsome young con man named On Dal, who is obsessed with money. The next day they are taken to be judged and sentenced. On Dal is set free because he has some dirt on pretty much everyone, and Su-jeong is to be executed. The local powers that be are finally convinced that Su-jeong is Princess Pyeong-gang just in the nick of time, and Su-jeong is put up somewhere nice and given whatever she wants. She takes full advantage, acting like an entitled spoiled brat, until she finds out the king is on his way to collect his supposed daughter. Oops. Making a run for it, Su-jeong is intercepted by On-dal, who is no fool and thus knows this chick is no princess. Now he has dirt on her too, and as is his way, he plans to use it to his full advantage.  

Cast/ Characters/ Acting: 

Gong Seung Yeon (also starred in Are You Human Too?) as Song Su Jeong. Goodness this character is a handful. Gong Seung Yeon does a good job of playing this fiesty character! 

Lee Jong Hyun (of CNBLUE, also starred in Evergreen and co-starred in Orange Marmalade) as On Dal. Lee Jong Hyun is absolutely captivating as On Dal. You go into this with only the bare bones legend for a basis of what to expect and then there's this version of On Dal who is anything but what you expected. He's actually a really good actor. 

Ahn Bo Hyun as Moo Myung (Princess Pyeong-gang's bodyguard). Ahn Bo Hyun had to play a character whose face had to appear at shallow glance not to give too much away, but upon deeper look convey everything. The character Moo Myung is mute, but eternally devoted to and in love with the princess Pyeong-gang. He's also a lethal warrior. Mr. Ahn did a fabulous job playing this interesting character. I hear he's co-starring in currently-airing drama Her Private Life as of my update 4/20/2019.

Lee Jae Jin (of FTIsland) as Byun Sam Yong (Su Jeong's manager). 

Kim Yeon Seo as Princess Pyeong-gang. She suited the role well. Fresh-faced and sweet-looking. 

Park Joo Hyung as Go Il Yong (the vain villain). This guy cracks me up and yet makes me want to kick him. He's a total Prince Humperdink. 

Writing and directing: 

This drama is pretty absurd. It's drastically unrealistic and at times quite cheesy. It's also funny and cute with sweet, mushy moments and good suspense. There are some strange plot holes, but nothing so big it stopped me from enjoying the show. This show is like... Chitty Chitty Bang Bang meets The Princess Bride with a little bit of Gu Family Book sprinkled in. I'll give creativity props to the writers: I've never seen a Kdrama quite like this before. The episodes are 30 minutes long- bite sized for busy people like me. 

Other: 

This is a Netflix Original, and as with every Netflix Original I've ever had the misfortune of seeing, it's much more liberal with the sexual innuendo and profanity than you would see in most Korean dramas. We have penises being chopped off, someone almost gets raped, people getting high on mushrooms... and this is pretty tame for a Netflix Original. As Netflix Originals go however, this one was shockingly clean. I'm of the opinion (it's my opinion and I'm allowed to have one) that Netflix ruins (perverts) everything it Originals, so the fact that I liked this one is certainly rather unusual. 

Happy Ending Factor? 

Despite seeming like there's literally no way in any universe, no matter how fantastical, for the main characters to end up with a happily ever after, somehow they defy all logic and sanity and end up with that happily ever after indeed. So for those of you who can't watch something unless it has a happy ending, rest assured that despite it making no sense for there to be a happy ending after everything that happens, there is. ;) Happy ending rating of 9 out of 10. 

(SPOILER SECTION! SKIP to Final Summary if you don't want to know how it ends!) 

Su-jeong isn't the only one trapped in a time she doesn't belong: her manager happened to be hiding in the back of the bus when Su-jeong drove off in it, and thus he was taken back in the time traveling bus along with her.
The group become fugitives when the powers that be realize Su-jeong was an imposter and On-dal had something to do with her disappearance. Meanwhile we find out On-dal has been saving money not out of greed, but to buy his enslaved mother's freedom!
Things are further complicated when they meet the real princess Pyeong-gang, who has never heard of On-dal in her life, but is actually in love with her mute bodyguard, who her father would NEVER approve of her marrying.
When the history book in the van starts re-writing itself and it seems new friends are in danger of vanishing from history entirely, the motley crew of time travelers and friends realize that their actions aren't just about them anymore- they are affecting the entire course of history.
By this point, it seems like there is absolutely no way for either the real Princess Pyeong-gang nor the real On-dal to wind up marrying the people they really love. Both the men in these couples wind up in an ambush designed to eliminate them in the interests of a war, and the bus shows Su-jeong and her manager a glimpse of them being killed before flying them back to their own time in the future. Don't worry though, it all works out somehow after all. On-dal winds up with Su-jeong and Princess Pyeong-gang with her bodyguard, proving that even death cannot stop true love, all it can do is delay it for a while. ;) 

Final Summary: 

If you don't mind a drama that is just plain strange, and you can overlook the excessive profanity (it's easier to glaze over it when you're merely reading it in subtitles, IMO) and the occasional unnecessary gross factor, this is actually a really cute and entertaining drama. The episodes are short, which is great if you have a lot of interruptions or don't get much down time in a chunk. If you like a story where it seems like nothing will work out but then it does anyway and you get a happily ever after despite all rational logic, this is the drama for you. And the lead male character On-dal is flat out fascinating. I found myself most interested to see what he was going to do next and how he would react to this or that plot device. 

Check out My Only Love Song [마이 온리 러브송] on Netflix!

(Dramas may not be available for all countries.)
Check out the My Only Love Song OST on Spotify! 

Substitute Princess / Kingflower [金大花的華麗冒險]

♥♥♥♥/♥ 

TITLE: Substitute Princess / King Flower / Princess' Stand-in [金大花的華麗冒險]
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 01-12-2013 to 06-08-2013 
WIKI: n/a 
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 season, 16? episodes. 
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2018-11-11): "Retired:" This drama has been removed from all legal US streaming sites that I know of. :( 

The main character, Jin Da Hua (I think Da Hua means something like Big Flower, which is why one of the alternate titles for this drama is King Flower, and why Guan Jun puts sunflowers on his truck for his business he names after Da Hua), is about 30 and not married. Likely due to the fact that she has a mole and hideous buck teeth, is totally unrefined, and has the fashion sense of a 10 year old. Her mom knows what a treasure she is, as Da Hua is rock-solid in her values, helps tirelessly with the poor family's convenience store, and rides herd on her slacker brothers whether it means chewing them up one side and down the other or physically fighting with a group of jerks from the local mafia who came intent on beating the brothers even to death. Her older brother Guan Jun however is not actually her brother... her mom found him in the market as a little boy and brought him home to raise so he didn't have to grow up a homeless orphaned urchin. Guan Jun has always seen Da Hua as his sweet but ugly little sister but she's never seen him as just a brother figure... she's been crushing on him her whole life. Da Hua pines over Guan Jun endlessly and while he loves her and defends her, it's as his ugly sister not as a girl he could see himself marrying. 

Basic summary: 

Da Hua's father is a deadbeat who gambles away everything at the casino owned by the mafia boss. This mobster comes to collect and when Da Hua finds out her father owes "two million dollars," the whole family is devastated. They are going to lose the store- their family's home and livelihood- to repay the gambling debt! Da Hua sees an add on TV for workers needed to go to Australia and work long hours butchering cattle and the entire year's salary would cover the gambling debt... Da Hua is heartbroken at the thought of having to leave her family for so long but she's seriously considering it. The problem is you don't get paid until the year is up and they need the money NOW. 
There's Ouyang Tai, better known as "Terry." Terry is engaged to a sweet and beautiful woman, Du Liang Yan. Terry's parents adore the graceful Liang Yan and her dad (seems her mom may have passed away) adores Terry but finds it a little hard to trust his overprotected daughter with someone else. Liang Yan really wants to get out and see the world, stretch her wings away from her overprotective father, and Terry wants to indulge his beloved. Liang Yan sees the photos Terry keeps of adventures he's had with his best friend Qin Mo (who is a plastic surgeon and adrenaline junkie) and wants to have adventures too! She tries to talk Terry into taking her hiking, but it takes some encouragement from Qin Mo before Terry goes for it. The vacation starts out oh so romantic, but then Liang Yan goes out to see the sunrise before Terry is awake and winds up slipping off a cliff. Terry finds her clinging on just below the ledge, just in time to lose her down into the ravine. Terry frantically phones for help as he has no climbing gear and getting to her without it is impossible. A rescue team is called in, headed up by Qin Mo. They are able to get Liang Yan to the hospital but Qin Mo won't let Terry see her. Some awkward excuse about her not wanting him to see her this way. Qin Mo says she's very injured but she will live and that Liang Yan doesn't want him to see her until she's had surgeries to correct all the scars. Terry reluctantly buys it, but tried to see her often and Qin Mo has to keep putting him off. We can tell from how Qin Mo is acting that things are much worse than Qin Mo is saying. Maybe he even feels responsible and like he has to fix it because he was the one who convinced Terry to take Liang Yan hiking in the first place. Meanwhile Terry has to face the vicious pool of barracudas that is his company. The company that his fiance also works for... and now he has to figure out an excuse for an absent fiancee without letting her major shareholder father know that Terry took his sheltered little princess hiking and she fell off a cliff. If Terry loses the confidence of the shareholders, he will lose the company to his scheming cousin! Seeing how much the constant suspicions and attacks are stressing Terry out, not to mention his worry for Liang Yan, Qin Mo has a suggestion: find someone he can perform plastic surgery on to take Liang Yan's place temporarily to divert the growing suspicions at work. Terry is very resistant to the idea and it takes more work pressure and more convincing from Qin Mo to get Terry to go for this hairbrained plan. Qin Mo confesses that it will take at least a year for all the surgeries she needs, and seeing there's really no way out aside from giving up the company or taking Qin Mo's suggestion, Terry considers it. But who would be prepared to give up their whole life for a year and their face forever to pretend to be Terry's fiance? Turns out, there was this convenience store where Terry and Liang Yan stopped on their way out hiking to grab a bottled water and there was this bucktoothed girl working there who, aside from the teeth, mole, and unpolished manners, did resemble Liang Yan a great deal... and Terry is prepared to offer "two million" dollars up front to seal the deal. 

Flow and sequence: 

The first someodd episodes focus on portraying Da Hua's character, family, and her undying devotion for Guan Jun. After a bit we get introduced to the rich characters as a side story, which eventually becomes the main story. The middle of the drama focuses on Da Hua's time impersonating Liang Yan to help Terry, and the later episodes focus on Da Hua's struggle to figure out whether her heart truly lies with Guan Jun or with Terry. 

Cast and acting: 
While all the characters did decently in their respective roles, whether they were overacting for comedic roles or playing deceitful, mysterious, or passionate characters, there was one who stood apart as above and beyond the rest. Chris Wu as Terry was amazing. Chris' acting is very good, very believable. The emotions portrayed were deeply moving. When Terry was celebrating his engagement to Liang Yan, his joy felt so real and pure. When he was grieving Liang Yan, I felt his pain. I could feel his inner turmoil when he was beginning to love Da Hua, and his determination to win her heart, and finally his resolve to put her happiness first regardless of whether it was him she chose or Guan Jun. I love Terry's character. He just calmly endures everything, acting so brave and even putting on the persona of a cold businessman at work when need be, but his real personality is a very softspoken, kindhearted man who is very indulgent to Da Hua and compassionate to the fact that she's given up her whole life and her face to get the money to save her family. The more he learns about her, the more he admires her as a person, while still remaining faithful to his beloved Liang Yan. 
He played Huo Tingen in the recent March-July 2017 drama The Perfect Match [極品絕配] and his acting in that was stellar also. 

Writing and directing: 

The plot was kind of all over the place for a while, especially at the end. In the late beginning/early middle it had a typical drama slow spot where I got bored and almost didn't keep with it. They could have wrapped it up a lot faster if they'd had a more clear direction with the ending, but I heard that they actually wound up changing the ending mid-drama! (More on that in the Spoilers section.) 

Other: 

The rain kiss, ya'll! The kiss in the rain with the dropped umbrella... Good stuff right there. I think I cried both times I watched this drama, at that part. All the moooshy feels!! ♥ 

Happy Ending Factor? 

The happy ending happened sort of, but it was more of an eluded-to happy ending. I would give it a 7 out of 10 because they gave us enough to assume a happy ending, but we never got the closure of actually seeing it. My happily-ever-after-addicted little heart was sorely bummed at not seeing my ship end things with a romantic smooch at least. Again though, I think we'd have gotten a better ending if the writers had more time to plan the ending they eventually went with rather than changing lanes in the middle of the series. 

(SPOILER SECTION! SKIP to Final Summary if you don't want to know how it ends!) 

Okay so remember how I said I heard the writers changed the ending mid-series? Here's the gossip I heard; I heard that it was originally slated for Da Hua's enduring loyalty and love for Guan Jun to win out in the end and them to end up together. However, because Chris Wu did such an amazing and moving performance as Terry, the viewers absolutely fell in love with him. Despite his not becoming a vital part of the story until later in the series, everyone was head over heels for him and wanted him to end up with Da Hua instead of Guan Jun. It was easy to feel Guan Jun's love for Da Hua was flaky, immature, and unstable because he was flirting with who he thought was Liang Yan while knowing Da Hua had feelings for him. While he did seem to start to realize his feelings for Da Hua were stronger than he'd previously realized, it wasn't until he found out she had surgery and was gorgeous that he quit dragging his feet about courting her. Meanwhile Terry was dealing with his work pressures, guilt and worry about Liang Yan being injured, and still he was always so kind and patient with Da Hua. Even when Liang Yan died and he was grieving and couldn't tell anyone, he was considerate of Da Hua's needs and feelings. (May I just say once again what a terrific actor Chris Wu is?!) Terry was the stable and kind but still sexy and charming older man. Meanwhile Guan Jun was hanging out with gangsters and being wishy-washy about his feelings and his responsibilities, acting like a teenager full of rebellion. Terry was easy to fall for, as a viewer. I totally shipped her with Terry and not with the immature and flaky Guan Jun! I saw some speculations that people shipped her with Terry because he was rich. Personally that wasn't the case at all for me- I admired how Guan Jun (finally!!!) got his act together at the end and if it was all about where the characters ended up with job/money, I'd have been team Guan Jun. That had zilch to do with it for me though. Personally, I felt like Terry was the first one to really see Da Hua's beautiful inner qualities and be attracted to her for the right reasons.

So anyway the ending was rumoredly supposed to be Da Hua going "home" to Guan Jun and marrying her childhood sweetheart, but they changed it. I don't know where in the series the plot diverted to make way for the new ending, but the way it ended was Da Hua leaves Terry at the altar, runs off to figure out her feelings and which man she really loves, and Terry waits patiently for her as a saint. Months later when Quin Mo asks him how he's holding up, he says he's giving her space to make up her own mind so she can truly be happy: if it's meant to be, she'll come back to him. Da Hua is meanwhile saying the same thing, that if it's meant to be then they'll run into each other again- which annoyed me because she was the one who did the leaving. Terry waits and waits and Da Hua doesn't come back. Meanwhile Da Hua is tired of waiting for fate to force her hand I guess, and decides to really go to work in Australia for a year. As she gets on the plane, she bumps into Terry, they stare at each other and then smile and then we see the plane fly off and that's the end. I felt quite let down that there were no words, no hug or kiss, no reason Terry was on that plane, nothing. I felt cheated, but at least it was implied that Da Hua and Terry wound up together. 

Final Summary:
The love triangle was really intense for me, not knowing from the get-go who the female lead was going to wind up with. It could be overacted and corny in parts, but I've noticed that's kind of a thing for some Chinese and Taiwanese dramas to have overacting as a comedic plot device. It could also be slow in places. But overall this drama was the sweetest and cutest thing! It was my "gateway drama" - the first Asian drama I ever watched and the one that spawned my Asian drama addiction. 

Unfortunately this drama was only available to US watchers on Netflix (for a short time) and later DramaFever, an Asian Drama streaming site owned by Warner, that abandoned it's subscribers with no warning on October 16, 2018, leaving nothing but an unapologetic goodbye message.
(Above links or lack thereof based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.) 

Descendants Of The Sun [태양의 후예]

♥♥♥♥/♥ 
TITLE: Descendants Of The Sun [태양의 후예] 
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: February 24 to April 22, 2016 (KBS) 
WIKI: http://asianwiki.com/Descendants_of_the_Sun 
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 season, 18 episodes, 1 hour each. + 1 BONUS Behind The Scenes 
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2019-04-20): Viki (free w/ads), Kocowa (free w/ads), ONDemandKorea (free w/ads) 

Captain Yoo Shi Jin is a member of an elite special forces team. His team carries out the kinds of missions where you vanish at the drop of a hat for days, weeks, or months and leave your tags at home when you do, so your identity can't be compromised if things go terribly wrong.
Kang Mo Yeon is a skilled doctor at a prestigious hospital. She is bold and opinionated and tries to resist the advances of the handsome and funny older man Captain Yoo.
Seo Dae Young is a member of Captain Yoo's team and his best friend. The father of the woman he loves is doing everything he can to keep them apart.
Yoon Myung Jo is Mo Yeon's old medical-schoolmate, with whom the bitter rivalry never quite died. She's in love with Dae Young but he keeps running away from her and she suspects her father (military, as is she) has something to do with it.
Our cast of characters must survive disasters like earthquakes, epidemics, kidnapping, and war in order to find peace and love in the midst of their tumultuous lives. 

Basic summary:
Captain Yoo Shi Jin and his best friend Seo Dae Young have an encounter with a young thief who steals Dae Young's phone when he wrecks his motorcycle and the two heroes Shi Jin and Dae Young give him emergency medical care before the ambulance arrives. Figuring out what happened to the phone, the heroes head toward the hospital to get it back. They wind up saving the young thief's life yet again, this time from a gang, but the pretty lady doctor, Mo Yeon, believes them to be the villains at first.
Shi Jin takes an immediate liking to Mo Yeon and he's not afraid to be (hilariously) over the top to get her attention. Things seem to be going well, after a bit of a rocky start, but then go downhill again when Mo Yeon decides she's not sure if she can deal with being the girlfriend of a man with such a deadly job.
Then Mo Yeon's boss makes a pass at her and she turns him down flat, resulting in her being 'volunteered' to go on a humanitarian mission to a military outpost in a country called Uruk where war was in the recent past and peace is still precarious. Meanwhile Shi Jin and Dae Young are temporarily stationed on the outpost in Uruk and Myung Jo has pulled some strings to get herself stationed to Uruk also so that she can be with the man she loves. Myung Jo's father has pulled some strings of his own and had Dae Young brought back to Korea to lead a training squad- the two father-separated lovers wind up only crossing paths momentarily as they switch places.
Shi Jin meanwhile is making headway once again with Mo Yeon. She's no match for his drownable brown eyes and deep voice, not to mention the hilarious and over the top things he says to make her laugh, but she's still pretty sure their differences are irreconcilable. Shi Jin winds up going back to S. Korea on leave.
Mo Yeon and the volunteer medical team are getting ready to go home also when disaster hits: an earthquake decimates the nearby power plant. Dozens are trapped, injured, and dying. The special forces team, headed up by Shi Jin and Dae Young, are sent in to take control of the rescue efforts and manage the disaster relief, bringing our two couples back together under less than ideal circumstances.
Meanwhile, a thug named Argus is threatening the manager of the power plant for diamonds, as well as running ghost villages of orphans for human trafficking. The earthquake throws a monkey wrench in the transfer of diamonds from the power plant manager to Argus, putting Argus in a dangerous mood.
We find out that Argus and Shi Jin have history: it seems that once upon a time Shi Jin saved his life. Now, Argus holds no loyalty and will stop at nothing to get ahold of the diamonds- even kidnapping and murder. Will the man who saved his life have to be the one to end it? 

Flow and sequence: 

During the early episodes of this drama, we find Shi Jin chasing Mo Yeon's affections, and Myung Jo chasing Dae Young's affections. In the middle, Myung Jo and Dae Young are still fighting just for the right to love each other. Meanwhile Shi Jin and Mo Yeon's relationship is going well (when she can refrain from getting into dangerous situations), but Shi Jin is having to deal with Argus' distasteful enterprises and Mo Yeon is fighting an epidemic that could take the lives of some of their own. Near the end of the series, the characters are dealing with a new storyline; a North Korean operative who has been framed and needs their help. The characters are now people with more experience, mostly bettered for it, and spend the last couple episodes dealing with the emotional fallout from everything that has happened to them (more in spoiler section.) 

Cast and acting:
Song Joong Ki as Yoo Shi Jin does a phenomenal job. I am always impressed with his acting abilities. He must really give his all to the characters he plays. The character is very likable and humorous, very charming. His chemistry with lead actress Song Hye Gyo was undeniable- I'm not surprised they wound up falling in love in real life and marrying after starring together in this drama! 

Song Hye Kyo as Kang Mo Yeon was a very good fit for her character. At first I thought her character was too similar in personality to the character she played in That Winter, The Wind Blows, but the more the character Mo Yeon was developed, the less similarities I saw.

Jin Goo as Seo Dae Young: Possibly the most complex character in the series. Dae Young is the "strong, silent type." It was hard to see him suffering in silence in the earlier episodes, but still emotional to see him working out his love with Myung Jo in later episodes.

Kim Ji Won as Yoon Myung Jo: I always find couples with a large age difference interesting and in this drama, Kim Ji Won is a 24 year old woman playing the lover of a character played by a 36 year old male actor. You would expect the relationship dynamic between characters to be something other than what it turned out to be; which is with the younger female having an extremely dominant and headstrong personality, contrasting with the quiet and steadfast strength of her partner. I think Miss Kim did a great job bringing out her character's strong personality.

David Lee McInnis as Argus was a terrific villain. He wasn't as detestable as the reigning champion for "Most Detestable Villain I've Ever Seen" (that particular title may forever be held by Lee Sung Jae's amazing performance as the horrible Jo Gwan Woong in Gu Family Book), but I could probably safely say McInnis' Argus comes in second. ;) 

Writing and directing: 

The character development from beginning to end was decent. I enjoyed seeing the characters both meet and defy my expectations as I got to know them better. The music direction took a while to find it's footing, and that's putting it nicely. It wasn't that the soundtrack wasn't good, but that in the beginning of the series the music would come on deafeningly loud and jump-out-of-your-skin suddenly with regular frequency. I was very put-off by this and am so glad that they got better at the music thing as the drama went on. (Either that or I became desensitized to it after a while!) As far as the music itself, volume and sudden-ness aside, I found it to be very pretty and enjoyable.

Rabbit trail:
If you watched this drama and enjoyed the main song, here is a beautiful piano cover of it! 

Happy Ending Factor?
I give it 10 out of 10: at least one of the main couples gets a really good happily ever after and there are no loose ends or mind-bogglingly confusing plot lines. 

(SPOILER SECTION! SKIP to Summary if you don't want to know how it ends!) 

Okay okay, BOTH the main couples get a happily ever after, though both of them ALMOST DON'T! Shi Jin and Dae Young are sent on a 3 month mission they don't come back from. They are shot and then the area they were last seen is blown up. They are reported as dead to their beloved women, and a year goes by in which the former rivals Myung Jo and Mo Yeon seem to settle into a friendship of sorts that has been developing throughout the series. It's quite unbelievable that they came back from that but don't panic because somehow they did and we get our happy ending! 

Summary: 

From the synopsis and the images of this drama, I thought it would be significantly more about war and medical stuff and significantly less romantic and sweet than it actually was. The first 2 episodes didn't make me want to keep watching, but I decided to watch just one more episode because it seemed the first 2 episodes had been sort of like a prequel and episode 3 was where we would finally see what sort of drama it was going to turn out to be. By the end of that episode, I was interested enough to at least watch one more. I became a little bit more interested with each episode after that, and by halfway through the series I knew I would have to finish this whole drama out. If you're thinking of giving this drama a shot, I suggest you watch at least the first 3 episodes before deciding whether to give up on it. The music is kind of out of control in the beginning (you'll hear what I mean if you watch it), but it's starting to chill a tad bit by episode 3 and gets better and better with each episode after that, as does everything else about this drama. 

Check out Descendants Of The Sun on Viki! 
Check out Descendants Of The Sun on Kocowa!
Check out Descendants Of The Sun on ONDemandKorea!
Check out the Descendants Of The Sun OST on Spotify! 
(Above links based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Ditto for Viki- may be available in your country but not mine. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.) 

Drama Fever: Credits, Premium, Apps, is it worth it?

**I am NOT affiliated in any way with Drama Fever, and this is not a paid post. I'm just a consumer of their delicious dramas. ;) **
If you are a North American who enjoys watching Asian Dramas, chances are you've heard of Drama Fever. You might already have a premium membership, or maybe you are contemplating whether it's worthwhile or not. Maybe you've never even heard of it before.

When I first began watching Asian Dramas, it was Netflix that sucked me in. Thanks, Netflix, now I have a serious addiction because of you! Alas, it wasn't long before I outpaced Netflix in my Kdrama consumption, so I had to find a new source for dramas.

In the beginning, I used DramaFever in a supplementary capacity. I watched what Netflix had when they had it and then I went on Drama Fever when I ran out of things to watch on Netflix or Netflix decided to remove a show before I was finished with it. At that point I didn't find it worth having any apps or paying for Premium.

It wasn't long though, before I just found it easier to START on DramaFever, so I could be more certain that whatever I was watching wasn't going to get canceled in the middle of my marathon. I would run into the problem of the newer shows having some or all of the episodes restricted to Premium only. I then figured out that watching on my desktop computer earned me credits which I could redeem for Premium-only episodes.

As before, it wasn't long before my Kdrama addiction outgrew my ability to keep up with earning credits, plus I had a new baby and sitting in one place for very long wasn't working well, so I downloaded the DramaFever app to my tablet. I discovered the app is amazing and works perfectly - except for one thing. It's fussy about whether you get the credit for watching shows on the tablet or not. About 60% of the time, watching on the tablet never counted toward earning credits, which was a bummer. :( It was a nice surprise when it did though! But generally speaking, even with the app, because of the inconsistency, it eventually got to a point where I was asking myself, so do I need to get Premium now?

Long to short, I have Premium now! Surprise! Yeah yeah wipe the shock off your face. ;) I LOVE it. It's just the basic Premium, no bells and whistles. For me, I watch DF more than Netflix. In fact, I have watched several hours of DF this past week, and 0 minutes of Netflix. Sorry Netflix! Because I almost never watch anything that isn't an Asian Drama anymore, Drama Fever has become more of a necessity than Netflix. If I had to choose only one streaming service, I'd choose DF.

I really used to like the web version layout of Drama Fever. It was very easy to figure out/use. The new web version released this week however is causing me some annoyance. I used to be able to comment on individual episodes as well as leave a review on the main show page- can't seem to do that now. Used to see a series synopsis on a main page for each show and then episode synopsis on each episode's page, but now I can't find any series synopsis. In addition to this, it keeps switching the text of the site randomly between various assorted languages without my doing anything to cause it. "Yo Drama Fever! I do not speak Japanese! How am I supposed to read the language menu in Japanese to switch it back to English?!" C'mon, I am only fluent in one language and dabble in 2 others. The random language switching is getting out of hand. I do love that I can still have a "My Shows" list for all 67 dramas that I am watching or planning on watching. (I already said I'm addicted to Kdramas, what more do you want from me here? :p )

If you watch 2-10 hours a month of Asian Dramas:
In this case, Drama Fever is probably going to prove more reliable than Netflix for you. Many shows are free and many more have most of the episodes free with just a few at the end available with credit or Premium only.

If you watch Asian dramas several times a week up to one hour a day:
It might be a good idea to download the app to your phone or tablet to support your new drama addiction. The app works great, I've had it over a year and never had a problem with it other than the odd issue where it doesn't fill up the credit meter all the time.

If you pretty much watch dramas daily, or nearly:
Yes, Premium is probably for you. If you're at the point of eat-sleep-breathe dramas, you maybe need to just bite the bullet and fork over the meager amount of cash required to bump up your membership from free to Premium. When you have a Premium membership, you can get the SmartTV app for your telly and make your significant other watch something with you. I will warn you though that I've had difficulty after difficulty with the Smart TV app randomly shutting down if I try to pause, play, rewind, or fast forward. Occasionally even if I'm not touching anything. Then when I restart the app, it wants to restart the episode back at the beginning, meaning I have to touch the ff button again, meaning I'm risking it shutting down on me again. It's a vicious cycle. Not sure if it's the app, the tv, or a joint effort to make me crazy. Maybe it's just the fact that I live in the mountains of the Pacific Northwestern US in a town that boasts a population of 500 so the internets no be so good sometimes.



{>>>}UPDATE 2018 Nov. 07:
DramaFever is dead, Netflix has had the same 20 Kdramas for the last 2-5 years, and I had to find a new source to feed my Kdrama addiction. https://kdramafeelz.blogspot.com/2018/11/dramageddon-and-viki-vs-kocowa-dilemma.html

The Bride of the Water God (Bride of Habaek) [하백의 신부 2017]

♥♥♥♥/♥ 
TITLE: The Bride of the Water God (The Bride Of Habaek) [하백의 신부 2017]
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: July 03, 2017-August 22, 2017 (TVN)
WIKI: http://asianwiki.com/The_Bride_of_Habaek
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 season, 16 hour-long episodes
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2018-11-11): "Retired:" This drama has now been removed from all legal US streaming sites that I know of. :( 

Overview:
The scenes in the Drama Fever trailer/preview for this one were more irrelevant to the drama than the Drama Fever writeup/description. I'm not sure how they could have gotten any farther off the mark if they tried, when it came to giving a good trailer and writeup to get the right people to watch it. The titling and timing were also quite unfortunate in that they gave many viewers the mistaken impression that this drama was intended to be similar to (and 'as good as') Goblin: The Lonely and Great God [쓸쓸하고 찬란하神-도깨비].
 If you're looking for the next "Goblin", this isn't it. You'll be really glad later if you go into this determined to enjoy (or not) this show for itself and not as a Goblin-rebound-fix. The writeup on Drama Fever describes the lead male character as "narcissistic" and says he came to Earth to find *a* magic stone (there are 3). It also says that the goddess Moo Ra dislikes Habaek's "wife" (technically the series title also refers to her as his bride, but they aren't actually shown marrying during the course of this series).

Basic summary:
Habaek is destined to be the god of Water World, but in order to claim his rightful throne, he must go to Earth and find 3 "god stones" which the priest of Water World hid there. When Habaek and his servant arrive on Earth, they are separated, unclothed, and having somehow lost the coordinates which will lead them to the god stones on the way. In addition to this, Habaek is frustrated to learn his powers aren't working on Earth. There is a family lineage on Earth who is supposed to help them with their mission, however the lone descendant of this family is jaded psychiatrist So Ah. As a child, So Ah's father was constantly bringing home street children, even going so far as to give So Ah's things to them. So Ah felt like her father loved the street children he brought home more than he loved her and developed a good deal of parental resentment. Her father left on a humanitarian mission for a year when she was a teenager and never returned, and her mother passed away. So Ah once tried to kill herself to hurt her absent father, so she threw herself off a bridge, but miraculously woke back up before dying and swam to safety, forever-after ashamed and averse to cold water. When Habaek meets So Ah, she's supposed to recognize who he is, but she thinks he's merely an attractive but delusional human who needs psychiatric help.

Flow and sequence: 
The early episodes of the series deal with Habaek's struggle to get So Ah to recognize his deity and accept her role as a servant of the gods. The middle episodes of the series deal with the jealousy and animosity of the other Earthbound deities toward Habaek and So Ah, and how that hinders the finding of the stones. The final episodes deal with the inevitable goodbye between Habaek and So Ah, as well as wrapping up plot mysteries that have been brewing throughout the series.

I usually find a "slow zone" in dramas somewhere between episodes 5 and 15, but I didn't feel like this drama really slowed down specifically at any point. It was a leisurely paced drama all along, with funny parts and sad parts, but neither the ups nor the downs were ever too extreme. Basically, I didn't find it boring but it wasn't so strenuously suspenseful I couldn't sleep between episodes either. (Though it WAS suspenseful enough that I looked forward to the next episodes all week until the series was complete.)

Cast and acting: 
Nam Joo Hyuk's portrayal of Habaek is about the least narcissistic leading male character I've ever seen. The character Habaek is SPOILED at first, indeed, but he's also pretty much brimming with compassion for humanity and especially So Ah, which is the opposite of the aforementioned supposed narcissism. Nam Joo Hyuk's character's emotions are all well acted in his expressive eyes. If you like him in this, he does a fabulous job in Scarlet Heart: Ryeo also (though I haven't finished that one yet and hear it has a super sad ending so happy-ending-addicts beware!)

Im Ju Hwan did fantastic job bringing out the conflictedness, guilt, pain, and desire to be good in his character, the reluctant villain CEO Hoo Ye. Im Ju Hwan's portrayal of Hoo Ye pretty much ripped my heart out every time he came on screen. I've almost never wanted to climb inside the screen and hug a character that badly. I've never seen Im Ju Hwan in anything else, so if anyone has a suggestion for something else he's in that ends happily, please leave it in the comments!

Shin Se Kyung is an actress who I often see disparaged as lacking talent but I personally see no grounds for the hate. I have only seen her in 3 or 4 dramas but I felt she did a decent to great job in all of them. There was a degree of sameness to the various characters I've seen her play but I think it is due to the writing and directing of those characters and not so much her acting. For her portrayal of So Ah, I think people may somewhat be confusing their feelings about the character and the plot with their feelings about Miss Shin's acting. There are some discrepancies in the plot (particularly early on in the series) which are confusing and frustrating, mostly centering around So Ah's character. I'm currently also watching both Blade Man/Iron Man AND Sensory Couple/The Girl Who Sees Smells which Shin Se Kyung plays in- both are cute dramas so far.
One more worth special mention was a small side character in the series; Jin Geon (and briefly, his twin Mo Myeong). The actor who played them was uncredited (at least in the case of all my search results) but I'm about 99% sure he's Korean actor Kim Tae Hwan 김태환 who starred in the 2016 Chinese drama My Amazing Boyfriend [我的奇妙男友] (a corny comedy, kinda creepy, but sorta cute and fairly steamy story about an actress and an immortal, which was loosely based on the Korean cult hit drama My Love From The Star).


Writing and directing:
The Bride Of The Water God was supposedly loosely based on a manhwa of the same name, but I read quite a bit of commentary by people who had read the manhwa and said the drama turned out nothing like the manhwa after all. I also saw comments that all involved in the making of Water God deliberately avoided all things Goblin until Water God was complete so as not to taint Water God either way (knowing that the series name would make people compare it to Goblin and wanting to deter that). I have not personally confirmed either of these rumors: I have neither read the manhwa nor seen where the cast and crew were vowing to hold off on watching Goblin. *If anyone knows where I can find/read the manhwa online or has a link to confirm or refute the rumor about them not watching Goblin, please leave it in the comments and I will try to follow up and edit at a later date.*

The writing did seem to have some holes and weak points. Most noteworthy was in an early episode they had So Ah passing out repeatedly in sequence over the same thing: finding out an old friend of hers was actually an earthbound deity. This was right after she went like a week without sleep and hearing voices but managed to function (for the most part) normally, AND finally accepting that Habaek was indeed a deity himself, making the repeated passing out over her old friend's identity all the more unbelievable and absurd. If she had seemed to be equally emotionally weak through all that happened to her, this wouldn't have been so eye-rolling, but throughout the series we find So Ah to be a resilient character and this particular comedy gimmick is unbecoming.

Aside from that, I think most of the parts that didn't really make sense could later be explained. Maybe not explained WELL, but at least explained-ish.

How is The Bride Of The Water God like or unlike Goblin?
Similarities? Well it's got deities in it, and one of them falls in love with a human who was born specifically to help him. That's about it for the similarities.
In Bride Of The Water God, the gods live in parallel worlds based on the elements, and there are some on Earth as caretakers of sorts, but for the most part the gods stay in their own worlds and don't care about humanity except as far as they require the worlds to be in balance so they can continue to live without really caring about humanity. In Goblin, the purpose of the divine beings is to manage humanity so the supernatural beings are doing specific jobs relating to that, such as the Grim Reapers managing souls after their death and the old/young deity mentioning creating new souls and the goblin acting as a sort of guardian/benefactor of down-on-their-luck humans.
In Water God, the supernatural powers seem more like something out of an Avengers movie, so you're watching it and your brain is reminding you the whole time that what you're watching is pretend and just for kicks. Also the main character is devoid of his powers the whole time, leaving him and the two servants under his protection vulnerable to multiple other supernatural beings, some of whom do not wish them well. The supernatural powers in Goblin seem to be portrayed in a way where you can take them more seriously as though they were real, and the goblin himself does retain his powers, as do the other supernatural good guys.
In Water God, the comedy is mediochre to mild and is based on the characters being shocked or embarrassed. The strength of the series isn't in it's comedy; it is in the tenderness and love Habaek increasingly feels for So Ah and watching the character learn to deal with these feelings. In Goblin, the entire drama is an emotional tug of war; one minute you are gasping for air between fits of hysterical laughter at the witty banter, and the next minute you are using half a roll of toilet paper to deal with the effects of the extreme emotions provoked.

Happy Ending Factor? 
Does The Bride Of The Water God wind up with a happy ending? Yes and no. I'd give it 8 out of 10 for happy ending points.

(SPOILER SECTION! SKIP to Final Summary if you don't want to know how it ends!) 
It seems that So Ah may not get a happy ending with her father (no surprise: I pretty much expected that the whole series), but she gets to live out the rest of her life with Habaek on Earth. They left it totally unexplained as to how she's going to grow old and die beside an ageless deity, or how he'll go on as king of Water World after losing his soulmate when she does eventually age and die. The ending could have been more satisfactory, but at least it wasn't like one of them died right off or they had to live apart for the remainder of their lives.

Final Summary: 
Bride Of The Water God may be getting a bad rap because those who clicked over to watch it just came from Goblin and expected it to be the same kinda thing. They experienced a similar effect to if you were to watch BBC's Sherlock and then tried watching the live action Nancy Drew movie with expectations it would be the same thing. One is a boutique cheesecake and the other is a donut: both can be delicious but if you eat a donut expecting a cheesecake you're not gonna be happy. The Bride Of The Water God was no Goblin, but it was Bavarian-Cream-Filled-Donut Good. If you give this show a go, check your cheesecake expectations at the door and let it pleasantly surprise you! :)

Unfortunately this drama was only available to US watchers on Drama Fever, an Asian Drama streaming site owned by Warner, that abandoned it's subscribers with no warning on October 16, 2018, leaving nothing but an unapologetic goodbye message. 

Check out the The Bride Of Habaek OST on Spotify!
(Above links based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Ditto for Viki- may be available in your country but not mine. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.)