Special Labor Inspector, Mr. Jo Volunteer Team (Korean Drama)
Once a promising Judo athlete then a PE teacher, our hero’s tendency to stand up to injustice caused both careers to cut short. After much hardship, our hero gets a government job as a special labor inspector. Learning from his past experiences, our hero vows to lay low and not cause any trouble. Successful for a while at turning a blind eye to the injustice around him, our hero’s resolve to keep his vow weakens then disappears when one of his past students shows up as one of the powerless employees unjustly fired.
I really liked the first couple of episodes! I loved the show’s wacky humor, heartwarming characters and look forward to seeing how our hero and his team will help the powerless victims. I was worried at first that the show will be more episodic format focusing on each individual cases, but fortunately while there will be various victim’s stories, it looks like there will also be a solid core storyline that will be threaded throughout the show.
Her Private Life (Korean Drama, New)
Park Min Young’s new romantic comedy where she plays an art gallery curator who looks and acts every inch the part of an elite professional…until her fangirl side comes out in full force after work. Having successfully hid her fangirl side from her boss and co-workers, our heroine’s carefully kept secret is unexpectedly in danger of being exposed when her new boss arrives in town.
I was really excited to check this one out and while I liked the first two episodes the pacing was slower than I had expected. Still, the show was plenty cute and entertaining that I am planning to put this on my watch list for the time being.
Put Your Head On My Shoulder (Chinese Drama, New)
Based on the sister novel of A Love So Beautiful (C-drama that came out in 2017), Put Your Head On My Shoulder continues the innocent first love theme. As someone who is rather tired of this particular theme, I was surprisingly entertained by this one! The chemistry between the two leads’ is especially cute. Our heroine is soon to be college grad who really has no clue what her next step in life is. To add fire to her already confused state, our heroine accidentally ends up sharing a house with our hero- the handsome genius from the physics department of her college.
Investiture of the Gods (Chinese Drama, New)
An empire on the verge of falling due to a tyrant emperor paves way for gods and demons to place their respective plans. Pawns to fate, gods and even demons, our leads will have to blaze a path that will destroy an old empire and welcome a new dawn. Our two leads are raised as brother and sister but our hero is an adopted son so despite their feelings for each other they lived with the resignation that their love can never be. When her beloved parents and all those in her household (not our hero though of course) were killed by the emperor, our heroine will agree to the fox demon’s offer to becomes the emperor’s concubine. A young man with a famous fighting skill that matches an even more well known bratty personality, our hero is destined to become a legendary hero.
This one is garnering a lot of negative reviews right now despite its impressive cast lineup (Lou Jin (Behind the Scenes), Wang Li Kun (Martial Universe), and Deng Lun (Ashes of Love)) due to the fact the story is really nothing like the well known 16th century Chinese fantasy novel it is based on. (All three leads in the show are actually minor characters in the novel. In fact, our heroine’s character is an evil spirit in the book so that whole romance line with the hero didn’t exist at all. Oh, Deng Lun’s character is actually a woman in the book.) Still, despite all the complaints about the storyline and costumes, the show believes it or not, is doing quite well in viewership numbers. So I guess all the complaining didn’t stop people being addicted to it.
I don’t feel much loyalty to the original story so I don’t have any issue with all the changes the show has made (plus I thought the first couple episodes were entertaining enough)…but the fact that our heroine will be romantically involved with not just our hero but the fox demon (Deng Lun) and the emperor is making me hesitate on following this one since I usually get pretty impatient with this sort of set up.
In Hand (Japanese Drama, New)
Yamashita Tomohisa’s new drama where he plays a parasite researcher with a robotic prosthetic right hand. This one is based on J-manga series of the same name by Ao Akato. A bit of a recluse who is more interested in bugs than people, our hero is persuaded by our heroine to use his expertise to investigate medical cases involving little known diseases.
The subject matter of the show is not really my thing but it does have Yampi, plus I liked the cute and wacky humor the show inserts whenever possible so I will most likely check back on this from time to time. Oh, by the way, I love it whenever Yamashit Tomohisa’s character says “Nothing is impossible for a genius.”
In Youth (Chinese Drama, New)
As a newbie at her job, our heroine is diligent and hardworking but she somehow ends up being the most likely suspect when her company’s top secret information keeps getting stolen. Naturally suspicious of our heroine at first, our hero- a handsome and very capable elite professional finds himself falling for our heroine as they work together to find the real spy.
Other than our two leads, the story will also follow our hero’s three other college friends’ search for their own happiness. I had mixed feelings about this one. The acting in the first two episodes were a bit too exaggerated at some points for my taste, but the set up of college friendship that is still going strong despite years after graduation is fun and the two leads’ chemistry seems promising.
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Well, finally an actual K-Drama (HPL) at least I want to check. I don’t mind when it is silly and fluffy like WWSK as long the actors are good. I’m just curious why PMY picked this one since it is very similar. And even though her acting is good enough she isn’t that good for people not being reminded to her previous Drama. Normally I stay out of then since the risk to confuse both characters is too high but since WWSK never had more than a “enjoy but not something I invested feelings in” vibe for me, this won’t be a problem.
Just watched the first 4 episodes of Private Life and I quite like it. Of course, it has all the K-Drama tropes but the actors are good and the characters quite understandable. I’m surprised that PMY has way better chemistry with KJW than with her Secretary Kim partner who was her rumored Bf then. She still has to get a bit into her role except the fangirl parts since in the quiet scences she is overshadowed very much by KJW and even PJJ…at least in my opinion.