The Missing Half (Taiwanese Drama, New)

Spunky and bright on the surface, our heroine is actually someone who is used to hiding her own true feelings….which creates a lot of misunderstandings between herself and those closest to her. On the day right before her wedding, our heroine decides to write a series of letters to her families and friends about the things that have been hiding deep in her heart. What should’ve been a happy time of new beginnings and forgiveness is changed in an instant when our heroine is hit by a car.

Um…yah, our heroine is seriously hit by a car in the first three minutes of the first episode. I was ready to just skip this one but thought I would be extra good and actually finish the first episode. Much to my surprise, I liked the first episode enough that I keep wondering if I should be brave enough to check the second episode out as well. After the car accident, the story will jump back to our heroine’s school days when she first met our hero along with two other secondary characters who will become an important part of her life later on. I am assuming the show will focus on our two leads’ love story but the letters (the one our heroine wrote before her accident) will be brought in from time to time to shed some lights on the mystery of what caused the rift between our heroine and those who were once close to her.

Normally, I would automatically cross a show off my watch list that 1. begin with a huge cliff hanger that leaves us hanging wondering if the heroine is even still alive 2. innocent young love (this one is not an automatic no but I have just gotten very picky…). The thing that caught my attention about this one is the refreshing character set up of our two leads. From the synopsis, the heroine sounds like your stereotypical bright and hardworking heroine but as the synopsis also pointed out, that’s only what she might come across as at first glance. In fact, judging by the first episode, our heroine….is really no heroine at all. Instead, she is a normal girl who can be guarded against strangers, spiteful towards those who had wronged her and ready to tell a small lie to get herself out of an awkward situation….All in all, a heroine who seems so real that it’s really hard to not be charmed by her flaws. As for our hero? I was a bit surprised to see such a “sickly” hero but I was also equally pleasantly surprised by the great on-screen chemistry between our two leads.

I am still torn…but for those who are brave, this one looks promising.

I Wanna Hear Your Song (Korean Drama)

As a timpanist with a dream of being hired by an orchestra, our jobless heroine seems to be rather unlucky both in her career and love. To make the situation worse, our heroine suffers from insomnia after witnessing an incident three years ago that also caused her to lose all memory of what happened during that summer. In desperation for a good night sleep, our heroine finally hires our hero to sing to her at night. Stunned at first to discover that our hero is actually tone-deaf, our heroine is soon overjoyed to discover that she can actually fall asleep to our hero’s terrible singing. Unbeknownst to our heroine, our hero didn’t show up in her life by chance. In search of the truth of what really happened during that fateful night three years ago, our hero is determined to help/make our heroine reclaim her memory.

I am about four episodes into this one and while I don’t care for the murder mystery bit (I know, I am a wimp) I do find the show to be quite entertaining. It probably helps that Yeon Woo Jin (Judge vs Judge) looks perfect as our sexy+gentle+mysterious+dangerous hero. I personally found the heroine’s clumsiness as a professional timpanist a bit unrealistic but I guess that’s also a big part of her character’s charm.

Side By Side (Chinese Drama, New)

This one is a web drama so not sure how easy it would be to find subs for it but I decided to mention it anyway because autism is not a subject matter we usually see in C-dramas.

Growing up with dreams of one day winning medals in badminton competitions, two brothers are determined to achieve the seemingly impossible dream despite the fact that one of them has impaired communication and social interaction (autism).  This one does have some romance but as you can guess from the name of the show, the focus of the story is mostly on the two brother’s journey. I was fairly impressed with the first episode because the show really got me thinking about the various aspects of not only what a child born with autism would have to face but those closest to the child would have to face as well. For example, the older brother in the story is the one with autism so that means the younger brother has grown up being the caretaker of his older brother. The younger brother might want to throw a temper tantrum of his own sometimes, but he can’t because he needs to calm his older brother down. He might want his mother’s comfort and embrace too but he can’t because his older brother needs it more than him. When I had thought about autism in the past, I often think of it from the point of view of the child or the parents so it was really an eye-opening experience to see it from the younger brother and various other characters that come in contact with the older brother.

Meet In Gourment Food (Chinese Drama, New)

The destined romance between a handsome chef and a reporter who has an extremely keen sense of taste.

Sigh…I watched the first episode and just couldn’t bring myself to keep watching. It’s not that the show is terrible or anything but for some crazy reason, the actress playing the heroine looks to me more like a junior high girl pretending to be an adult than a working professional she is supposed to be. The actress is actually already like 24 years old in real life…so I blame myself for watching too many Western movies/shows where 16 year old teens look REALLY mature.

 

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