Second Time is Charm (Chinese Drama)
Married right out of a collage to a husband who is extremely successful in his career, our heroine is the envy of all until her marriage falls apart when her son is five years old. Realizing quite quickly that she has nothing to contend with her ex-husband for the parental rights of her son not when her college glory days is just a thing of the past and she has zero work experiences, our heroine has to figure out a plan B for her life since her plan A, the only plan she thought she needed had just gone up in smoke.
This one is not a “how a poor housewife betrayed by her husband find success in a new career and a new love” sort of story. Granted, the new career and a new love are definitely in the cards for our heroine but the story is more of a coming of age for our heroine. In the first episode we see our heroine mostly from her soon to be ex-husband’s point of view and boy, does it look bad for our heroine. Perhaps a bit biased but with a lot of truth, from the ex-husband’s point of view, our heroine has never bothered to grow up even after her son was born. In fact, it looked like her son just became a playmate for her while her husband was out working night and day. At this point, I would usually be turned off by this sort of character set up but strangely, I was intrigued because the show hid enough hints that our heroine must have her charming points despite her many flaws.
One other thing that made me want to stay with the show is the fact that our hero, our heroine’s love interest is actually her ex-husband’s divorce lawyer. The two leads’ interactions are pretty hilarious and it is amusing to see our hero’s hopelessness whenever he comes up against our heroine.
I saw a rumor online that iQiyi (the app, not on the website unless you don’t need the English subs) has this one. I haven’t personally tried though.
Joy of Life (Chinese Drama)
Retaining his memory from his previous life in the modern world, our hero remembers clearly everything that has happened to him since he was an infant, including the fact the very people who killed his mother is still waiting for a chance to kill him. Learning diligently everything his two mysterious teachers have to teach him- from fighting to poisons, our hero prepares himself for the storm of palace intrigue that will eventually find him one day. Our hero will pledge his loyalty to the emperor at first until he finally realizes the emperor is his real father, the tyrant who had sent assassins to kill his mother and himself. With his trusty friends and our heroine’s support, our hero will embark on a dangerous fight to force his father off the throne.
Joy of Life’s synopsis makes the story sound pretty serious and heavy but the show is actually a lot of fun with plenty of hilarious comedic moments. I don’t usually like the “childhood” portion of the story but this one’s backstory setup (just one episode long) was so amusing that I really wish they could’ve given us a few more episodes.
According to the novel this show is based on, our hero technically should end up with like four wives but thankfully, it looks like the tv version will change that part of the plot.
Joy of Life is available on Viki.com
Chocolate (Korean Drama)
As a young girl, our heroine met a young boy, her first love at a small seaside restaurant. Remembering vividly the blissful taste of the meal the young boy had cooked for her when she was starving, our heroine grows up to become a chef. Losing track of her first love after the small seaside restaurant closes, our heroine is overjoyed when she meets a doctor who shares the same name as her first love. Due to the tragedies and the difficult circumstances of his life, our hero has hidden away his love of cooking but has instead become a surgeon who masks his tender heart with coldness.
Boy, it’s obvious this one is going to tug at my heartstrings and make me cry buckets. Thankfully, it looks like this one should end happily? I hope? It does make me nervous that the screenwriter and director are the same ones that gave us the 2004 “Sorry, I Love You” which had a sad premise but I am really hoping this one will be different.
I do have to clarify that while the show has some very tender moments, Ha Ji Won’s heroine character is hilariously funny and cute. Our heroine doesn’t carry any less emotional baggage than our hero but I love that she still comes off like a bright ray of sunshine…even if she has to have a mini-breakdown once in a while. This one is definitely going on my watch list, but I reserve the right to jump ship if it looks like my prediction of a happy ending is wrong.
Chocolate is on Netflix.
Sweet Family (Taiwanese Daily)
Kingone Wang and Mandy Wei are well established actors one would expect to see as leads in T-idol dramas so it was a bit surprising to see them in a T-daily instead. Besides our two leads, there are also plenty of other veteran actors whose faces should be plenty familiar for those who follow T-dramas. In short, I was fairly surprised to see such a stacked cast list in a daily.
Kingone Wang plays a talented chef who takes his cooking very seriously and has never shown any interest in women…that is until our heroine beats up a few thugs to save him. Completely clueless on how one would go about to “pursue” the woman of his dream, our hero could only bumble around blindly but the path to win the heart of his lady proves to be harder than he would ever imagine since our heroine’s father turns out to be his own father’s life long nemesis. This one is a comedy so don’t get scared off by the Romeo and Juliet set up.
Psychopath Diary (Korean Drama)
Tired of living a cowardly life where he is constantly being bullied by those around him, our hero decides to kill himself but ends up witnessing a murder and picks up the killer’s diary. In his hurry to get away, our hero is hit by our heroine’s patrol car and ends up losing his memory. Mistakingly believing the killer’s diary is his own, our hero comes to the conclusion that he must be a psychopath killer who hides his true nature by acting timid in front of everyone.
Yoon Shi Yoon is so awesome in this role! How can a guy look so natural switching between a timid man who is used to being bullied and to an arrogant psychopath…who by the way still has a hint of uncertainty because he is just pretending to the psychopath in the diary.
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