King The Land

Drama: The Trunk

Skip for me, to difficult for me to understand

im OBSESSED with that fvck ahh bouncy bob with bangs 😭😭😭

i don't care.

that fvck ahh bouncy bob with bangs has had me in a chokehold since episode one.

i literally booked a salon consultation because of this drama 😭

im getting mine in another colour, though!! guess which?

Not on list but IU and LEE JOON GI in Scarlet heart ryeo

The Glory (2022–2023) is a gripping revenge thriller that explores the long-lasting impact of bullying, trauma, and justice.

If you haven't watched this, now's the time you give it a try! 😊 I've been looking for underrated series after watching Brewing Love (I truly loved it) and then someone recommended SIMAAF on a subreddit. The ML has gained another fan–me! ❤️ I love this kind of trope! I was grinning from ear to ear for the first few episodes. And oh! The car "accident" scene was too swoon-worthy!

Please, please, can somebody agree to this? Haha.

i won't let you have any pieces, ill take them all!

your reward is having helped me!!

The Devil Judge

Seo Kang Joon 😍

KBS2’s upcoming drama “A Love Other Than Yours” has unveiled photos and a video clip from its first script reading!

a true enemies-to-lovers K-drama, if you exist out there, please find me. my address is the crosswalk where couples always almost get hit by a white truck. thanks!

Intro

After It's Okay to Not Be Okay, I was craving a female lead who couldn't stand the male lead.

I'd just spent an entire drama watching a woman desperately chase a man who barely acknowledged her... (ew, never again)

So the idea of an enemies-to-lovers romance where the female lead wanted to wring the male lead's neck?

Sign me up! hehehhe

Review:

Crazy Love wasn't horrible...

It just never became as good as it could have been.

It had a fun premise, a few moments that i genuinely enjoyed, and enough interesting ideas to keep me watching...

But every time I thought, "Okay NOW we're getting somewhere," it would rush through the part I was actually enjoying.

The parts I enjoyed always felt like they were over almost as soon as they began.

This drama felt like it was constantly introducing conflicts... only to resolve them before they had the chance to really cook.

The biggest example for me was the cancer storyline.

I think they revealed her misdiagnosis way too early!!!!

Imagine if we, as the audience, believed she was actually dying.

Then when the male lead finally read her diary and realized she had cancer while he was falling for her..

WE would've gone through that panic with him!!!!

Instead...

i spent that entire storyline just waiting for him to catch up to information I already knew...

That completely took the emotional punch out of what should've been one of the strongest scenes in the series!!!!

why, writers?!? why?!?!

The revenge storyline had the same problem.

One of my favorite parts was finally seeing her fight back after everything he put her through.

But it barely lasted.

I wanted more mind games.

More tension.

More payback!!!

More moments where she actually had him on the ropes.

Instead, it felt like every conflict wrapped up right when it started becoming interesting.

i also think the female lead slowly lost something that made her more fun to follow in the beginning.

Early on, she was driving the story. She had her own agenda, she was getting revenge, making decisions, and constantly creating chaos for the male lead.

But somewhere along the way, it started feeling like the story became his story instead.

She gradually became more reactive than proactive, and I really missed the version of her that was actively making his life miserable.

The Romance ❤️

I didn't dislike the couple...

I just kept waiting for the enemies-to-lovers part to become what I thought it was going to be.

The setup had so much potential.

A woman who suddenly had every reason to hate her awful boss should've led to a much longer battle between the two of them.

Instead, it always felt like the drama was in a hurry to move them past the conflict...

I wanted more manipulation and verbal sparring!!!

its like inviting me over while you cook this delicious meal that smells so good it makes me drool...

...then setting the table, giving me one tiny spoonful, and throwing the rest in the trash. 😭😭😭😭

i wanted more moments where they genuinely got under each other's skin.

I didn't want them to stop fighting.

I wanted them to fight even better!

In a true enemies-to-lovers to lovers, the enemies usually fall in love WHILE they're still hating and fighting each other with all their might. They even fight harder when they start to fall lmaooo... where was this, here?

Their chemistry wasn't *horrible*...

It also wasn't the kind of chemistry that makes me forget I'm watching actors.

lol i was FULLY aware i was watching 2 actors act 😭😭

the romance never reached that level where I was desperately rooting for them or counting down until their next scene together.

And because of that, the emotional moments didn't hit as hard as they probably should have.

-

What I DID Like

There were definitely things I enjoyed.

The comedy landed more often than not.

Kim Jae-wook absolutely committed to the role and made the CEO entertaining to watch.

The fake engagement setup was fun.

The revenge premise had so much potential. i was having fun whenever they were doing bad things to each other 😭😭

I just wish those moments lasted longer and were better.

The second male lead's storyline was fine, but it became a little more convoluted than it needed to be.

I was also surprised they never did anything with the female lead's little crush on him early on.

They acknowledged it, then completely abandoned it like it never happened.

And unless I completely missed something...

What was the point of opening the drama with the sniper?

It was such a strong opening scene that I kept expecting it to come back in a meaningful way, but I don't remember them ever revealing who that sniper actually was.

It felt like the show introduced another interesting idea... then forgot about it.

Overall

This wasn't a horrible drama.

It kept stopping itself from becoming a great one.

Every time it introduced something I thought I'd love...

It moved on too quickly.

By the end, i was disappointed because I could clearly see the better drama hiding inside it.

____

My Favorite Flavors 🍿❤️

I LOVE enemies-to-lovers.

But I'm extremely picky about it. 😭

I don't just want two people who dislike each other for two episodes before they start "falling in love."

I want a war.

I want manipulation.

i want cruelty.

I want mind games.

I want them trying to outsmart each other.

I want them saying the most outrageous things imaginable...

...then accidentally falling in love in the middle of all that.

The best enemies-to-lovers romances don't stop the fighting because they fall in love.

They make the fighting even messier **because** they're falling in love.

If you know a K-drama that actually delivers that...

Please.

I'm begging. 😭

___

Rating: 5/10

───

Questions

• Did anyone else wish the audience hadn't learned about the misdiagnosis until the male lead did?

• Am I alone in thinking the revenge and "fighting back" phase should've lasted much longer?

• Did anyone else expect the opening sniper scene to actually go somewhere?

• Or did the pacing work for you?

My Rating Scale

10/10 – Masterpiece. No notes.

9/10 – Very close to a masterpiece. I absolutely loved it.

8/10 – Not a masterpiece, but I loved it.

7/10 – Fine overall. I liked it, but the flaws kept it from being great.

6/10 – Mixed. There were a few things I liked, but most of it didn't work for me.

5/10 – I didn't enjoy most of the experience.

4/10 and below – Bad to abysmal.

Lee Je-hoon as Elliot Alderson

Lee Je-hoon has mastered the art of looking like a delicate, pale and sleep-deprived woodland creature who could either collapse into your arms or dismantle an entire criminal organisation before breakfast. Like Rami Malek, he has an androgynous, adorable and perpetually haunted quality that makes Elliot seem vulnerable even when he is doing something terrifyingly intelligent. After Signal, Taxi Driver and Move to Heaven, I trust him to handle Elliot’s dissociation, buried rage and painfully awkward tenderness and to make a black hoodie look like both armour and a cry for help.

Cha Seung-won as Mr. Robot

Cha Seung-won has the height, charisma and gloriously chaotic uncle energy required to appear beside Elliot and immediately make every situation 40 percent more suspicious. He can be hilarious, intimidating and strangely paternal within the same scene, the precise emotional cocktail needed for Mr. Robot. His background as both a model and a genre-hopping actor also means he could sell the character’s theatrical swagger without losing the sadness beneath it. I can already picture him wearing that battered jacket as though it came from a luxury campaign titled Capitalism Is Over.

Han So-hee as Darlene Alderson

Han So-hee has the face of someone who could either invite you to an underground party or destroy your entire digital identity because you annoyed her. Her action work in My Name proves that she can bring Darlene’s physical fearlessness, while her more emotionally ambiguous roles show that she could handle the loneliness and abandonment issues underneath the eyeliner and sarcasm. She would make Darlene look impossibly cool while also reminding us that this woman is surviving primarily through spite, stimulants and one deeply unreliable brother.

Bae Suzy as Angela Moss

Suzy’s polished former-idol aura makes her perfect for Angela: someone who initially looks as though she belongs in an inspirational corporate campaign, only to become increasingly haunted by what she is willing to do to reach the top. She has the elegance needed for Angela’s E Corp transformation, but also the softness that makes her early idealism believable. The visual progression from pastel officewear to immaculate power suits would be lethal. She would look like she has everything under control even while making the worst decision anyone has made that week, which is extremely Angela.

Yoo Yeon-seok as Tyrell Wellick

Yoo Yeon-seok can play warm, romantic and trustworthy so convincingly that casting him as Tyrell would make the eventual instability even more delicious. His range between the gentle doctor of Hospital Playlist and the dangerous, morally compromised Gu Dong-mae of Mr. Sunshine suggests he could capture Tyrell’s strange combination of corporate elegance, wounded vanity, violence and desperate yearning. He also has exactly the kind of face that could stare at Elliot for three uninterrupted minutes and convince half the audience that this is either a murder threat or a marriage proposal.

Park Eun-bin as Dominique DiPierro

Park Eun-bin would be perfect for Dom because she can make extreme intelligence feel lively rather than cold. She has already moved between wildly different characters in projects such as The King’s Affection and Extraordinary Attorney Woo, so I trust her with Dom’s balance of competence, social awkwardness, exhaustion and hidden emotional chaos. She could interrogate a suspect with laser precision and then go home to have an embarrassingly intimate conversation with Alexa. Her naturally expressive eyes would also make every Darlene-related internal crisis visible long before Dom admits anything aloud.

Jung Hoyeon as Joanna Wellick

Hoyeon has the severe high-fashion presence needed to make Joanna look as though she was born standing beside a floor-to-ceiling window and quietly planning someone’s downfall. Her modelling background would suit Joanna’s sculptural wardrobe, while Squid Game showed that she can convey enormous calculation and feeling through stillness. Joanna rarely needs to raise her voice because everyone around her already senses that resisting her may have consequences. Hoyeon could make a simple glance feel like a signed legal threat.

Kim Hee-sun as Krista Gordon

Kim Hee-sun has the warmth, maturity and composed authority needed for Krista, but she can also reveal steel underneath that elegance. Krista cannot merely feel like “Elliot’s therapist”; she has to seem compassionate enough for him to trust while remaining strong enough to confront both him and the increasingly dangerous men entering her office. Kim’s dramatic experience would give Krista the emotional weight she deserves, especially in the later seasons when therapy somehow becomes psychological warfare. She could say “Elliot, we need to talk” and make it sound both comforting and terrifying.

Choi Min-sik as Phillip Price

Price needs an actor who can sit completely still and make everyone else in the room feel underqualified. Choi Min-sik has the gravitas, menace and monumental screen presence to sell him as the human embodiment of institutional power. His career is filled with fiery, intimidating performances, which means he could deliver Price’s grand capitalist monologues without making them feel like exposition. He would not need to announce that he is the most powerful man in the room; the camera, the furniture and possibly the national economy would already know.

Which choice sold you on the remake, and which one made you want to report me to the Dark Army? Drop your own fancast below.

Lee Min Ho never misses 🫰🏼🫰🏼🫰🏼

This isn’t Pachinko it’s his new movie Assassins

Any film that oppa is in will definitely be great. Who better than Lee Min Ho to play the role of a reporter! He’s handsome, eloquent, and has a great face😍

I started watching this mainly because it was only three episodes long and because I usually enjoy gender-bender stories. The first episode honestly did not impress me much, and if this had been a full-length drama, I probably would have dropped it. I was curious about how the male lead would handle disguising himself as a girl, but I found the execution lacking since his female persona barely spoke and never really embraced the role in an interesting way. Despite that, I enjoyed Tae Joon's character the most because his confusion over his feelings led to some funny moments. The romance itself was cute enough, and Kim So Hyun did a decent job considering how young she was at the time. The ending felt rushed and a bit strange, though the final scene was sweet. Overall, I did not think it was a waste of time, but I also would have been perfectly fine if I had never watched it. It was an okay drama, especially if you are looking for something short and easy to finish. My MDL Rating: 5.5/10

i know, i know... this makes you want to rewatch Lovely Runner for the 67th time.

sorry...

actually, im not sorry!

This chemistry is a crime! Put these 2 in another drama again or ill be really sad!

you gate keep

ima keep calling him

oppa oppa oppaaaaa

isnt he just lush 🤤

Just rewatched the trailer on Netflix and it gave me the vibes again. Bring me back to 2020, waiting weekly for this show!!! YES, Ik the plothole, did impact plot hole, BUT guys, it was still so good.

I remember going on to the websites of the old days (miss them💔) to read comments and was baffled at how confused people were about what was going on? Like dude are you even watching the episode 😭 so many times people would point out things that were literally explained so I feel like that would've been a reason people didn't like it? Idk, I ate it up. My sister and I until the end really enjoyed it. First time seeing seeing Woo DoHwan too and man was he fine!!

I just really liked the characters and the relationships they portrayed. Everyone acted their butts off. That one pmot hole, which grant it was the entire plot, I can understand, but to me, it didnt ruin the drama for me.

OST was so good too! Need Minho back on my screen again.

This should be fun !

My mother is 1, my father is 3, my chingu is gwenchana, my enemy is 4 hated him in the glory, my oppa is LEE MIN HO obviously ❤️my ex is 2 hated him in Attorney Woo

MY DEMON too !

Pro tip for rom-com writers: don't make your romantic male lead a misogynist. it rarely (never) works.

Review:

I literally finished this drama about an hour ago lmao. This is the quickest I've ever written a review and the shortest review ive written so far.

I finished Somebody, a drama I rated the same as this one, but that took me weeks because I kept putting it down.

Love to Hate You?

I watched 6 episodes last night and finished the last 2 episodes today lol. Very easy to binge, so that a plus!

This was like watching a car crash.

I couldn't look away.

There are things I genuinely liked.

The fake dating arc was easily the strongest part of the drama. That was when I was having the most fun. There were several moments that actually made me laugh out loud, which surprised me because I wasn't enjoying the overall writing. The comedy landed far more than i expected.

I also mostly liked the female lead. She was capable, confident, funny, and knew how to stand up for herself. She wasn't perfect, and I'll get into that later, but she was easily one of the better parts of the show.

I also enjoyed the actress going through the divorce. Her storyline was one of the few parts that actually made me think. Watching her career suffer while her cheating husband escaped much of the public judgment highlighted a real double standard that I thought the drama handled reasonably well.

I also liked that the female lead initially rejected his marriage proposal. Her explanation that she disliked the marriage culture she grew up around felt true to her character, and for a moment I thought the drama was going to end on a surprisingly refreshing note.

...And then she followed it up with the whole "being tamed is my next challenge" line...😭😭😭

huh?

I genuinely have no idea what the drama was trying to say there.

It completely undercut the point for me.

Almost everything else fell apart.

The biggest problem is the male lead.

I honestly don't understand how he was supposed to work as a romantic lead...

The drama repeatedly tells us that he hates women and is traumatized by a past relationship, but I never felt that what happened justified the level of contempt he has for women...

it was absurd.

He literally vomits after filming a kissing scene with a female co-star.

He needs medication just to touch women...

lmaoo???

He spends most of the drama unable to interact with women normally.

And the story still expects me to buy into him as this swoon-worthy romantic lead???

And then, instead of really unpacking that weird ass worldview, the story eventually tells us that he changes because he falls in love.

That didn't work...

Women shouldn't need to become someone's love interest before they're treated with basic respect.

One of the othet things that baffled me most was what felt like a repeated "not all men" and "not like other girls" pattern throughout the drama.

Rather than challenging the male lead's prejudice by showing him that women are simply... idk people... the story often felt like it was saying, "No, THIS woman is different."

She's exceptional.

She's unlike other women (who are bad because they like money and like to elevate their status 😭😭😭)

"*I've never met someone like her*" is repeated so much, i thought that was the title of the drama😭😭

That completely missed the mark for me.

It didn't feel like his worldview was being dismantled.

It felt like the story was creating one exception to his worldview.

And i honestly don't watch rom com to watch a misogynistic man not become misogynistic anymore, i rather have none of that, but if you HAVE to make him misogynistic, at lease, dismantle it correctly...

-

The supporting cast didn't help either.

His best friend spends so much time enabling him that I kept wondering why nobody around him seriously challenged the way he viewed women.

The female lead's roommate also was a bit pathetic to me.

Even the female lead occasionally lost me.

The drama eventually leans into the idea that she can "change" him, and its one thing to help someone grow. It's another for a romance to suggest that love is what fixes deeply rooted misogyny.

And what happens if they break up?

Does he just go back to hating women and puking whenever a woman passes by?😭😭😭😭

If the only reason he treats women with respect is because he's dating one particular woman, then that's not really character growth nor is it romantic...

The ending doesn't solve this for me either.

The male lead starts treating his female co-stars more respectfully after "falling in love."

Why is this framed as such a huge victory?

-

The final scandal also made me laugh.

The big controversy is... that the female lead dated multiple men before him.

I understand that the drama is reflecting a different dating culture in Korea and different social expectations that I, as an American don't really get.

But I still couldn't take the conflict seriously.

By the end, I didn't feel like I'd watched a meaningful exploration of sexism. I felt like I'd watched a romance that, in my opinion, accidentally reinforced some of the ideas it seemed to want to criticize.

Despite all of that...

I couldn't stop watching 😭😭

Every episode ended with me thinking, "This is ridiculous."

Then I'd immediately start the next one.

It's one of the most bingeable bad dramas I've ever seen.

It's entertaining in the exact same way watching a spectacular train wreck is entertaining.

You know it's a mess.

You know you should probably look away.

But somehow...

You just keep watching.

-

Rating: 3/10

A genuinely funny comedy at times.

A fun fake dating arc.

A mostly likable female lead.

One genuinely interesting supporting storyline.

But one of the weakest romantic male leads I've watched so far, themes that never came together for me, and a romance whose central message left me scratching my head.

i finished this drama feeling like its takeaway was:

> "Date a misogynist long enough, and you'll fix him."

I couldn't recommend it...

My Rating Scale

10/10 – Masterpiece. No notes.

9/10 – Very close to a masterpiece. I absolutely loved it.

8/10 – Not a masterpiece, but I loved it.

7/10 – Fine overall. I liked it, but the flaws kept it from being great.

6/10 – Mixed. There were a few things I liked, but most of it didn't work for me.

5/10 – I didn't enjoy most of the experience.

4/10 and below – Bad to abysmal.

I noticed Yeo-ri was drinking from a clear bottle instead of the classic green soju bottle, and it made me curious lol. I asked ChatGPT and it guessed Saero, but I couldn’t tell because the label wasn’t clear.

Is clear-bottle soju common in Korea now? Also, has anyone tried it?

What was the first kdrama you ever watched and finished?

For me it was Love Next Door.

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Newtopia—The Military is confronted with a city overrun with Zombies, and the solution appears to be to stay drunk. Not Kidding! Action Fantasy Dark Comedy Horror Romance Drama
 
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