Robin's Random Rambles

Spring in my town is gorgeous thanks to all the blossoms, so it's apt that my Spring viewing highlights were mostly from the land of the sakura.   SEPTEMBER This Thriving Land (2025) 8.75/10 This was the first C-Drama of its type I've watched: An historical Drama set in relatively modern times (starting in 1926) and providing a more or less straightforward historical retelling of the history of the period. It was a CCTV Drama and the subject matter was inspired. I say that because the story of China's emergence from the chaos and brutality of the warlord era and through into the savagery of the Japanese invasion meant that the ever-present propaganda had the virtue of being largely factual. There was no need for heavy-handed out of place insertions ad nauseam of "China is great, the CCP doubly so" (I'm looking at YOU, Go Go Squid ) because the actual, real history makes it hard to argue against the assertion that what China became was bet...

 We baked through the hottest mid-late Spring on record here, so it's fitting that this final installment is full of sizzle of various sorts   OCTOBER She and Her Perfect Husband (2022) 9/10  Another C-Drama jia-didi romance with way more right than wrong. I started this one after loving the very unglamorous dirt-poor and dirt covered Yang Mi in T his Thriving Land , after several SNS mutuals praised her very different appearance and role in this earlier Drama.  They were not wrong. The most important element of a noona-dongsaeng (old habit) romance is the chemistry. Do th couple work? Do they sell the relationship? In this case, the answer to both questions was an emphatic "Yes!"  Yang Mi's VERY glamorous and successful business woman character her was parsecs from her poor peasant in This Thriving Land , but she was just as convincing. That she also looked AMAZING did not have a negati...

 As Winter gave way to Spring, I followed the Sun, with Korea left behind for places further East.  AUGUST Destiny (2025) 9.5/10 I'm a real romcom junkie, so most of my C-Drama viewing feels like prospecting for gold: Sifting through enough stony rubbish to rebuild the Great Wall, hoping to find the occasional nugget. That bitter experience meant I started this one with low expectations, and was thus delighted when it surprised me. It had a lot going against it: VERY formulaic story, voice dubbing that was not a great match for the cast (a real bête noir for me!), but it overcame those by being funny, very sweet, and surprisingly intelligent. The dialogue really surprised me at times, much better than most of the 20 million High School/University C-Drama romances I've tried. The leads worked well together, and, possibly because it was a short Drama, there was good skinship. That last is not a given in full length contemporary C-Drama romances which are ...

    In my personal database of East Asian drama viewing, I've scored several dramas at higher than 10 out of 10. All of them have something a little special that makes them better than merely perfect. Four of them I have scored at 12/10. All of them left me feeling really, really good – profoundly satisfying drama viewing experiences of a very special kind. Apart from When Life Gives You Tangerines , which I wrote about here , three of the four share important similarities. All three dramas are all about the women, from beginning to end.    The first, in 2017, was the Korean drama Avengers Social Club – about a group of women of different ages and social strata who come together and become firm friends while seeking revenge on those who wronged them. The men in that drama are either antagonists or secondary support characters. In 2018, the Korean drama Goodbye to Goodbye was all about the unlikely and incredible friendship between a pregnant woman and her hikikomor...