40somethingahjumma

It's truly a lot of fun. The tit for tat especially. Evil stepmother is really the worst kind of human being. But like all super bitches she has a great wardrobe.

I heard a lot of good things about it on another platform so I gave it a whirl. Trust me, no one is more surprised than I am about how much I am enjoying it. It's really a lot fun and it does have a contract marriage thrown in for good measure. I also like good revenge stories as well. But I think you will like it too even if you just watch it for Sung Hoon who is the hottest thing since Elvis Han this year.

I'm still plugging away at this one and hoping that the modern timeline will get better but it still lacks cohesion. Some of the dialogue feels misplaced. Maybe it's the fact that the characters feel more like plot devices than consistently crafted personalities. @Tofu I'm rather sad that all we got out of the wedding night was Ri-ta and Do-ha standing face to face and her touching his face.

I didn't think everybody was toxic. :P But I enjoy watching the the leads turn the tables on their enemies. Besides Sung Hoon is pretty hot. I will watch Park Marriage Contract for Lee Se-young when I've finished this one and other C dramas. :)

I couldn't find a thread for this so I made one. I am rather surprised that no one on Janghaven is watching or talking about this because honestly if all makjangs were this good, I'd be watching all of them. Perfect Revenge Marriage has all the elements of a ready-made makjang but also has at its centrepiece one of my favourite romance tropes — the contract marriage. Indeed it is a Cinderella contract marriage story with revenge as it’s plot drive. Yi-joo is fighting the battle of a lifetime against opposition coming from all sides but one by one, she deals with each courageously and with an attentive clever man by her side. I’m not familiar with Jung Yoo-min but once she sheds the doormat goody-two-shoes image, she and the character comes to life. She bears more than a passing resemblance to Shin Hye-sun at certain angles. Sung Hoon, I remember from Oh My Venus (yup, that was a while ago) and the man really does smoulder well. Also it helps that the chemistry is excellent. It’s a relief that I can occasionally find a fun, well put together romance-centred show at a time when quantity trumps quality. It also has one of my favourite tropes at its centrepiece -- the contract romance. Everything here moves super quickly and one gets the sense that Sung Hoon's male lead has always liked Yi-joo. The show is a breath of fresh air even with its use of common tropes and I look forward to Cinderella dishing out her own brand bitter medicine especially to Step-Mother Dearest. In style. @abs-oluteM @Chocolate @Tofu @mademoiselle @ktcjdrama @OsmanthusTea@SilverMoonTea @UnniSara

Title: Perfect Marriage Revenge 완벽한 결혼의 정석 Cast: Sung Hoon -- Seo Do-guk Jung Yoo-min -- Han Yi-joo Jin Ji-hee -- Han Yoo-ra Kang Shin-hyo -- Seo Jung Wook Oh Seung-yoon -- Yoo Se-hyeok Lee Min-young -- Lee Jung-hye Lee Mi-seok -- Cha Yeon-hwa Broadcast Period: 28 October - 3 December 2023 Number of Episodes: 12 Aired on: Saturdays, Sundays Broadcasters: Viki, Netflix, TVing, Wavve Genres: Romance, revenge, makjang, contract marriage Synopsis: Our protagonist is Han Yi-joo (Jung Yoo-min) the adopted daughter of a well-to-do family married to a man who is actually in love with her sister. One day when her entire family has turned against her, she drives off completely distraught and is involved in a multi-vehicle collision. Not long afterwards, she dies. Heaven, however, is kind to her. She’s given a second chance to alter the dynamics among her adopted parents, sister and fiance and live her life differently. As she recalibrates in this new normal, she discovers that her overindulged adopted sister is besotted with a young successful entrepreneur in his own right and second grandson to a chaebol family, Seo Do-guk (Sung Hoon). Equipped with advice from her reporter friend who is related to the family, she gatecrashes a blind date and introduces herself to the good-looking Do-guk who is unexpectedly eager to go along with her revenge plans. He is unabashedly the prince to her Cinderella although all’s not that well with him. Trailer:

I like it. It's a good watch and I didn't realise there's a detective element. I waited 10 episodes to see Zhang Zhe. Okay not bad. I can see what the fuss is. I really like Zhang Linghe in this more than My Journey to You. I gave up on that one rather early. This is decently paced.

I've finished the entire series. The last six episodes are already available (but not subbed) so I watched them last night and this morning. LOL. Yeah, the romance was very underdeveloped but I think there's a bond between them because they're both looking for parents and answers about the past. But I think he liked her from the first moment he caught sight of her. They want to be forthcoming about liking each other but the Northwestern Western Wolves issue keeps hanging over their heads. She's also trying to protect him and his reputation as well by distancing herself from him. The resolution wasn't too bad. I think they did drag it out a little with all the surviving gang members gathering in one place having a big pow wow and then double-crossing each other. But the plotting of this show is the highlight even if occasionally it requires some suspension of disbelief. It's an easy watch with plenty of action and thankfully there's very little flag waving in this compared to other shows.

The first couple of episodes were a bit cringey especially Joon-oh's antics and the very awkward set-up of the romance. But somewhere in Episode 3, it got better. Saved largely by a better written, more disciplined Three Kingdoms timeline. I like Pyo Ye-jin (She was great in Taxi Driver) and she's decent as Han Ri-ta but as the firefighter, I don't buy it. There's a reason why there are so few female firefighters in the world. In fact the whole firefighter angle is entirely disposable. So far. She could be a paramedic or doctor or nurse. I'm largely watching the show for the historical aspect which should have been its own drama.

@abs-oluteM The editing is definitely an issue and I'm inclined to think that there are scenes that didn't make the final cut one way or another. Frankly I could have done without all the mentors taking up a lot of the show's oxygen and focus more on the gangsters and the romance but it's a C drama. They have to moralize about everything. At least it's better than Johnny Huang's Chasing the Undercurrent. Usually the cop shows have to feature the older generation trying to keep the young ones in line.

The show just goes from strength to strength. The last few episodes have kept me on the edge of my seat. The cat and mouse game among the various interested parties intensified in Episode 11 and 12 with measures, countermeasures and shifting alliances. Some interesting reveals along the way as well. It's great to see all the threads beginning to coalesce in these two episodes. What's also endearing to see is how resourceful Nana is despite having no skills outside of dancing. She's also pretty level-headed for a lass her age in a crisis situation. This show is far more unpredictable than I expected. Previews for Episodes 11-14

@abs-oluteM I've seen all 8 episodes -- found the other two at a C streaming site. I'm enjoying the heck out of this most probably because of the fast-moving action-packed storyline. There's also enough unpredictability to keep the viewers on tenterhooks. Of all the gangster dramas I've watched this year, this is probably the most fun I'm having even with the body count. I don't think the cops really have much of a choice in terms of a good undercover candidate. Yihan is probably the best suited because he is a bit of a loose cannon. He can think on his feet and make stuff up as he goes along. His survival instincts are firing on all cylinders. He's got the swagger and the bravado to pull off that perpetual defiance. Wang Ziqi is doing really well with everything so far. As for whether his mother is alive, I think the probability is quite high that she is. I don't think Xiao Fei (fake Gun) is privy to as much as he thinks. Like Imperial Coroner I don't think romance is a big part although I like the way it's subtly inserted. Su Xiaotong's character Na Na is still at the periphery at this point because even she doesn't know what her family's up to. I imagine her role will expand once her brother-in-law inadvertently drags her into the mix. I liked the little girl who played her -- very cute and confident. I can't be sure but I suspect a Romeo and Juliet scenario here. Things are bound to get hot and escalate even among the syndicate members. It seems there was a falling out in the past and the environment is very low trust as it is. There are at least the two families who may or may not start working together again. I'm really liking all these short C dramas. Fake It, Ripe Town and now this one.

I've seen all the available episodes. 4 half hour episodes so far. It's an easy watch and loads of fun. In these 4 episodes there are already about 4 action sequences. The Imperial Coroner leads don't have a lot of scenes together yet and she's not really in it that much at this point. It's mainly a police procedural and Wang Ziqi's character is Chu Yihan who is going undercover to bring down the head of syndicate/gang known as The Northwestern Wolves named after the wolves in that region. There's also some nice desert landscape shots. He's also in search of his mother (also a cop) who was sent to infiltrate the gang a decade earlier but disappeared 5 years ago. Initially his superiors are reluctant to involve him (although he is raring to go) but after receiving a mysterious message, they send him to make contact with an individual called Lao Qiang or Gun. Su Xiaotong is Gu Lina -- a dancer from the northern region who has a couple of quick encounters with Yihan. She also happens to have the same surname as Gu Mulan the head of Northwestern Wolves. Looks like this show will air for no more than 2 weeks. Another trailer with some spoilers...

Quick translation of trailer: The Northwestern Wolf Cartel/Syndicate/Group Arms trading Drugs manufacturing A short period of disaster on the online fringe (?) The moment every weapon or bullet that gets into society Will end in a fatal catastrophe (We've) seized the weapons Even Gu Mu Lan (?) I am the most suitable candidate Only about 50 hours This is our only opportunity We must create a new Long Qi Conceal yourself beside Old Qiang You can join us and become my brother/ one of us Retreat!

It does look good. I may have time to watch it before I go travelling or I could download it and watch it on my flight.

No. Any good? I've been watching The Heart.

It's okay. Nothing that really stands out or hasn't been seen before elsewhere. Pacing's good -- no messing around. It zeroes in on the criminals and cops. It looks and feels pretty much like a superhero graphic novel. The journalist is fairly reprehensible though using the whole vigilante angle to sell tv and get ratings numbers. It's not as if she really cares about the original victims and she's even willing to put them in jeopardy to get her scoop. Don't know if it's the actress or how she's written but there's something very stiff and artificial about her delivery. She does angry very weirdly. A lot of people are comparing this to The Killing Vote. I can kind of see why with the media involvement but Ji-yong tends to remind me more of The Punisher or Daredevil. He really does need a mask at some point if he's going to do this long-term. Yoo Ji-tae really bulked up for the role. I wonder if he's just a cop that plays rough. What if he's got some skeletons too?

I'm up to Episode 4 trying to stop myself from going too far too fast because there aren't too many episodes with subs out. But it's really good the way the show combines human psychology and the law in the way Shin Ha-kyun's character thinks -- I like that. The set up for his character is really well done. Watching a few things on D+ while I have the subscription. If you haven't watched Big Bet, I recommend it highly. Starts of slow but it's a clever show. I can see why Choi Min-sik agreed to do it even though he doesn't usually do dramas.

I've seen 3 episodes so far and it's underpinned by a really good script. As expected the leads are nailing it. Shin Ha-kyun is reliably amazing. He is undoubtedly one of SK's finest actors. Perfect for the role. It's a pity that this one seems to be going under most people's radar because this could be as good as or better than The Worst of Evil. I make the comparison because this is a noir thriller featuring gangsters but somewhat on the unpredictable side. Shin Ha-kyun is Han Dong-soo a lawyer that has seen better days. At the start he is back canvassing for work in prisons after being suspended for something that happened at his former workplace Moon Law Firm (something along those lines). Like Walter White from Breaking Bad due to pressing financial issues at home he is forced to run an errand for psychopathic gangster Seo Do-young who is serving 8 months in jail for a drunk driving charge. It is an unusually long period of time for a drunk driving case and so his suspicions are aroused. Dong-soo and younger brother Beom-jae (Shin Jae-ha) spy on Do-young's girlfriend as he suspects her of cheating on him and they find themselves cleaning up after an angry Do-young who is finally released from jail. As a result, they inevitably find themselves struggling to extricate themselves from being under Do-young's thumb. @abs-oluteM I"m sure you'll really like this one.

They couldn't let him upstage Ro-hee at any point. Even Sang-yun who is on top of his game for most of the show wasn't allowed to upstage her. I saw the Singapore flag flying outside the building and assumed it. But maybe the building is owned by the sinister Singapore company that Jaden was working for. The Boys from Brazil reference was to cloning. I expect that's what they up to in the end. The problem is I'm not sure what they hope to do with cloned geniuses or clones that get turned into geniuses. I'm disappointed that they spent so little time on this only to give us some kind of obtuse ending. Are they creating geniuses? Why? To what end? Probably not helping Down Syndrome kids. Why are they spending all this money on this kind of research?

That final scene in Singapore reminds me of that 1978 film, The Boys from Brazil. Ugh. Creepy. I really wanted to like this one a lot more than I did. The premise was good but the execution was patchy. I don't remember the last time I was this frustrated with a show. This was definitely not a 12 episode drama. I'm not sure that it was even a 10 episode show. If it weren't for Park Sung-hoon's character Sang-yun, I think I would have thrown in the towel after Episode 8. Part of the problem was that we knew exactly who the culprits were fairly early on. If you're a seasoned watcher of murder mysteries, it was not that hard to work what's what by the end of Episode 2. It's actually a very simple straightforward police procedural. Sang-yun was on the right track from the first. When the audience is two or three steps ahead of the characters, there's no complexity only fillers and delaying devices. I desperately wanted Sang-yun, Myeong-jun and Ro-hee to work together from Episode 3 or 4 onwards. It took them far too long. I understand the rationale initially but it got a bit ridiculous after a while. The other problem that I had with this show was Yoon Kye-sang's character. Yoon Kye-sang was terrific in the role but his character is too much of a pushover. He let himself get walked over by a 12-year-old. He's a dad FCOL. Regardless of whether she's a genius the dumb dad shtick got a bit old. It is supposed to be funny in an odd couple sort of way and it was... occasionally. But after a while, a child trying to patronize an adult especially in that context, breaks immersion. The third problem I had with this was the research side of things. Okay... it turned out to be primarily a plot device to bring Jaden and reticent tattoo guy into the picture and send the cops into some kind of wild goose chase. The show made reference to the research and hinted at something explosive but everything seemed to fizzle out in the end. I guess they wanted to give Ro-hee some breathing space and normality so they closed the cases making no reference to it. It's a decent enough watch. At times I was put off by Ro-hee's behaviour but at least the show acknowledges that she's socially inept and despite her incredible IQ, she's still a vulnerable child in need of some adult supervision.

Love Lee Se-young! She's one of a handful of K drama actresses that I have a lot of time for. Not sure about the male lead though. Contract marriages are my thing but I won't probably get to this one after my overseas travels at around Christmas time.

I've seen a lot of comments that he should have been more cunning or menacing. But I think the point was that he wasn't your archetypal godfather, kingpin underworld figure. He just wanted to be a businessman and rake in the big money at the shortest amount of time possible. It would have been more convenient if he had eliminated all his potential opposition but I think he was a boy who was raised Christian and killing was a last resort. The fact that he didn't take the second chance that Jun-mo offered him was the single most disappointing thing about his character. It flew in the face of what he said earlier about wanting to change and be a good person. Apparently that wasn't true. He just wanted the girl. Like Jay Gatsby. I think it's a stretch to say that their marriage was already dead from the start. :D There were definitely problems like the lack of respect from the in-laws but it wasn't just their marriage but him too. His family background was definitely an issue -- his father came barging in during their wedding ceremony. Despite all that Eui-jeong stayed married to him and even stood up to her family when they were attempting to demean him for being a lowly cop still. Honestly she didn't have to marry him at all knowing his background and the opposition from her family but she did. What Jun-mo craves is respect... as do all men... but he's not getting that from his wife's family that see him as being inferior to her. I read the final showdown rather differently. I don't think Eui-jeong was in love with Gi-cheul. She may have had some nebulous feelings of goodwill due to their past affiliation. But I think it is more likely that she pitied him especially seeing what he'd become. If she had been in love with him, I think she would have confessed to him much sooner and asked him to run away with her. But she didn't. All she wanted to do was get him to back down and put an end to a string of rather terrible choices. Falling for Gi-cheul's charms goes against everything she believes in. I think we should remember that she had a pistol in her handbag when she told him that she loved him. She was trying to protect her cover and by extension Jun-mo's cover. Even when they kissed she had a clenched fist. I think we should remember that she is the daughter of a police family. If she cared that much Gi-cheul I think she would have kept in contact but instead they broke off contact after his mother's arrest, she went on to graduate from the police academy and follow in the family tradition. That shows where her ideals are. Her lovey dovey talk was all an act, that's why it hurt Gi-cheul so much when he found out who she was really married to. She didn't deny that she used him and his trust in her. It is possible that Jun-mo developed feelings for Hae-ryung because of the similarities in their backgrounds. Despite the boss girl act, she was willing to be vulnerable with him and offered him respect. That's very attractive to a man who has been starved of respect. The irony with Jun-mo he got more respect from Hae-ryung and Gi-cheul than from his colleagues, his father and his in-laws. They saw the drive and the goodness in him. Everyone thinks he's a wild man, a bit of a troublemaker. Hae-ryung wasn't from a high society family at all. She grew up poor. They both have a drugs connection -- both their dads are in the trade.

It's no masterpiece but it's an immensely watchable character study that throws up plenty of moral conundrums. It's certainly not for the fainthearted but acquits itself particularly in the way it plays out the respective trajectories of the main male leads. I watched this primarily for Ji Chang-wook and Wi Ha-joon. Neither disappointed me. In fact I think both elevated aspects of the script and made their characters likeable and even relatable. The ending was very dark. More so than I would have expected. It ended the way I speculated it would but not in the way I thought it would. Last week I said that Eui-jeong's inclusion in the investigation was a mistake. As it turns out, it probably was on the part of the character but not by the script writer. It was a deliberate device... a very subversive overturning of the first love trope. She tried to be a lifeline to two men and couldn't hold on to either. After what happened to everyone with multiple deceptions at play, a happily-ever-after would never do. My favourite scenes are those between Jun-mo and Gi-cheul because when I see them together I lament with regret about what could have been. In a another time and another place they could have been friends because on some level they are brothers born out of similar circumstances. To the other guys, Gi-cheul was the leader, someone they looked up to but to Gi-cheul, Jun-mo/Seung-ho was a confidant and a fellow traveller. It is a tale of two men with very similar motivations in different circumstances. Both crave respect and ironically both find it in crime. Park Jun-mo lives on the edge as a cop hunting criminals venting his violent impulses on the job. Going undercover puts him in the position where all those tendencies are given an outlet. Jun-mo is not a "good" man but a cop with a dysfunctional past. He's married to a fellow cop who birthed from a family of cops. He gets no respect from them and indeed his wife has to stand up to them in his stead. His rationale for going undercover is for promotion in order to be respectable in the eyes of his wife's family. But when he infiltrates the gang, he has a taste for the life of crime and revels in it. There he finds his kindred spirit -- Jung Gi-cheul, someone who understands him better than anyone -- more than his wife, more than his mentor Capt Seok. In fact he could have been Jung Gi-cheul considering that his father is some kind of minor drug figure. Temptations abound and his wife instead of being a lifeline as she thought, became another trigger for all the the worst aspects of his personality. In Jung Gi-cheul he sees himself gone astray. In Jung Gi-cheul he gains the respect he's always wanted. Jung Gi-cheul was a kid that grew up in the church but made some crucial decisions as an adult that changed the course of his life irrevocably. He never wanted to be any kind of crime lord. His fatal flaw was also that he desperately wanted respectability. It was the girl he wanted. He thought money would get him there. Of course he was wrong about that because the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. But he knew too that he couldn't serve both God and money although the thought of redemption was never far from his mind. At this point the two men's trajectories intersect. It's a meeting that would change Jun-mo effectively. Gi-cheul was probably always on the lookout for an exit strategy because in reality money was not his endgame. Being respected by his peers was. Meeting Eui-jeong and Seung-ho gave him hope. But a false hope that destroyed the man within. It's a tragedy... Shakespearean on some level. If Gi-cheul couldn't get his happily-ever-after then neither would Jun-mo.

For the first time in the show I really thought (in Episode 8) that Eui-jeong should probably not have insinuated herself in this investigation. For a brief moment I thought her inclusion was a mistake. But then she managed to turn things things around to their advantage with a nice bit of "ick" on her part. Even then I think it would have been better if she stayed out of the investigation altogether because it is putting Jun-mo on edge and he often comes across as being too eager or too much of a hurry. It's definitely a double-edge sword but I accept that once she found out about the undercover gig, there was no stopping her. For the first time too I felt for Gi-cheul too. I'm not disregarding the terrible things he's done and he will have to pay for them one way or another but he hasn't completely lost his humanity that he's beyond redemption. When Eui-jeong kissed him, I felt sorry for him because he thinks it's the real deal. He does deserve what's coming but his affection for Eui-jeong is undoubtedly sincere. He has people he cares about and she's one of them. Sadly the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And terrible choices. (Is this Wi Ha-jun's first onscreen kiss? Dang it. Why couldn't it have been with Kim Go-eun in Little Women? Why is he so hot? Why? Why? Why?) It's amazing to me that the show didn't take the safe route. I doubt this would have been made several years ago. Husband and wife were put in temptation's way. More the case with the husband than the wife. I don't think Eui-jeong felt anything but resentment. She's definitely doing it to keep Jun-mo safe. At least that's her intention.