Kdrama Review: Tale of the Nine-Tailed

 Drama: Tale of the Nine-Tailed

 Genre: Fantasy/Horror

Starring: Kim Dong Wook, Jo Bo Ah, Kim Bum

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ 

Everyone was talking about this one so of course I had join in the buzz. I caught up pretty quickly and it was fun to watch the crazy finale about the same time everyone else was!

This is based on the Korean legend of nine tailed foxes (though I always though they were women, but what do I know?) And our lead guy is one of these foxes, with lots of power and magic and he's ruled the forest in the past and now he is wandering the human world trying to find his first love.

Yes, he was in love with a girl way back when but she died, and he is convinced she will be reborn again and he is determined to find her.  

And so then this girl enters into his life that he thinks might be her, but he is not at first convinced. But of course she is... and then she starts to remember her past life and that's when she is all... WHAT THE HECK!! 

Meanwhile, she ends up getting contaminated by a monster (another legend I'm assuming) called Imugi, who wants revenge on our fox dude. And he is going to use the girl to get it. 

WAH, things get complicated! It's a crazy detailed plot with magic, and horror elements. Lots of comedy and romance too. So much. It has it all.

The brothers, fighting for their lives during the zombie scene!

The side characters are awesome. Our dude has a brother who is half nine-tailed fox and he is quite the intense dude! At first we don't really know if he loves or hates his brother, but in the end, this relationship drives the show and is even better than the main romance. I cried a lot when he comes to these two. And the dude that played him was absolutely fantastic... and even though our main guy is played by a very famous actor, I think lots of people actually watched it to see this actor play the brother. (He's from the very famous beloved and not so beloved drama Boys Over Flowers.) 

Anyway, I would go so far as to say he stole the show. Wow. Crazy good!

Kim Bum as the brother that we all fell for!

And then, there's the dude who played the Imugi guy... what a beautiful villain he was! He also blew me away with his acting and I need to look up what else he's done. So good.... the villain you hate and love at the same time. But dang, he is a ruthless villain! And all with a smirky smarmy swoony smile. LOL.

Lee Tae Ri as the beautiful and very scary villain.

So yeah, I pretty much loved this one. What was there not to love? It has everything!

Here's the trailer:

And wow I loved so much music from this one... how to pick one to share! How about Shownu's ballad? It gives me chills.

Book Review: Thorn by Intisar Khanani

 Book: Thorn by Intisar Khanani

Genre: YA Fantasy

Rating: ★ ★ ★

This is quite the fun retelling of Goose Girl. The story opens when our girl is getting betrothed to the prince in the neighboring kingdom, who she of course doesn't know, but she is actually quite happy to go away because her own people in her kingdom treat her like crap, especially her brother who has abused her all these years. So she is actually kind of excited to be leaving.

She has a companion girl going with her, this girl wants to take revenge on our girl, and that opportunity comes when a sorcerous wants to use the situation to get back at the king and the prince. So, as you might remember from the fairy tale, she switches their bodies, and the companion is now the one going to get married and our girl ends up becoming the goose girl and the stable girl for the castle.

She actually loves this life and makes all sorts of friends, but she needs to warn the prince of this magic lady who wants to kill him. But how to do that? Hmmm....

Anyway, and so it goes and there's lots of crazy things that happen and great characters and mystery and... yeah...  it's pretty good all in all. It bogged for a me in parts, but I really quite enjoyed it. 

Kdrama Review: More Than Friends

 Drama: More Than Friends

Genre: Romance

Starring: Ong Seong Wu, Shin Ye Eun, Kim Dong Jun, P.O

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤

This is a drama about a group of friends all struggling with their relationship statuses. One girl has been with her boyfriend for ten years and he's ready to get married, but she doesn't really want to, especially after her mom gets sick. One girl hasn't really been in a relationship and she thinks no one likes her, but then a dude likes her and she is all happy until.. well... stuff happens. And the guy who really likes her has been just right there all along. 

And then our main girl, she has loved the guy from high school all these ten years, but he told her he only thinks of her as a friend... which makes her sad, so she jumps in and out of relationships like crazy. Then one day the guy appears on the scene again, and she is fighting not to like him all over again. And this time it's a bit different, because he actually likes her too he's decided.

And there's a really cute second male lead CEO who is falls for our main girl and is going to treat her so good! But she is still pining for the other guy... the one who is all... yeah... we're just friends. Except he is, like I said, also now confused on that issue.

Anyway, it was cute sometimes, but mostly the back and forthing and wishy washy-ness of all these characters sort of made me crazy. About the middle I was just like... GUYS figure this out already! AH!! 

The story that made me most crazy was the girl who wouldn't get married. Her dude was THE BEST GUY ever... and she just blows him off because... "I'm struggling and I don't want to bring you into my struggles." Ugh. 

Anyway, when our main guy starts to come around, then all his cuteness comes out (because I watched this drama for his cuteness which I am familiar with from other places). But wow, when he is ornery, he can really be ornery too!

Also P.O from Block B played the friend who wants to be more than friends with the second girl... and he is absolutely adorable, as expected. Love him so much!

So bottom line, this one was fun and good but just really okay. Not one that blew me away or anything like dramas usually tend to do!

Here's a trailer (well several trailers in one actually):

And here's the really nice song sung by our lead dude himself (Ong Seong Wu) since he's an amazing singer... and this song ended up on my favorite drama songs of the year. 

Reading Recap November 2020

 

I need a new mask....

Well, I thought I was reading a lot this month, but I still only got through two books. Sigh. 

Layoverland by Gabby Noone: What happens if when you die you end up in a layover on your way to where ever you've been assigned? Because you have unresolved issues to work out first. 

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern: A beautifully lyrical story about layers of worlds underneath the world we know.

Favorite: By far my favorite was The Starless Sea. I just really enjoy the storytelling and writing with this author!

Plans for December:

• Read Daisy Jones and the Six for book club
• Get to the ARCs I still need to read!
• Continue to the Beehive long list reading!
• See if I can make my Goodreads goal? I think I'll probably miss this by only a couple books. Sigh.

How's everyone else doing? Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one reading these days, even the little bit I'm doing. Even book club isn't reading any more really. Man I miss the comradery that we used to have in the book blogging world. Where is everyone? I need to find you all again!