Hong Gil Dong (2008)

Poor!

From the story to the characters behavior and their relationships were all made from pure revolting cringe. This drama's female lead had the perfect embodiment of the childish naive mentally handicapped female lead despicable trope. I truly dream of the day when Korean writers wake up to the realization that this behavior is NOT cute! Disguising this behavior under the umbrella of youth and innocence is borderline pedophilic. The leads' interactions and romance had to be the most painful part of the drama. But the pain didn't end there, the drama's length was utterly fatal. Excruciatingly long for all the bad reasons. As if they didn't edit the drama at all and just threw in all the footage they had filmed.

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It's over! Thank god it's over. I struggled with this show. So much so that I contemplated dropping this show, but by the time it got to this point (around episode 17) I had already invested so much of my time that I was determined to finish it.

The show isn't flat out bad, just elements were. For every one thing this show had going for it, two things were dragging it down. For one, 24 episodes was far too long for this show. The last 8 episodes or so were so tedious for me. Two, the show seemed to lack direction. It felt like it didn't know where it was going or what it wanted to be. And when this show was going places none of the places where particularly good. That's not to say none of the episodes were good because there was definitely a few that actually made me want to continue to the next episode, but they were sporadic and few.

The worst part about this show was Jang Geun Suk. I'm sorry, I realize that he is a well liked actor on here and in general, but his performance was wooden and bland. Besides glaring me to death I didn't get much of anything from him. Counting sheep would've been more compelling. Truthfully though the only ones really bringing anything in terms of acting were Kang Ji Hwan (who I found to be incredibly adorable and actually makes me want to pick back up Capital Scandal), Jo Hee Bong (fantastic as the insane king who truly blessed my screen) and Kim Ri Na (I can't help it, good acting can make me like characters that I'm not necessarily supposed to like or root for). Having said that no one (outside of JGS) was particuarally bad, just not memorable or worth mentioning.

The show had some fairly likeable secondary characters in Gomi, Su Jeon (what can I say, I fell for his explosions of love) and Mal Nyeo. I had no complaints when they were on my screen.

Music wise there were only two songs that I even remember hearing and they were both nice (one by a man and the other by a woman). No idea who sings the songs or the titles, but they were nice and helped to set the mood.

Definitely would not watch it again seeing as I struggled the first time around. Can't say I'd recommend, but hey I could be the lone wolf when it comes to not liking this show. Much too campy for my personal taste, but if that's up your alley then this show might be for you.

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