Are You Human Too? (2018)

Most underrated drama .. A breath of fresh air

If you are deliberating whether to watch the drama .. please go ahead and watch it. you will not regret it for a minute

Likes:

The ML: omg the lead actor is too good (the USP) .Whether it’s emotion or emotionless, he can nail both the expressions so very well. Praises to be justifiably showered on him.

Characters: the way the characters are drawn it’s very relatable neither anyone is too good nor fundamentally bad. Everyone has a reason to do something and they do fall into the villain category.

Story: it keeps you hooked till the end. There is no suspense and story flows into a smooth stream and takes you with the flow.

Overall: a good drama with good story and a strong ML. Brings out emotions in you so don’t forget the tissues in certain scenes.

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I have already finished this drama 2 month ago, but hestitated to make a full review. Is it worth to make a review of this drama? Admit, I was very dissapointed by what they have presence. . I have to get remind myself if this is the same writers who penned The Princess Man? It seems a superficial version of sageuk politic intrigue in modern day of The Princess Man. I was Looking for substance and subtlety, But as episode times goes, the show keep hitting me I'm just here for suspense that's going nowhere, presenting alot of fluffy which is nothing to do with the actual plot, alot of potential intriguing plot development that get scrapped (Like Human Shin past development), or intriguing narrative which get solved with lazy writing. At the end of the day, each character suffer from lack of proper development, including the lead Nam SHin III and Human Nam Shin.

The cast is good, But the character they potray is not good enough to warrant and show their acting skill more.

Rewatch Value? You should just rewatch for some good scene. There is quite some good moment which is for me quite touching. Especially a scene between a mother and both of her son

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Jesus Christ...! I binge watched this series until 4am and now I have a terrible headache and dry eyes.
Honestly, I don't even want to know what other people think about this. I can imagine some find it disturbing seeing a love story between a robot and a human. I know about the sexbots and AI development of recent years, the uncanny valley, so it wasn't surprising to me even though a had a strong reaction when I first heard about it. I think those kind of develompments tell us a lot of society and what a person is looking for in a partner. He has to be good looking, capable of doing everything, always kind and nice, never talking back etc. It seems we want the perfect partner and a human cannot be perfect. That said, I didn't mind the romance. It was cute and fluffy, the sexual issue was never adressed (thank god) which wasn't surprising. I mean, we are talking about a Korean drama where everything is innocent and lovey dovey. To make it short: the robot was cute, the romance enjoyable, but it wasn't the reason why I binge watched this until early morning. What I enjoyed was the conflict between the human Nam Shin, the robot and the whole envirnoment. This was extremely captivating. It's a while since I felt so much for a character. The human Nam Shin was very complex, but also a poor soul. He was the "bad guy", but it was obvious many cared for him, because they knew how kind he really was. The anger, pain and sadness made him behave like a jerk and cross the line. The relationship with his mother and his assistent made me tear up several times. I cried a lot watching this drama and I must give credit to the actor. This sure was a very difficult role. He had to change so often between playing the "robot" and the "human". It was always very clear which role he played at the moment (expect for the scenes where he intentionally tried to imitate the other one).
I must admit I wasn't a fan of the comic relief scenes in the gym with the father of the girl and the robot. Also, there was just too much fluffy romance going on (which is typical for Korean drama), but that doesn't make me love this series any less. I wished for more scenes with the human Nam Shin, I would have loved to see how he redeems himself. He did that at the end, but I really wished for a happier end for him. The robot was always the "good guy", the hero. That may arise many questions. The robot had a much better life than the human to begin with. The mother giving all of her love to a robot instead to the human ... I mean, come on! In my opionion the human was the bigger hero who had to survive many hardships (his father died when he was child, he was threatened by his grandfather, he lost his mother, he had to live in a hostile houshold). I honestly wondered throughout the drama why they insisted to make the robot the perfect guy, perfect lover, perfect son, while the human was always on second place.
Well, whatever. It was a good story and whoever wrote it did a good job. I would have changed some things, but that wouldn't have made it better or worse.
To sum it up: A great drama. One of the best I have ever seen. If I think about it, no other drama ever could draw me in so much as this one.
10/10. I'm thankful I found this one. It's proof that there are intriguing stories out there. Korean Drama can be really great.

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Didn't expect much and sadly didn't get much

Was initially interested because there aren't that much AI stories in kdrama and the synopsis seemed good. And if at first, over the course of the first 4 or 5 episodes, I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the main couple, the plot quickly starts losing steam and feels rather empty. Let's not talk about cheap plot devices that feel very Deus ex machina with the chairman's fake dementia turned real two or three episodes later. Human Nam Shin's return, while well executed, arrives too late for viewers to actually like him which is a shame because there was so much potential. Also didn't like his character treatment: between him being portrayed as bratty, borderline psychopathic when it's the result of his traumas and his "redemption" arc spanning over the 2nd half of the finale, it's lost potential. As for the chairman and his not so loyal right hand Seo, they make very caricature-y villains, definitely destroying the drama's dramatic side. What should break the viewer's heart feels cartoon-ey and over played. The female lead seriously lacks development as well and while she isn't necessarily that bad to watch while she supports Nam Shin III, her behaviour starts being annoying in the last episodes, once again killing the dramatic effect. Seo Yena's storyline wasn't bad in itself but it was constantly coinciding either with bad plot devices or with the clowney acting of the bad guys. Overall, just like Human Nam Shin character, it's wasted potential. The only saving grace of the drama was Seo Kang Joon's acting, along with Ji Young Hoon's character. Overall disappointed with characters treatment and how loose the plot was. It's not an entirely bad watch in itself but if you start this drama, don't go in with much expectations.

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A fresh unique addictive storyline, with kang joon's brilliance

AI can be a controversial topic to say the least, specially when it comes to a proper human type robot. They tried to show the reasonable outcomes of having AI, but I think they went a bit far with this futuristic stuff. I mean the farthest we went with a full fledge robot in 2019 was that idiot Sophia. Then developing such an amazing invention, in like 1999 is really really mind boggling. Its quite far away from reality hence, I did not take the drama serious from the very beginning.

However, as the drama proceeded, we got some interesting twist and turns. The characters did fair enough jobs; a special mention to the legend Seo Kang Joon himself, who did an astonishing task potraying both the characters. I genuinely hated his other villainous character and adored the heroic one.

Now lets talk about specific merits and demerits.

The decent aspects:
+ A new type of story, it did make me laugh at times and the couple looked pretty together.
+ Acting was done well by most of the characters, the grandfather also did a good job with his hated personality.
+ Not gonna lie, the drama itself was quite addictive. I could not stop myself from watching the next episode.
+ Although, it was a bit stretched, the story did not felt heavy and burdensome to watch.


!!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
+ I loved the fact that they implied how corrupt a system could be. Honestly, even in Austria the CEO knew what the mother was doing and her exact plans. And how he gave money to her for his own benefit. His technique for fooling people with dementia thing was also brilliant.
!!!!!!SPOILER ENDS!!!!!!


The wrong aspects:
- First of all, if the female lead was taken advantage of. I mean, she was shown all powerful and stuff (for empowerment), but she literally acted like a scaredy cat at times.
- The bad Nam-Shin reflected being extremely mean and rude without any reason. Although, I do understand what the the poor boy went through, doing that won't help either.
- Their were some truly questionable decisions made by the mother. Quite literally that button had no use whatsoever. Regardless I get it, it was her greed and love for her son.
- Something which did offend me as a Computer Science student was the fact that the Robot made some veryyyyyyyyyyy Human decisions. Say with me COMPUTERS.DON'T.HAVE.PRACTICAL.THINKING.CAPABILITIES.

!!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
- The thing I hated the most was this human-robot 'romantic' relationship. And man where the hell did he get the tears from at the end??? XD I know relationship ain't all about sex, and maybe they can even have sex just not the children O-O and it doesn't matter to me. But what matters is authentic feelings. Whatever intelligence you give robots CAN'T truly love someone. But okay if she can live with, what can I say.
!!!!!!SPOILER ENDS!!!!!!


!!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
Now for a quick tip. It's just my opinion so please don't take it personally or something:
I would have LOVED if the bad Nam-shin felt guilty and hence try to befriend the female lead. Instead of restoring the robot (which idk how they did, he legit had died) he tries to comfort the woman.
They could have added 3-4 more episodes making it a total of 40. In that, they could possibly add this miserably bad Nam-shin and the female lead sharing their traumas with each other and helping each other out. The poor boy also deserves happiness ya know?
And they could probably then have an ending together.
Or if you ask me maybe like both of them walking on the beach together laughing, as the scene ends. Now it is on you whether you think them as friends or as lovers ;-)
(yeah I like these endings and everyone judges me for it)
!!!!!!SPOILER ENDS!!!!!!

If you want to watch a lighthearted attention-grabbing drama, it is recommended. However if you want a tough, emotional and relatable storyline then maybe not.
But who knows this drama can genuinely pleasantly surprise you.

Sorry for this long rant, go on your kdrama journey. Fighting!

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It’s been such a long time since I have last watched any type of Asian drama. I really want to get back into it, and start pumping out reviews, but I haven’t found a drama that really caught my attention. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t watched a drama in over a year, I hadn’t seen anything that pulled me in. But I thought I would come back, scroll through some shows, and just put one on and that’s when I ended up with “Are You Human Too?”

With the success of “West World”, it was just a matter of time before people started making more AI themed dramas. I’m sure “West World” wasn’t the first AI based television show, nor is “Are You Human Too?” the first AI based drama in Asia. But with the popularity of West World sweeping the world, it make’s sense that AI is going to start popping up as the new it thing in dramas. “Are You Human Too?” focuses on the relationships between AI (Nam Shin I through Nam Shin III) and the people around him. I actually went into this drama blind. I had no idea what the plot was, or who was in this drama. Other than seeing the poster, I knew absolutely nothing about this drama. I obviously knew it was about AI since the poster gives that away, but I never read the synopsis or the cast list before hand. I think that’s a pretty good way to go into a drama. It keeps you open-minded about whatever is going to happen within the script.

“Are You Human Too?” was a pretty good drama. As things are with me right now, it was a pretty good time. Being the first drama I have watched in a year, it needed to pull me in, and I think it did. It pulled me in and makes me want to watch more dramas, so that’s pretty good. I would say it was a pretty decent start to coming back to dramas. I’m the type of person who enjoys melodramas so I guess I had a little bit of that sprinkled into this drama for me, but I am going to be honest I never cried once. Now this is pretty big news because I’m a big old baby, and I cry a lot during the shows, but for some reason this didn’t make me cry at all. I assume it made other people cry, but it just never got to me. I was never truly invested in any of the characters other than Nam Shin III. Literally everyone else in the drama, could of did anything and or lets say died, and I would of been like “uh huh they died,” and shrugged it off. I felt like that character never really gave me a reason to feel for them. I don’t know, they just never really connected with me.

The acting in “Are You Human Too?” was pretty good. I never once thought someone’s acting was so bad that I couldn’t watch, but that acting was so good that I felt like they deserved awards either. They were all just well, pretty decent. I feel like that’s the theme with this drama, to me at least, everything is pretty decent. The concept, the story, the acting, the execution, the editing, the music, it was all just pretty decent to me. I guess this drama has the curse of being the first drama I have watched in a long time. I have higher expectations from what I want and what I expect to feel or see in dramas, because I want them to pull me back into the world I was so deeply invested in for years. However, this drama did give me hope that perhaps I will fall back in love with binge watching dramas for days and days, because I did watch it in pretty much a few days. I will be honest, however, that I did find myself more preoccupied with other things, because it wasn’t all that interesting to me. I don’t know, it just couldn’t hold my attention that long, and I will admit I skipped through a few episodes because I was like ” can you please just do something of importance ” or something along those lines. But that goes back to me not really feeling connections or emotions with the characters other than one.
Overall I thought “Are You Human Too?” was a pretty decent drama. It wasn’t mind blowing or life changing. It was just a drama that I personally think could be played on in the background and you don’t have to actually pay all that much attention to. Now I know I’m probably alone in thinking that, since when watching the drama on Dramafever, it had a pretty high rating. People seem to love it. But I always find myself against the crowd anyways when it comes to dramas that I love and dramas that I hate. This drama doesn’t fit into either of those categories, it has been just… alright. An alright drama that perhaps boosted my interest to get back into dramas so that’s pretty good. I think maybe, it would be a pretty good beginner drama for people. It had the sense of “This is my first drama” kind of drama feel for me. So there is always that as a positive. The rest, to be honest was just not memorable, I literally don’t remember any of the OST, which is a pretty important to me. Listening to OSTs after the fact should rush back memories of the drama and have me remember things I loved about it, but the OST for this drama isn’t even memorable itself. I feel like I am flip flopping with my thoughts on this drama, but I guess I would say that I think it started a spark in me to get into dramas again so I thank it for that.

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What if the mist fulfilling love relationship is from AI

If one is able to put aside the fact that, at the difference of “I’m not a robot”, or “my holo love”, this love story is about falling in love with an artificial intelligence, as the better self of a spoiled heir… this is a really beautiful love story. Albeit a bit disrupting in so far we are rooting for a robot../
The beginning of the drama is a bit slow and off-putting, and does not fairly reflect what it going to be about… Seo kang joon is absolutely perfect in playing dual polar characters, an unredeemable bad brat and his perfect AI alter ego, self improving throughout the drama to the point of experiencing emotions…
How nice it would be to benefit by truly unconditional love and support could be the underlying theme…
On the contrary to the majority, I don’t believe that the Skj we see in the end with the Ai tech friends is the bad guy after he has become good, I think it is the former repaired Version, looking at his simplified self on the beach, now able to shed tears…
All in all, this drama is really smart and leaves a lasting impression, also thanks to a brilliant Skj

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I had great expectations of this completely pre-produced drama, despite the worrying delays in getting it into a viewing schedule. The story looks interesting, the cast was pretty and it seemed to continue the conversation about humanity and artificial intelligence started so compellingly by the earlier I'm Not a Robot.

However, four episodes in (this show suffers from the annoying episode break-up they use to slip ads into kdramas), I've had to drop it. The plotting is pedestrian and the characterisation slapdash, which is really unusual for a kdrama. I started watching Episode 4 (7-8), wandered away and realised I wasn’t even watching it anymore. I was that bored.

The show is basically the standard ‘corporation as saeguk royal family’ thing with the overbearing King, the scheming Prime Minister, the arranged marriage, the spoiled Princess and the impoverished female lead interloper caught up in their schemes. The robot almost seems incidental as though it’s their ‘hook’ for making the same show they always make.

Everyone is raving about Seo Kang-joon’s performance as the Chaebol Prince/Android double but to me it’s all over the place (although a lot of that may be the writing). They’ve also given him this infuriating tic of winking when he’s being a human lie detector, which just comes off as stupid. Gong Seung-yeon is also uninspiring in her role as a disenchanted former fighter and current bodyguard but again this is due to the writing and I feel the actor can't be blamed for doing the best in such a poorly-constructed role.

It does not help that season 3 of the far-superior Humans has started in the UK and it’s actually exploring the themes this show is glossing over.

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I was so worried I would not like this drama before I started but my worries quickly dissolved with each episode. Waiting every week for this drama to air was torture and on Mondays and Tuesdays I found myself waiting for the day to end so I could watch my beloved Nam Sin III. ;)

What I love most about this drama is the characters and the actors who played them. Seo Kang Joon was spectacular. He made Nam Sin III robotic but in the most adorable way! Whenever Nam Sin III smiled I literally melted. Even the way he blinked was so spot on. I'm not sure how the writers managed to make a robot interesting,hilarious, and completely endearing but that's exactly what they did. Never a more pure hearted main male lead, literally a puppy dog. And of course Nam Sin the human was such a brat and I wanted to slap his beautiful face so many times. Seo Kang Joon played the two roles so well from the way he stood to the way he spoke. I was also impressed with Gong Seung Yeon as Kang So Bong. Even though her character was supposed to be annoying sometimes, Seung Yeon played her in a way where even when I was super frustrated with her, I still didn't dislike her character. I also really enjoyed Park Young Kyoo as Nam Sin's grandfather. He was really entertaining to watch and I liked the way the writers blurred his character so I was never really sure whether I was supposed to like him or hate him. I enjoyed all of the cast but lastly I want to mention, Lee Joon Hyuk as Ji Yeong Hoon. I think his character easily could have become super boring but he totally wasn't and I think that was due to Lee Joon Hyuk's acting. He was sort of a father figure to both Nam Sin III and Nam Sin and it was encouraging to see the way he protected them both. It was also so refreshing that he always said and did the smartest thing. His character was brave and loyal and level headed. Exactly the kind of character this dramatic drama needed.

The writers/director did a really good job of keeping the story going and shifting the momentum of the story in ways that I didn't notice until later on. 18 episodes can be a huge mistake but in this case every episode was deliberate and necessary. Also, who would have thought that a robot could work as the main character! That's honestly what I was most worried about but somehow Kang So Bong and Nam Sin III were cuteness overload nearly every episode. Despite logic, I ship them so hard. I also really appreciated Nam Sin III's journey as a robot learning what humans are like and learning to stick up for himself. It broke my heart when others abused him and took advantage of him but with Kang So Bong's help he came to think of himself as more than just metal parts. Watching his growth and self acceptance was inspiring.

I really enjoyed most of the ost's but I loved The Longing Dance and Milagro. They really added to the intensity of the drama.

There were a few plot points that bugged me but not enough to ruin my enjoyment or the flow.
I would definitely recommend this and am so sad that it's over!

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