A Good Day to Be a Dog (2023)

Okay!… but a little disappointed

Cha Eunwoo is one of my favourite celebrities, and I was no doubt excited for this drama ever since it was announced. However, as a reader of the original webtoon, there are a few issues I had with the drama.

I’ll firstly start off with the many things I enjoyed about this drama:

The first few episodes were genuinely interesting and executed the story in a fun, witty manner. The production quality was top notch and the mix of CGI and real life action for Haena’s dog form was hilarious! The pacing for the series was engaging and I even rewatched the first few episodes while I waited for new episodes.

While people like to complain about Eunwoo being typecasted, he played his character very well and it remained true to the original character depicted in the Webtoon. Actually, I was surprised how he managed to make Seowon cuter! But I guess that is very possible when played by Cha Eunwoo hehe. And don’t get me started on those kissing scenes !! Hoyyy do you want me dead, Eunwoo!?!!?

Park Gyuyoung has become one of my favourite actresses after this series! She was very funny. It was a bit of a 180 compared to the last time I saw her in Celebrity. But she looked so warm and amiable in her light brown hair!


Now… while I did enjoy the series for the most part, I must now complain.
As I had been anticipating this drama for over a year before its release, I was not happy to hear that it would only have 14 episodes. And even worse, they were going to air once a week.
Um… Okay. Can’t be that bad right? Wrong.
I can imagine it would be much more enjoyable to binge this series, however, watching it while airing was exhausting considering the first few minutes of each episode would be a recap of the last. Like thanks! I totally forgot what happened during the single episode you gave me last week.

And to make matters worse, there was the repetition of the typical Kdrama MONTAGE! That’s right. They did it almost every episode to remind you that indeed the main characters looked at eachother 4 episodes ago. And yes.. they KISSED 2 episodes ago… Oh and remmeber that time they went to the park!??.. SUCH A WASTE OF SCREENTIME. It is just such lazy storytelling.

In the Webtoon, we got more insight to Seowon’s family, yet in the drama we literally don’t know anything about him. No, seriously. Instead we got almost 2 whole episodes of the most BORING historical backstory flashback in the history of fantasy Kdramas. The romance was cute between their past lives.. But I can’t believe they decided to change Bogyeom’s character that much… He was so irritating here.

The last 4 episodes of this drama were a snooze feast. I literally used to rush to watch this every Wednesday night as soon as it was released but there came a point where I dreaded it because I do not wanna know about some petty God’s tragic love story…

Basically. If you’re gonna make a Kdrama adapted from a Webtoon, don’t make it worse than the original?! There were SO many opportunities to make it better, instead we got the same montage over and over.. ITS TIRING.

If I wasn’t a Webtoon reader I’d probably be okay with this drama. However, having the original plot in mind I had the bar set higher but the drama was just too much of a disgrace for me.

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Modern Day > Historical

I’m trying to review this without taking into account the horrible airing schedule this drama got, but it’s hard. So just to get it out of the way, I just want to say that the one-episode-a-week format (plus some skipped weeks) definitely did not do this drama any favors.

With that being said, while the airing schedule didn’t help, I think I fell out of love with this drama as it went on for several other reasons as well.

I think there was a really strong start and I was really invested in the story when it first started; the tension between Haena and Seowon was great as they cycled through the different relationship dynamics: unrequited love, Haena having to hide her secret, growing feelings, etc.

When the drama started covering the backstory behind Haena’s dog curse, I unfortunately realized that I just didn’t really care for the saeguk/historical subplot. The characters felt really distant and disconnected from our modern day characters, I felt no emotional connection to the “past lives” theme, and the reason for the curse itself was kind of anti-climactic (and yes, I felt the same way when I read the webtoon). Overall, I just enjoyed the more grounded, modern day plot better, and I didn’t really care for the side characters who were related to the backstory either.

As a result, I found the overall plot with the second lead intriguing until the actual reveal and watching it play out. I enjoyed the tension better than actually seeing what happened.

In terms of the amnesia arc, I don’t think it was super frustrating and I didn’t hate it, but amnesia is still one of my least favorite tropes simply because it feels random — we already know the story is never going to end with it, and the logistics of it very rarely make sense anyways.

Even with a few angsty arcs, on the subject of acting, I enjoyed many of these actors in other things but I don't really think this drama showcased any of their acting chops well enough, in part due to the feeling of low stakes, and in part due to the rom-com nature of the show.

Ultimately, I think you can say that this drama was paced well. Unlike many dramas, it doesn’t fall into the trap of leaving too many things unsolved at the last minute. Unfortunately, it seems to have the opposite issue where the last episode feels just like a filler episode because the main plot is already wrapped up, but overall it’s still a light-hearted, decent watch.

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