Understanding Love (2022)

Do introverts mate? Not in this drama

This is another one of my hormone-driven viewings (I am seldom proud of them) I convinced myself to undertake with the sole purpose of reliving the strong feelings Yoo Yeon-seok elicited in me during Mr. Sunshine. I was hoping for a modern Dong-mae and, predictably, was disappointed.
Sadly, no character in this drama is supposed to be charming. Also, do not be deceived by the word "love" in the title. It may lead you to believe this drama is about the birth of a love story when in fact it is about an aborted one.

We have two introverts that start liking each other and, as tortuous and difficult as their path toward a relationship is, it's not interesting enough to fill 16 episodes.

All the things that are said about introverts and their problematic approach to reality are true, though.
To the unsuspecting eye of an extrovert, the behavior of the characters, the female lead in particular, may seem senseless if not cruel. However, an experienced introvert, like myself, knows that 99% of her choices derive from the fact that she wants but can't let the world see that she does because she thinks she's not allowed to want. So she tries to be content and devotes herself to the next best thing and all her actions hinge on the subsequent guilt and bullheadedness that chains her to her choices. At the same time she is not able to kill the hope of getting what she truly wants and can't lie convincingly.
The male character is just as cowardly and twisted, of course.
Obviously, this is all very toxic for the people involved yet it is not senseless.
These characters' motives are clear to me.
I must be just as damaged as them.

I think this drama gives a realistic, albeit depressing, point of view on adult relationships (romantic relationships as well as workplace relationships). Nonetheless, it gets boring to watch this asinine mating dance of adult insecurities and emotional damage.

I guess the performances are good, yet not outstanding. I am still a fan of Yoo Yeon -seok though.

The ending is as lukewarm as the rest of the series. I don't think there's any true character growth except maybe for Jong-hyun who manages to find his self worth and build on it (and Soo-young is a bit responsible for this growth despite the mess she made of him).
There is no real take home message here save only for the fact that the interest of love might be just as burdensome as the interest on loans. (I wanted to end this with a wise adage or something, but I came up with this cringe motto. I guess it goes well with the realistic and depressing tone of the drama, though)

Female Empowerment Score 3/5 : the women here try to help each other in a difficult, chauvinistic, work environment

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The Trouble with The Class System

Having watched the 8 episodes and the preview to episodes 9 the writers have done a masterful job in depicting the wrongs and hardships living in a "Class" based society. The rich and powerful are revered and honored receiving what they at times aren't even qualified while the poor, no matter how hard they try will always be overlooked and held back simply because they are who they are.

The misunderstanding between the FL and The ML is not that they don't have an attraction for each other but rather the FL has made the assumption that the ML is part of the upper class because of where he lives, the college school he went to and some of his friends he associates with. She holds a resentment in that she was his superior when he entered the bank and three years latter he is her superior. Her hard work and efforts are continueously overlooked , while her looks are what her superiors deem worthy.

To better understand the series and the characters a breif discription of each would be necessary

The ML is the basic good guy who has a hard time talking about himself......... he lets his actions speak for themselves. Raised by a widowed mother whose husband's actions placed the family in hardships they couldn't imagine. The ML became the devoted son that didn't whine and cause trouble for his mother but rather worked hard and helped by not getting in trouble, getting scholarships to elite schools and being liked by everyone that comes in contact with him.......... He is a good and kind man.

The FL is a beautiful, talented and very driven girl who only wants to be recognized for her efforts and not her family background. After her brothers death that she idolized.......... she blamed her father for his death and distanced herself from them, leaving herself to be all alone in the big city. With her efforts and hardwork always being overlooked she appears to project herself as cold and aloof and jumping to conclusions if she would've taken a breath and just listened........ Her biggest problem in dissing the ML that truely cares fore her.

The SFL is not what she appears to be......... she is the spoiled rich girl who is use to getting everything she wants. Working as Assistant Manager as her father says working for "Jump Change" she loves the attention of the lower class and is willing to use them to achieve her goals. From day one transferring to the Bank........ she resented that the FL was considered the " The Goddess" ......... that was unacceptable for a vain spoiled girl like her. Everything she does for the FL in the name of frienship is only done to make the FL feel even more inferior than she already is.

The SML is also a good guy, but not in the realm of the ML. He is a dreamer that has accepted his place in the class system making himself feel good with his dreams. This was seen in how quickly he wanted to return to his former life after a setback. The FL though she wanted some form of attachment to allieviate her loneliness quickly realized that ML is the one even though she still refuses to admit it.

What I found interesting each week is how the previews to the next episodes are deliberately shown to misdirect the viewers attention. How the the romances will revolve ....... It is my opinion they will come about once the parents of each have their say.
The mother of the SFL has become besties with the mother of the ML ......... that friendship will come to an end because she can't have her daughter marry the son of someone that washes her feet. The parents of the FL will give praise to the ML lead in how often he takes the lead in helping whenever he is in the restaurant.

The Next 8 episodes should be rather interesting in that the misdirection that was shown in the first 8 episodes will slowly unwind. If It doesn't pan out that way I will have fun in making it happen in fan fiction.

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What did I just watch?

Ngl, I am so confused with this k-drama. Read mixed reviews, before watching it, thinking people are being too harsh on it. But for me, the 'quality watch' ended with episodes 9/10. It honestly just goes downhill from there.

From the start, I liked the idea, that finally, a kdrama is normalising couples living together without getting married, and talking about people's previous relationships etc., but oh boy why would fl ruin so many lives without any deeper motive? If the writer's main objective was to make people think about the consequences of their actions and to bring as much controversy as possible, then well done... But I wouldn't say that was the right way to do it.

Maybe I am not understanding something here, and there are some hidden meanings behind it, but overall I would end watching this drama at episode 10 - a tip for everyone who doesn't want to get confused and disappointed with the plot and main leads' actions.

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It's too too too complicated

No one can understand Ahn Su Young not even she can understand her own feeling. She is the most complicated character in kdrama, I guess 🙄.

And how does Han Sang Soo finds Ahn Su Young everytime? Does he has tracker on her?🤪

The first 8 episodes are quite interesting as storyline is quite different from the other dramas that I have watched but Awfully stretched out at the end 😒 At the beginning showing realistic characters and their emotions was nice. I really like the chemistry of Moon ga young and Yoo yeon seok. Moon ga young is so different from True beauty which is impressive . Yoo yeon seok is becoming one of my favourite.

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Bad script+ good acting

I had very high expectations from this one, the acting of ml and both fls is pretty good so is the chemistry of ml with both fls..
Sml character is with no backbone and very medicore acting..
But the main point is that, in trying to show realistic romance it has become too unrealistic and draggy to watch..
Almost no character development and pretty static story from start to end.. it was first time for me that a drama with 16 ep with almost 1.5 hr episodes has this little progression in the terms of storyline..
Don't watch , if you are not a fan of the actors..

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When supporting cast was the true main cast

It was boring and I couldn't understand a lot of things humanly. The Prota was somehow a stalker while the female Prota was quite strenuous and unpredictable. Much of her decision did not really made sense to me. She was very exhausting for my taste.
In the end I couldn't understand what he found so great about her. There was a good plot twist, but not much was made of it. Ultimately, the supporting cast was more interesting than the protagonists.

I only finished it bc I hate to drop and I really wanted to know how it end. I‘m honest I had skipped from ep 12 to ep 16.

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Flat ending

This drama had an interesting start. I wanted to watch a drama that focused on "real" people and not the high luxury lives of chaebols. Having worked in a bank myself, I wanted to see how they would navigate office romances.

Truly wanted to like this drama but that ending was just What the???!!!

Mentally going through each episode, it really boils down to the lack of communication between the leads. Too many things left unsaid left room for doubts and suspicions which could have been prevented if they were more open with each other.
I saw the ML in Mr Sunshine and dr Romantic, so it was refreshing to see him portray a different role. To be honest, he was more likeable than the Fl. He was just that Real.....

The only other plus for me would be the OST. That was something I really enjoyed.

Overall, I don't think I would recommend this drama. The frustration that builds up every episode ending was just aggravated by that ending

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This show is just a roller coaster of emotions

Alright so I started watching this show and I didn’t like the FL character at first as she came across as being very cold and just plain rude. But I needed a filler show so I went back to it and binge watched it which I regret don’t do that ever. This show is basically about two people who are in love with each other but because of fear, pride and cowardice they don’t get together and end up dating other people to mask their feelings so they can move on. Obviously that balm backfires and they end up cheating on those two people with each other and hurting them and each other in the process. What I hated the most about this show was that when the couple could have been together they didn’t get together. But suddenly when the love became forbidden they realized that they are so right for each other and ended up hurting two people and cheating. I also hate the fact that in the show they never outrightly acknowledged that they cheated together. In fact the FL lies about cheating with the guy’s best friend in order to push away her current boyfriend and ML. Which makes no sense to me as she ended up hurting that poor guy badly and ML came back to her anyway. Which was a dumb decision considering he had just learned that she allegedly slept with his best friend but he did not even ask questions. In the end it seems like when the guy was confident to be with her she just kept running away. My conclusion is she was trying to make herself suffer as she felt she did not deserve to be happy after what she did especially considering her mother was a cheater too. But it teaches a good lesson that when it comes to love you should not do anything that will cause you to have regrets. I really hated how both ML and FL just had this thing for hesitating like little kids. I feel like this show was such a drag I skipped through that last few episodes because it was annoying you could figure out what they would say at this point because it was the same thing over and over again. I feel like this showe could maybe have been shorter 8 episodes. Or they could have used that time better. I don’t know how many times the FL ran away, I don’t know how many times times ML broke up with his girlfriend. I don’t know how many times that guy failed his police exam and we never understood why he kept failing and suddenly when the girl leaves he passes. Which I hated their relationship because the guy felt useless as he could not provide anything for her and as he felt insecure because of ML he goes out and buys a ring and then he gets offended that she doesn’t wear it or does not seem genuinely happy but he knew their relationship was dead anyway. They also made him seem a little too innocent but as ML said he seemed happier and more relaxed with other people, that girl was basically her provided. Also, the girl who came onto ML she never acknowledged her stupidity of going out with him when she knew he didn’t like her, and she said that she could fill in the gap of love for the both of them which was so naive. It was also annoying that they made the guy out to be sincere and that he couldn’t do anything without being convinced but then he dated a girl he didn’t like, cheated on her and could not get with the girl he liked because he was too much of a coward to express his love. Overall the acting was actually really good, ML and FL portrayed a passionate love and you just wanted them to be together and find happiness and you could even just see emotions in their eyes. The supporting characters was good but some of the storylines on the side didn’t make sense. I hated the fact that the ML and FL would make decisions based on what people say. The final episode made no sense to me it was just another drag. Episode 16 was a waste of time they still hadn’t learned from their lesson not expressing their love which was clearly present. The guy searched hi and low for her and when he got to see her he did nothing but all her with the loan like what? They just walked up the hill to go eat pork cutlets like okay all this for that?

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Hits and Misses

I had high hopes for this show. Although slow moving, I thought it would definitely pick up after Episode 10. Seemingly, it took a dive! Instead of picking up steam, it reversed to being slower and without direction. Unfortunate, since the acting is really great, and Sang-Su (played by Yoo Yoon-seok), is the greatest kisser on Kdrama tv. I became a fan! He makes it appear so authentic! That’s why it’s so disappointing, because the writer doesn’t grow the characters. Still, there are periods of great scenes (Hits), and potential storylines that were left inside an incubator (Misses). “The Interest of Love” needs to be rehabilitated with a second season (6-8-12 Episodes) to bring closure to the characters. Here’s hoping!

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The beauty, truthfulness and weakness of the human heart

As every episode goes by, the tone of this show drastically changes.

It starts off as any stereotypical romance drama would, but then when the wheels start turning the train falls completely off the tracks and into a roller coaster ride of emotions.

It begins slowly, but theres something special about the way the story is told, something captivating, that shows its hints in the opening sequences, but never fully reveals itself until about halfway through the drama.

Disguised cleverly at first as a typical rom com, what it is at its core, is a story about how social status, past events and experiences, can shape our lives; and the beauty, truthfulness, and weakness of the human heart.

The actual plot itself, begins light and slow - watching the first few episodes is not enough to see what the show is truly about. This is not a rom com, although it looks like it at first glance, and the show really starts making some interesting plot choices towards the middle of the show to really set the gears in. The more I watch the drama, the more I'm confused and left guessing at the directing, it is almost like a few different genres in one but each told at different points within the story, much like how a Shakespeare film may play out.

One key point I liked was when some key morally controversial actions were taken, the music or film techniques didn't really lead us to feel a certain way, but rather the focus was on why this specific action was taken by the character and I was left empathizing and understanding a character did what they did.

The acting is once again, hard to judge by the first few episodes. I thought Moon Ga Youn's acting was limited by her role, but the more I watched the more I understood and became immersed and captivated by her acting. What seemed lifeless and hollow at the start felt like it had purpose later on.

Same with the music. It almost felt too diverse with a bevy of feel good love songs at the start, but the key memorable pieces showed themselves later on.

Will continue to watch and see where this takes us.

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