This show is a full 10. My first K-Drama and I’m in love. I’m in love with the actors and the story, which is sweet and funny, heart-wrenching, gripping and full of suspense. I cried so hard and laughed out loud and bit my nails and held my breath. It’s all there in a perfect balance. Right when it might drop into silliness it becomes serious again and when there is a threat that it might become too heavy it turns light again in a very fine way. The story has many twists and unexpected turns. They never drag out a certain theme for too long, which usually annoys the hell out of me. And it has the best bitter-sweet wrapped up ending I’ve seen in a long time. Not rushed and squeezed into the last 5-10 minutes. If anything, maybe there are some repetitions (like saying good bye over and over again), but then they address that in the show themselves and it is still sweet and heart-warming every single time.

The main couple is a perfect cast. I felt the chemistry between them right from the start. I could feel it through the screen when they just looked at each other. The love story is amazing, too. The way they slowly but so, so deeply fall in love until it’s just no question anymore. Their scenes together are filled with sweetness and the acting in general is superb. I love the main actress. She is truly amazing. She manages to give her character so much depth. She is spoiled and childish, sweet and warm and vulnerable and grown up and sensible and funny and so much more and still never seems fake.
I also enjoyed the other characters, too. Over time each one gets a kind of depth that I haven’t expected or seen coming in the beginning. They are very well crafted, with all their human flaws, but basically and refreshingly as decent people. I also liked that in this show there are so many strong female characters. Dan's mother surprisingly turned out to become one of my favourites. In most of the c-dramas I watched so far, the female lead seems to be more of a support for the male lead, instead of having her own story. This is different here.

There is great dialogue in there, too. And a very cool fighting scene with the North-Korean squad near the end, that I also didn’t see coming. I’m very glad I got to watch this show and will feel a bit mushy and empty till hopefully the next good thing comes along. I’m going to miss the two and somehow wished I could see more of them.

Leggi di Più

Rather boring with some sweet moments

I was intrigued by the storyline and wondered, while watching, how they will manage to give everyone a happy ending. Well, everyone got a happy ending, but there was no logic behind that whatsoever. It felt like they didn't know themselves how to manage that and then just threw the ending in, in the last 5 minutes, completely out of the blue with no explanation at all. That was cheap and disappointing.

The story and the characters had their sweet moments. But overall, it was - I read it in a different review and agree - dull. I watched the series on Netflix, where it has 34 episodes, and the first 20 episodes were boring. Nothing exciting happens at all. They could have explored the time travelling aspect more, with the main character trying to figure out what happened together with his grandfather. But they missed that chance completely.
The acting of the main cast was below standard. Only Mini Tsai, the main character’s mother, did a really good job and was very convincing. The two leads’ acting was either over the top or too stiff and felt very artificial. I’ve seen Ivy Shao in The Perfect Match first and I loved that show, and liked Ivy Shao very much. But in this show I could see her trying to act. I didn’t feel the chemistry between the two of them at all.

The show was good enough to keep me going till the end. Though it took me longer than normal and every now and then I had to force myself to keep going.

Leggi di Più