Doril
An Emotional, yet Lighthearted Look at Love and Dreams
This Korean romantic-comedy is a masterful blend of gut-wrenching, sentimental scenes mixed together with funny, playful moments. The stellar acting by all of the cast makes you feel the pain, desperation, sadness, hope, joy, love, laughter that the characters go through. The one weakness of this show is that the ending is rushed, but in my opinion, this is easily forgivable by the strong, character-driven experience that this drama provides.
Story: The main focus of the story surrounds the four main characters, the "Fantastic Four" as they claw their way from being poor, unfulfilled young adults towards their life and career goals, while navigating the ups and downs of romance. However, the main charm of this show is in its presentation of the story and the characters. The story commits to semi-realism: the characters wake up with less-than-perfect hair and their pajamas, they go through the feelings of painful breakups and the excitement of discovering a new beau, and they work to make a living even though their ideal line of work is something else. This grounds the story so that you can relate to the characters' trials and triumphs, and I found myself emotionally invested in each character's progress in their careers and love lives. Still, this is a Kdrama, so the leads are still gorgeous idols, so the realism is not one-hundred percent. Overall, I was mostly satisfied with the story, but definitely feel that setup too many plot points and waited until Episode 16 to resolve them, resulting in an extremely rushed finale. Without spoilers, I will mention that there is one particular conflict regarding the main characters, Dong Man and Ae Ra, that I felt was not really resolved, but I forgave this minor point due to how strong the rest of the series was.
Acting: The entire cast did an excellent job that I felt a variety of emotions. For starters, forget the adult actors for a moment: the child actors were absolute gems that really captured the spirit of the young versions of the main characters and really elevated the relationships of their characters by showing you how they interacted with each other when they were young and the extent to which these interactions did and didn't change. But of course the adult actors were also excellent: Park Seo Joon plays the role of a well-intentioned, blunt guy well and I cried for his moments of desperation while cheering for his moments of triumph. Kim Ji Won showed a strong acting range, including iconic Aegyo moments that are immortalized in video clips, times of despair, strength in face of adversity, shy weakness when she is swooning, and romance when she is in love -- this was the drama that elevated her to my favorite actress. Moreover, the rest of the supporting cast is amazing and it would take too long to talk about each one: Kim Sung Oh accentuates his character to add a funny yet meaningful bromance with Dong Man. Song Ha Yoon plays the meek Baek Seol Hee who eventually finds her own voice/meaning in life and demands it. Even the "villains", if they can be called that, are excellent -- the ones that wrong the main characters are truly hateful and the ones are misunderstood are acted in such a way that you deplore them, but then understand their true intentions in the end.
Music: The soundtrack is typical for a K-drama, but I don't think that's a bad thing. You will find catchy tunes such as Kassy's Good Morning, a ballad whose melody fits the gentle moments that the main characters experience. The BTOB song Ambiguous is a direct call out to the relationship of the main characters.
Rewatch value: The series' focus on characters makes this drama easily rewatchable -- you will want to revisit your favorite moments with the Fantastic Four, including some of their funny interactions. I don't want to give anything away, but I will say there is physical humor in addition to the more-typical, verbal humor, and I think it adds a special lightheartedness to the show.
Overall: I cannot recommend this show enough. It is not perfect, but the strong points of this drama are so vibrant that I think it overrides some of the limitations of the series. If you were on the fence about giving this show a watch, I highly recommend that you dive straight into Episode 1 and see what you think.
Story: The main focus of the story surrounds the four main characters, the "Fantastic Four" as they claw their way from being poor, unfulfilled young adults towards their life and career goals, while navigating the ups and downs of romance. However, the main charm of this show is in its presentation of the story and the characters. The story commits to semi-realism: the characters wake up with less-than-perfect hair and their pajamas, they go through the feelings of painful breakups and the excitement of discovering a new beau, and they work to make a living even though their ideal line of work is something else. This grounds the story so that you can relate to the characters' trials and triumphs, and I found myself emotionally invested in each character's progress in their careers and love lives. Still, this is a Kdrama, so the leads are still gorgeous idols, so the realism is not one-hundred percent. Overall, I was mostly satisfied with the story, but definitely feel that setup too many plot points and waited until Episode 16 to resolve them, resulting in an extremely rushed finale. Without spoilers, I will mention that there is one particular conflict regarding the main characters, Dong Man and Ae Ra, that I felt was not really resolved, but I forgave this minor point due to how strong the rest of the series was.
Acting: The entire cast did an excellent job that I felt a variety of emotions. For starters, forget the adult actors for a moment: the child actors were absolute gems that really captured the spirit of the young versions of the main characters and really elevated the relationships of their characters by showing you how they interacted with each other when they were young and the extent to which these interactions did and didn't change. But of course the adult actors were also excellent: Park Seo Joon plays the role of a well-intentioned, blunt guy well and I cried for his moments of desperation while cheering for his moments of triumph. Kim Ji Won showed a strong acting range, including iconic Aegyo moments that are immortalized in video clips, times of despair, strength in face of adversity, shy weakness when she is swooning, and romance when she is in love -- this was the drama that elevated her to my favorite actress. Moreover, the rest of the supporting cast is amazing and it would take too long to talk about each one: Kim Sung Oh accentuates his character to add a funny yet meaningful bromance with Dong Man. Song Ha Yoon plays the meek Baek Seol Hee who eventually finds her own voice/meaning in life and demands it. Even the "villains", if they can be called that, are excellent -- the ones that wrong the main characters are truly hateful and the ones are misunderstood are acted in such a way that you deplore them, but then understand their true intentions in the end.
Music: The soundtrack is typical for a K-drama, but I don't think that's a bad thing. You will find catchy tunes such as Kassy's Good Morning, a ballad whose melody fits the gentle moments that the main characters experience. The BTOB song Ambiguous is a direct call out to the relationship of the main characters.
Rewatch value: The series' focus on characters makes this drama easily rewatchable -- you will want to revisit your favorite moments with the Fantastic Four, including some of their funny interactions. I don't want to give anything away, but I will say there is physical humor in addition to the more-typical, verbal humor, and I think it adds a special lightheartedness to the show.
Overall: I cannot recommend this show enough. It is not perfect, but the strong points of this drama are so vibrant that I think it overrides some of the limitations of the series. If you were on the fence about giving this show a watch, I highly recommend that you dive straight into Episode 1 and see what you think.
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