Niche But Kinda Bittersweet!

‘ Tomorrow’ is one of those dramas that you’ve seen in concept a million times before in webcomics and fantasy concepts; the everyday Joe main lead is transported into an unfamiliar setting, brought to face some ugly truths and suddenly confronted by new realities.

Of course, ‘ Tomorrow’ isn’t a drama without its really enticing features either. Rowoon is an idol actor who has been upcoming in the world of rom-coms for a few years, though most will likely have seen him before in ‘ Extraordinary You’. I was hesitant to see him take up the role of the main lead here. I loved Rowoon a lot despite my honestly mixed feelings in the formerly mentioned work but I wasn’t entirely sure how Rowoon would come across in a role where he wasn’t going to be a central love interest. Of course my dread was completely unnecessary. He knocked the ball out of the park with his performance.

To be fair I have some honestly very mixed feelings with his character but I think we’ll get onto that issue a bit later.

Kim Hee Sun was another familiar face in the series. I never liked ‘Alice’ a lot as a fantasy series but I can’t deny that she seriously impressed me with her dual role and performance. She really knocked my socks off here as the female lead of the series. Another two faces to look out for are Lee Soo Hyuk, staying in his element from his long career of playing antagonistic and brooding characters, as the supporting rival of the female lead ( with his own skeletons in the closet) and of course Yun Ji On, new to me as an actor, but still fairly impressive with all things considered.

Maybe one of the biggest things you’ve probably heard about ‘ Tomorrow’ has been sourced from its messages. As a lot of other reviewers have pointed out the series isn’t afraid to get into sticky subject areas, including some scathing criticisms of Korean society and issues such as mental health, suicide and trauma being central. Honestly, I thought it was brave of the screenplay to put these issues out in the open but I do have to be honest with my thoughts here. It took away a bit from the writing.

I did think as mentioned previously it was brave of the writing to discuss these issues but I’ve always thought that messages and characters while often being placed hand in hand should be treated as desperate issues when it comes to development. The problem with ‘ Tomorrow’ was that the writing was never sure when to draw the line. We saw a lot of trauma coming through with backstories in order to make it seem “ dark” but I never felt as though we really got to see further into these characters like the female lead, whose storyline and backstory was really put together like patchwork similar to the other supporting characters who had rushed storylines.

My biggest pet peeve was the main lead . In all honesty, I get the writing argument. Having a mundane character amongst a flock of bright and intriguing individuals is often said to allow viewers to become intrigued by the seemingly “ normal” protagonist and stand out. HOWEVER, the main lead’s problem was that I couldn’t really connect to him emotionally or through his development. Yes, he struggled with landing a job and slowly changed his views but I struggled even as a viewers to understand where these views originated or why he was so cynical in some areas, yet so naive in others. Was this to do with his family background? , His childhood?, An experience in adulthood or his relationships? Something so small could’ve really helped to build up the main lead’s character but it was a shame we didn’t see this get carried further.

The actual plot was a bit of a patchwork piece also. I liked the fact that it discussed lots of different issues and helped to spice things up with different narratives but aside from a rough drawing of some events in the background, it was hard to really sketch out the importance of these characters or storyline events. It was really messy and it felt as though it was only by the final part that the writing team had a sudden eureka moment to put all of these loose story points into a big final arc and cram them into a short space of time, failing to really help to buildup them up or give a detailed conclusion. In my opinion this impacted the ending big time and the finale came out like a mixture of gushy happiness in order to satisfy some viewers but left a lot more questions than answers.

I don’t think the series was bad at all and I liked how direct it was with themes and there was certainly some really gorgeous moments of filming. Still, I don’t think this series had a key ingredient of writing and plot building which often left it feeling a bit aimless. A good series maybe for a binge watch and definitely worth it to see some good acting but mostly Hee Sun’s pink hair and Lee Soo Hyuk in a suit but apart from that, it’s definitely a strong 8.0/10.

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I have mixed- feelings about the 2017 adaptation of the series and work ‘ Kimi Wa Petto’ and how it lived up to the original adaptation version of Sumire and Takeshi’s beloved relationship.

I think where the series flourished came through the main leads’ acting. They did have good chemistry and I really enjoyed seeing our leads onscreen together. On the other hand I didn’t really feel the dynamic charm of our characters onscreen.

One of the beauties of the original relationship between the unusual and somewhat surreal love story between our leads came through their ability to help one another through unusual circumstances. It was oddly sweet and gradual and presented many clear sociological messages against conformity and gender expectations in relationships.

In the recent version? I’m not sure if i felt the same emotions. It wasn’t bad per day but there was something slightly more hollow about their onscreen relationship. Perhaps it was a consequence of more conservative implications on dialogue or less focus upon original messages, but the recent version of the beloved series felt like not a bad but a slightly pale comparison to the original.

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Promising Start…

I’m a big fan of the original ‘ Hana Yori Dango Franchise’. Whilst I have my differing opinions on each version I can’t deny one of the beauties of each adaptation was its ability to capture something unique to each country the series had been adapted into.

It’s still early days with F4 Thailand: Boys Over Flowers and whilst there’s a lot of time to see where the series will go, I am looking forward to it as the series has presented the story once more with a promising start and new faces to the role. Admittedly there are certain main characters who I am struggling to become enamoured by quite yet but time will only tell how ‘ F4 Thailand: Boys Over Flowers’ will play out.

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