I get the obsession, but the execution left some things to be desired

This show is captivating. While it took a little while to grab me, once it did, I found it hard to stop watching.

I put off watching this one for a while because I knew it was a remake of an English show. The plot line is nothing new: Guy cheats on his wife and refuses to take responsibility for the damage he's done. What made this particular take on this story interesting was the choice to have pretty much every adult on the show be guilty of some moral failing. There's Dr. Ji's "friends" who know of the affair and say nothing. There are her friends, the same ones, that plot against her professionally, as well. There's married men who can't stay faithful and married women that shame the women who refuse to tolerate the infidelity. The only women who come out completely clean in this are Min Hyun-seo and the medical director's wife that was cheated on. Everyone else has wronged someone else in some way, purposefully.

There's the politics of the Women's Association to deal with, as infuriating as that was. There was the drama with Dr. Ji trying to help Hyun-seo. While I didn't care for it, the drama with Joon Young's classmates was also a plot. There was a lot going on, so the show was never boring.

Dr. Ji is one the more interesting female protagonists I've seen in a kdrama and that's largely because I didn't understand a lot of the decisions she's made. I found it frustrating how much she continued to be dragged into Tae Oh's mess, but Hyun-seo's explanation makes the most sense. Dr. Ji just couldn't turn her back on him, no matter how abusive and selfish he was, because she pitied him. It made the character of Dr. Kim so much more confusing to me.

Why have a character that follows her (a bit concerning, btw) and constantly shows up to help her when others hurt her? Nothing comes of that. Even if they'd just remained friends, there wasn't enough shown of that to make it seem like this character was properly utilized. We have Joon Young tell Dr. Ji that she should find someone nice, but apparently that wasn't a set up for her and Dr. Kim? We also drop the plot about Joon Young knowing why his parents fought that day before the restraining order. The handling of Joon Young's character was quite confusing at times.

Anyway, this show is entertaining, somewhat like Penthouse. However, unlike Penthouse, I feel like some of the choices were so baffling it was frustrating to watch at times. The things Dr. Ji and Da Kyung let Tae Oh get away with made me doubt their intelligence. It wasn't always pity, it was delusion.

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Wonderful story about the complicated quest to prove worth

This was a wonderful story! I loved the actor playing HKH since Psychopath Diary. He was wonderful in that drama and he was wonderful in this one, as well! Tasked with playing both HKH and HSH, he did so well that it was always obvious which brother was which and they felt like 2 completely different people.

He was so charming and sympathetic as HKH and I really felt for him throughout this drama. His relationship with his mother broke my heart and the fact that he found himself capable of forgiving her was astounding to me. I really wished she would’ve done more to make up for what she did, but the story ends on more of a hope that their relationship improves in the future.

The relationship between HKH and Su Eun was cute overall! I was a bit put off by the dynamic of a man giving his subordinate an impossible amount of work and then taking credit for it. The premise makes the intent behind it less like the typical story of a man benefiting from a woman’s accomplishments, but he’s still leaving her with an unbelievable amount of stress. That aside, the way he cared for her was wonderful to see. He helped her conquer her fears and helped her get her wish regarding her sister. I was rooting for them at the end.

The story of Jae Ho broke my heart. Ultimately, that and the bribery cases and the way HSH treated his brother left a hole in the story for me. There was no sign he ever told his mother that he lied about seeing the knife the first time (?) his brother went to jail. He never really faces any punishment for the way he treated his brother. He never apologized for how he treated HKH and that + the way he ruled as a judge makes him unforgivable. He treated his girlfriend horribly too and that’s never really remedied.

Ultimately, the court cases were interesting to watch. Most of the characters were great and I enjoyed watching the show. HSH, the real one, remains the weakest point for me.

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Not super memorable

There aren't a lot of k dramas with queer romances. I can't really think of any aside from this one and I think Semantic Error. That being said, while I appreciate that this is one of few, I didn't really love this. It's clearly low budget - which isn't a knock on the show per se, but it did affect how small this world felt. There aren't a lot of scenes that take place outside of school. The humor was very muted, in my opinion. A lot of the acting was very muted, to be honest. Aside from Da On, who stood out as charismatic and charming.

It's an interesting situation where, while I feel that the guy chosen at the end was the nicer guy, I didn't really feel like the ML had chemistry with him. At least, not more than with Da On.

I liked the music. I immediately added the main song to my playlist.

So, since there aren't a ton of k dramas with queer leads, anyone looking for one will likely watch this one. However, I was not impressed.

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Started off strong and then fell off about halfway through.

The first half of this show was great! The ML is one of my favorites because he gives great performances in everything. The second ML was also great.

The start of this show was interesting and it looked like it was going to have episodic cases about morality and how to truly punish the rich, who typically use their wealth to get away with awful things. It looked like the overarching theme was going to be about finally getting justice for the disadvantaged - and then about halfway through, this show goes off the rails in a bad way.

I hated the treatment of female characters. With the exception of the ML's niece (who's ending I think might have been considered ableist), every female character was treated pretty badly. There's the love interest (?) of the second ML who was rejected over and over before an undeserved ending. There's the female villains who's endings were unsatisfactory and the reasonings for the the former maid's hatred was ambiguous at best and disappointing at worst. The third judge never really got to do anything of import throughout the show. At one point, they relegate her to a position where it really seemed like she was just there to be pretty. She was left out of most of the important plot points.

The cases just fall away around the 6th episode and we get a long plot with lots of scenes of the rich elite operating behind the scenes and those scenes were boring.

I didn't outright hate the ending, but I had to force myself to get to it. First half was wonderful! Second half, not so much.

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Simple story, yet very engaging

Method acting is a very famous acting technique. Some think it's completely unnecessary and over the top, and this film certainly demonstrates how it can cause harm emotionally and even physically, to an extent.

The performances were outstanding! Coupled with the music, the tension was felt. During the beginning love scenes and the play's opening night, for sure. I was on the edge of my seat and the film does a great job of putting you in Jae-ha's shoes during that last moment. We believed the same things and I was curious what he was going to do. This film does a great job flipping the experienced actor v. beginning actor where, by the end, the character with the upper hand switches.

In terms of representation of homosexuality, which I haven't really seen explored in the k dramas and films I've seen so far, I think it kind of leans into harmful stereotypes. Infidelity with an added age gap that makes it clear why Young Woo's agents thought it was predatory. The only mitigating factor (and it's very, very slight) is that it does not seem to have been a genuine intent from Young Woo. At least, I took from the ending that he was intending to move on and the entire affair was to perfect his role on stage.

So, it was a very riveting watch. I'd be curious to rewatch it again because the shift in their relationship was interesting to watch. I added Night Like You to my playlist on Spotify because I really liked it.

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I've watched this show three times already and I love it more every time!

This is my favorite BL! It's a very sweet love story with none of the usual harmful tropes that often show up in BLs. I love the manga and the changes made from the page to the drama adaptation improved the story, in my opinion. I love that this is a story built around an adorable crush and that the female character wasn't treated like a villain or a jealous monster. Hashimoto supports Aoki and he supports her.

The premise is very cute and explores the question of what it really means to like someone. I love all of the characters. Aoki and Ida are adorable together and, for what I think I heard was their first acting job, both actors did a wonderful job! The comedic timing was on point!

Definitely a recommend.

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First kdrama I ever watched and it's still my favorite.

The mystery actually kept me on my toes! I was actually surprised at most of the twists, however the real stand out in this series was the relationships between the townspeople.

Lee Dong-sik is still one of my favorite male leads in any drama I've seen since this. The performance was so versatile, complex and very well done. I felt for him, my heart broke for him as he watched what was left of his family seemingly fall apart. The scene where he lost the chief actually made me cry. They built such a wonderful character that was flawed and full of capacity for love and hate. He really wanted to take care of everyone in the town and, when Han joined the force, he was brought into that circle of protection, whether he wanted to be or not.

Han seemed like the typical aloof, cold guy character. He refrained from making connections because he wasn't comfortable with them. The townspeople's closeness obviously was a lot for him, but he came to accept them in his own way. His partnership with Lee Dong Sik was wonderful to watch!

I loved Jae-yi and her story broke my heart. The connection between her and Lee Dong-sik as they both bonded over loosing important women in their lives was very well written. She was also such a strong character.

The villains seemed a bit one note but as the show really dug into their lives and motivations, they get more complex. The overarching cause of pain in this series was largely due to greed and how that motivated people to let an unspeakable evil continue terrorizing their community.

One of the most surprising elements of this show for me was that there was no romance in this. The deepest, most well developed relationship in it was the partnership between Lee Dong-sik and Han Joo-wan and the actors had wonderful chemistry.

A big recommend from me. I still think about this show often.

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Wonderful start, however it started to drag towards the end.

This series is truly special. It’s unlike the other kdramas I’ve watched and felt immersive in the time period. There were so many touches to the set design, soundtrack, and 1980s events written in that made it feel truly set in 1988-1989 (and beyond). The acting was wonderful, DS/SY is a wonderful female lead, and the chemistry between the cast was so great.

It’s extremely hard to get me invested in a romance in general, especially one between teenagers. So, I went into this knowing that was going to be the weakest aspect for me. I enjoyed the family and friend relationships most of all, and I do feel like that makes up enough of the show to interest even those like me that find a lot of those too trope-y and predictable.

I started to really feel the 1 hour+ runtimes around episode 16 or so. Once we start to get into the kids prepping for college fully and Bo-ra making choices about her future, it felt just a tiny bit aimless. If you’re looking for a slice of life-ish type story and you were actually alive during this time period, you may still enjoy sitting with the story as it builds to its ending. For me, I plan to finish it someday but eventually ended up looking up the ending and dropping it on episode 18.

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I wasn’t rooting for anyone

I found the acting of the Chief and his wife to be very good. Ironically, I was more interested in their marital problems than the rest of the plots.

I wasn’t rooting for Haruta at all. I don’t understand why so many people were chasing after a man child. He seemed to be looking for someone to cook and clean for him than someone he was actually attracted to. Even knowing how this ends, I was not invested in him being with anyone.

I see the complaints about how the humor involved a lot of screaming. For all the insistence that that’s common in J dramas, it works for me in other shows and didn’t work for me in this one. I think that’s largely because I found a lot of adults in this show behaved like teenagers. Unrealistically, to be honest.

So, not a recommend for me. I’m glad others enjoyed it though.

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Too long and honestly kinda repetitive

I enjoyed the start of this series. The first episode is really solid and the cast is all pretty great at comedic acting. The story is a good launch pad to some interesting situations. However, my interest waned pretty quickly.

This series relies a lot of characters just doing incredibly ridiculous things to make a lot of plot points occur and it was a bit tiring to watch at times. When it worked, like the wedding episode with the eviction notice, it was really funny. When it didn’t work (in my opinion), like when Joon ki is running around trying to get a suit case Chewbacca was zipped in, it was too ridiculous for me to laugh at.

They drag out the main couple getting together for way too long. Joon ki and Chewbacca coming out about their relationship too so long Dong-gu looked like an idiot for believing their lies. And there were a few episodes where it felt like nothing really happened.

So, if you’re really looking for a funny show, this wouldn’t be top of my rec list. But if you’ve watched everything else, it’s not the worst show I’ve watched. Not sure that’s a real compliment.

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Unique concept that lets the cast shine!

I watched this for Jonathan and Patricia and ended up staying for the entire cast.

I've never seen anything like this concept before and that made this a unique experience. The closest thing I can think of is maybe the theme episodes of Running Man? It's obvious certain aspects of this story were scripted, but they really seemed to give the cast broad strokes and let them run with it. My favorite moments were just watching the cast lose it and start laughing at some of the ridiculous things that were happening. The chemistry between them was so much fun to watch! I think Patricia's interactions with Hong Chul and Si-young were definitely my favorites!

Dex was obviously meant to be the hero of the story but I admired Si-young throughout the entire thing.

This is a recommend if you don't plan on taking it too seriously. This has been the funniest thing I've watched in a while.

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Lovely!

This is my favorite drama I’ve watched this year. It was entertaining, it didn’t feel like there were filler episodes, and the acting was phenomenal! Honestly, the only thing that was kind of a drag for me was the last episode felt like it dragged just a bit. It was clear it was the last episode and it felt like they were padding to hit that 1h30m time the other episodes had.

I’m a bit surprised others didn’t like this as much as I did, but to each their own. It’s a strong recommend from me. The plot was never boring, the twists were good, and it was just genuinely a joy to watch.

Out of the other 4 dramas I’ve watched this year, this was hands down my favorite so far.

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