Cute

This is a cute and very lighthearted drama with a great cast. I've been a fan of Kim Min Jae ever since Do You Like Brahms, and he really shows his range here. This show has a whimsical vibe with outstanding costume design, if that's your thing, and the performances are pretty great. The story is simple, a rich creditor falls for his debtor who's fallen on hard times, and the plot was entertaining enough to keep me engaged from one episode to the next. However I've noticed a few flaws, such as some jokes and scenes of attempted chemistry falling short, but overall it's one of the best shows airing right now and definitely worth watching a few episodes to see if it hooks you.

Leggi di Più

PMY is my favorite actress, so I had high hopes in her choice of roles and the chemistry she has with her leads. This is my least favorite role of hers, and I'm disappointed.

Yoon Park is the only actor's character who is actually interesting me and the only one doing justice to his role, because of his acting chops and comedic timing. The man better get a leading role soon since he always ends up having more chemistry with the FL than the ML. It's the same here, even though his character is a complete jerk and they obviously should not end up together, he still manages to have great chemistry with PMY. The FL's character is annoying to watch as she's constantly gloomy and mean and I have no idea what ML sees in her. They have no chemistry at all. Park Min Young seems tired and worn here and it seems to go past her role, I'm concerned as she has expressed health issues on interviews and social media. I've never been a fan of Song Kang and he's still unimpressive in this role imo, he thinks smiling nice is "acting," and his attempts at chemistry almost come across as creepy.

The biggest issue for me is there is no actual story, no plot, every episode is just centered around watching the characters' interactions without anything ever really happening. It's dull and forgettable. I suppose the main motivator here is possibly the FL's character arc into a non-bitch, her character finally "warming up" (aligning with the weather theme), which after 8 episodes is showing no signs of appearing. She's still miserable and rude. She even nags houseguests for leaving food out after they apologized and said they were going to clean it, acting rude and giving them a lecture about how it "leaves a smell." Really weird vibe.

Leggi di Più

This drama peaked at the end of episode 7.

...Which sucks, because that was just when it was really getting good.

The positive things about this drama:

OST. Phenomenal, stylistic and perfectly mood-setting.
Cinematography.
Acting. Even from the supporting characters.
Overall the production and styling were outstanding.

But it's not without its flaws. Mostly coming from the writing. At times the plot focuses on stellar action packed episodes full of tension between the gang and cops, and among gang members, others it diverts to the "romance" (whatever the hell you want to call this dysfunctional love square) for what feels like nonstop scenes or even entire episodes on end. The love square here became insufferable in episodes 8 and 9 and didn't let up. The show went from brilliant in episodes 1-7 to the leader of the gang just wanting Joonmo's wife. They really threw away his entire character development.

"Double dates" abound. The tension they were going for got really repetitive. How many times is Bibi going to show up when Joonmo is with Kichul and FL and taunt them for long scenes at a dinner table? How many times is the director going to have Joonmo give jealous glares? It became boring and awful, and this is from a romantic tension lover. Usually I can't get enough. This drama would have been SO much stronger without Joonmo's wife being involved.

Leggi di Più

One of the slowest dramas I've ever seen

This drama seems to have raving fans so I'll probably get attacked, but oh well.

I feel very deceived by the ratings. I am a fan of the FL, but the first 5 episodes were unbelievably boring. Extremely slow family politics. I heard it got better after episode 4, so I kept watching, but nope. In episode 6 they at least went somewhere different and something started happening (still very slow though) and the leads were finally in the same frame for a second. By then I already knew this drama just isn't for me. Maybe those who love it so much are much younger than me and that explains the difference of opinion. I found it excruciating.

Leggi di Più

I watched this when it first aired and ended up dropping it around episode 3-4. Since then I've kept trying to pick it back up and every time I do, I end up almost falling asleep or my finger finds the ff button. The ML is one of my favorite actors. This was his comeback drama after the military, so maybe that's partly why it received such a high rating. He's one of the reasons I keep wanting this drama to click for me like it seems to for so many people. But it's incredibly boring. As much as I want to, I honestly cannot see where the hype is coming from. I can only take watching people walk around their apartments talking about nothing relevant for so long.

Leggi di Più

Unpopular opinion, but I couldn't get into this drama. I thought it was mediocre at best. Maybe it's because I'm generally not into fantasy, which (obviously) this is. But even aside from the fantasy elements, there was something about it that kept me from caring about the characters and feeling anything for them. I didn't feel truly drawn into the story and I couldn't quite pinpoint why.
A big part of it might have been the FL. I'm not a fan, she always does the same dead fish look with a blank expression and her mouth hanging open in almost every scene. Her character here has good backstory and she showed a bit more acting skill for sure, but the personality she had her character portray was godawful. Cold, flat, boring, almost masculine and I didn't feel any chemistry from her when it came to her interactions with the ML. I dropped it at episode 7.
I thought the ML was a different story; he was the one character who kept me watching. He's a good actor and his character actually had dimension and personality. But the romance was very elusive and a mess. He likes her, but does she like him, or the crown prince, or her childhood sweetheart....? Does she even have feelings for anyone at all, since she never shows any emotion?? Idk the whole drama was enough to keep me kind of interested and keep hoping it got better, but overall bored me. I kept having to fast forward long palace conversations. Something would occasionally happen to make the plot seem like it was going somewhere exciting, but then they'd cut to scenes of one of other several side characters and the little exciting twist wouldn't amount to much.

If you're in the target age group for kdrama fantasy and enjoy the genre though, you'll probably like it.

Leggi di Più

This is way overrated imo. It felt like this drama was trying way too hard from start to finish. If just watching gloomy-looking people with no backstory or context makes you feel something and think that makes a good drama, then you'll love this, because everyone except 1 of the MLs just naturally looks miserable af in every scene. Lots of things were over the top and unrealistic, like bullies drugging someone with a fetanyl patch as a joke. I have a hard time believing something like that would actually happen, and we got no deeper reason except they were just supposed to be so evil that they'd get pleasure out of drugging someone, and we also get zero context as to why they start targeting him so much except he basically looks at them the wrong way. There is depth missing here, it's very lazy writing. And ML just gets a little woozy and then is completely fine and nothing else happens from the drug, but then just starts slapping himself? And cut scene, that's it? Speaking of weird actions, I didn't really like ML, his actions such as that were largely unexplained. He came across as more crazy than a sympathetic hero. He's supposed to be a pushover but then starts going around defending himself with a pen. Sorry I found it pretty cheesy.

I see this being compared to DP, which is a masterpiece...both these dramas are melodramas whose OSTs feature the same artist (Meego), but that's where the similarities end.

Leggi di Più

This drama suffers from bad writing and that's all there is to it. I also have no idea why they'd make Junho's character so cold and downright mean. It goes beyond the usual enemies to lovers trope, he's a total jerk to her and he's grumpy all the time. Miserable and unlikeable character, and that's saying a lot coming from me, Junho is one of my favorite actors.

There's nothing especially bad about the plot, but there's nothing really good either. There is such a mishmash of elements in this show it feels like the writer just threw a bunch of plot points together. "Do we want it to be about a girl's relationship with her horse? Ok, but only for a couple episodes. Now it'll focus on learning to cook with a gangster plotline in the background. Then we're going to focus on the ML being a jerk. Then a little bit of love triangle, then random side stories of cooks who work in the kitchen, then some gangster fights in the kitchen." On and on, that's basically the show.

I can't write a much more elaborate review than that because there's not much more to this show, and honestly it was so meh overall that I don't have the desire. Junho himself did great with what he had to work with as always, and the few opportunities he was given to show some chemistry with FL were done well between them. I hope he leaves this one in the past and continues to choose better projects from now on (I'm optimistic since Just Between Lovers and The Red Sleeve).

Leggi di Più

AMAZING.

This was my second-ever kdrama, right after CLOY so this masterpiece holds a special place in my heart. It's still one of my favorite dramas of all time. This drama is different and unique and that's part of the appeal, it's kinda dark and yet not, it's realistic with a touch of fantasy ambiance at the same time. The highlight of the show is without a doubt ML's brother Moon Sang Tae, who portrayed his autistic character astonishingly well. I've found in most dramas featuring autistic characters the show can be overrated simply because people appreciate an autistic lead, while the show itself may not offer much else - that's not at all the case here, the high rating is without a doubt deserved. I've never been so moved by a character, and that character's relationship with his brother, than I have in this drama. Watch it for that reason alone.

The one fault I did have with this show was for me as a psychology major, the whole "redeemable psychopath" thing got on my nerves a bit. In reality someone with FL's psychopathy traits would not possess any remorse or desire to change, period. Psychopathy cannot be treated, and I wish they'd been a little more careful with this. I did think it was a creative touch how they tried to relate her lack of ability to read people to Moon Sang Tae's autism (although also very inaccurate).

Even with those faults my rating wasn't affected because the show is otherwise so moving and well done. It's without a doubt a must-watch, just go into it with an open mind and try to see past the FL.

Leggi di Più

JCW is a great actor. I dropped this because I absolutely despised the FL. It’s funny, I like the actress in interviews, but something about the characters she plays on screen always rub me the wrong way. I really couldn’t stand this one, maybe more than any FL in my history of watching dramas. She’s basically a cheater, a hippie playgirl who skirts all responsibilities and commitment like she’s allergic to it, leads men on, acts all bubbly and “free spirited” in a way that men are supposed to just swoon head over heels for, I could go on but I don’t even want to waste my time talking about her. Just no. And the ML is supposed to be so smitten with her that this is somehow all okay or even charming. She is the definition of toxic and the ML's mental health and happiness got completely destroyed. It got so frustrating that I didn’t care if her character ends up being redeemed or not. The documentary style was also jarring to the story and got old fast. I hope JCW continues picking good projects instead of ones like this, he's definitely one of Korea's best actors and deserves the best roles that show his range.

Leggi di Più

Not for me.

I tried twice and both times I could never get into it. I think this drama is targeted at a much younger generation, a big factor being so much emphasis on gaming. Literally so much of the show revolves around gaming, and it just does not interest me to watch lengthy scenes of characters sitting and playing on their phones and discussing video games. The ML, while super hot, was totally stone faced, although maybe that changes as the show progresses. It didn't during the episodes I watched, he barely made a facial expression once. As if that wasn't enough the plot itself was not very clear in the middle of all the gaming they kept showing, and her tricking ML into meeting offline and then constantly being so forward with him all the time came off as kind of weird and uncomfortable. The visuals were great though especially for a cdrama.

Leggi di Più

I hate it when you don't get what other people see in highly rated dramas, but this is one of those dramas for me.

I totally enjoyed the first episode, it was thrilling and set up a great killer mystery plot. Then they pulled the 180/time jump/complete style shift/slow down that you usually get when they try to hook you with an awesome first episode. Episode 2 was like a different show. I almost didn't make it through episode 2 because it lost me that much, but I forced myself to episode 3 because of the reviews. It hadn't hooked me by then so I dropped it. The plot went from thrilling and fast paced in episode 1 to slow and a little comical. It just didn't do it for me.

Leggi di Più

Not worth it

I was so excited for this drama and the first 2 episodes did not let me down. They were dark and mysterious with a thrilling vibe thrown in. Awesome. Then episode 3 hit and they pulled the old switchero of kdramaland, which always leaves me feeling deceived as if they were just trying to use the first couple of episodes to hook me. You know when the first few episodes of some shows are super exciting and then suddenly the pace slows wayyy down? This show did that, but on steroids. Nothing actually ever happened again. The show did a 360 and went from a unique thriller/romance/mystery to a romcom, a boring one. Literally it went from an exciting murder mystery to sitting on the beach talking about nothing to do with the plot. Characters just walking around. Even scenes of them dressing up for Halloween (what does this have to do with a murder mystery again?) You get the point.

It has some amazing cinematography, but that doesn't make up for the dud plot. The performances were decent, but there was no real chemistry between the leads, and the only one who gave a performance really worth watching was the villain. I made it to episode 6 and couldn't do this to myself anymore. There are much better shows to spend 16 hours on.

Leggi di Più

After finishing the first episode, I could tell why this was rated so highly: It's very heartwarming. It is sweet and inspirational watching an elderly man find passion in something late in life and prove to the world that he can do it despite his limitations or what anyone else may think. Yes indeed. But that alone isn't really what makes a drama "good" or necessarily watchable to me.

I continued through episode 4 and felt pretty bored. There's not much more to this drama IMO than excellent production value and that heartwarming-ness it has going for it. Plot is very slow. Wasn't for me.

Leggi di Più