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Hats off to Hyun bin for his wonderful acting
This is the second drama I have watched with male lead having DID..other drama watched was kill me heal me kdrama..that was also best drama....also this is the second Drama of hyun bin in it..other Drama I watched him was in crash landing on you..I must say..that his acting in this drama was way better than in tht drama..this is just my opinion..but..yhh..I really loved his passionate acting ..back to this drama..I felt a little sad the seo jin didn't receive much love from jung ha na as much as robin did ..my heart ached whn seo jin was rejected so many times but he continued to love ha na and also was ready to sacrifice his life to live with robin..it was also painfull to see that the sencond lead was also the male lead,(get wht I mean?)they were fighting to themselves to get their love but they teamed up..that was nice to see..I wanted to see seo jin receiving love as much as robin did...and also male lead always have this DID ..I never saw a drama wid female lead having this..so I want to see tht passionate acting through a girl..Hats off to hyun bin's passion..
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It had great potential, but for me this was a one watch drama. This drama is a about a man that has split personalities, one CEO cold, expressionless and the other charming, artistic, a hero personality. Although the mental health issues was handled tactfully, romance is what I like at the center core of every drama I watch, and it was just not there for this drama watcher. On the positive side, the actor who played the mental health doctor that performed hypnosis who was seeking revenge was interesting, as was the CEO male secretary.Unfortunately, for most of the drama, the viewer just watches the ML and FL have a contest to see who can be the most expressionless and dull. The music was whiny, with mostly pressing one mouth to another with no movement at all, very little chemistry at all between the leads. During the last three episodes, I just wanted to be done with the drama already...... not recommended from my perspective.
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Good series that overuses some music
I really liked the series and like some others was confused by the bad reviews. I think the acting was amazing and the story was put together in an interesting way. However, I thought that there was one particular some that was MAJORLY overused. It was especially obvious in the beginning imo. That being said, the episodes that I watched back-to-back I was able to time it out. Overall thought this was a solid series for all the issues it takes on. I may rewatch it later but, it won't be anytime soon.Was this review helpful to you?
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Potential lost on those additional episodes
WARNIG, this review contains some massive spoilers!This drama gave me a lot of mixed feelings. For the most part it seemed very interesting and actually well written. I think I should be warned beforehand by really bad reviews, but at first I didn’t understand why it was so criticised, as it seemed to be actually entertaining. But then something happened.
Let’s start from the beginning. The idea is simple and actually well known. Gu Seo Jin is a young chaebol, director of amusement park. He is very composed, everything must be according to his words, he rules his company in a very stoic manner. And there’s a very good reason for it. Seo Jin has a DID, dissociative identity disorder. And his other identity, Robin, who’s name everyone avoid, can appear when Seo Jin’s heart rate will go too high. So no excitement for Seo Jin. But his five year steak of being Robin-free is about to be broken when Ha Na appears on the scene. Young circus actress work on Robin in mysterious ways and soon he appears.
And honestly, that’s a neat idea, and how it was done was also interesting. The comparison with Kill Me, Heal Me comes naturally, so I’d only say that transformation lacked weird effects, like change of eye colours, magically appearing tattoos or eyeliners (as it was in Kill Me Heal Me). It all seemed a bit more natural here, but of course it wasn’t perfect either.
And at first I really liked this drama. It all seemed pretty well. Production-wise it might’ve not be the best looking, there were some weird, pretty ridiculous moments, but not bad at the end. Main characters were interesting and well played (I mean, duh… Hyun Bin, right?).
It was sometimes painfully cliche. Because of course, and here comes major spoiler, so be aware, Seo Jin’s trauma from the childhood was caused by kidnapping. And of course, the child that was kidnapped with him is now a perp who kidnapped Seo Jin’s therapist. And Seo Jin wanted to save the kid as well but wasn’t able to do it, so that’s why Robin has a need to save people.
But aside all those things, up to some point this drama was pleasant to watch, just like that. Wasn’t the best, but I wasn’t bored, I felt somehow even invested in the story. Characters were interesting, there was some king of plot, even though writers seemed to forget about some motives and they brought them back out of spite.
What you can see from the beginning is cheap production. It’s maybe not incredibly obvious but I laughed my butt off when I’ver seen how they’ve changed car for accident scene. Brand new Mercedes shapeshifter into old Nissan. I mean, color was the same so I guess it’s all fine. But you can see after scenes like this that it’s not all perfect here. At least CGI gorilla wasn’t the worst.
So I actually enjoyed watching it, it all seemed very good, aside of those minor flaws that can be overlooked considering that this drama is not that new.
But you may ask, what happened then? Why am I writing good things about drama that I’ve marked so low?
Well… it all happens somewhere in the middle of the series. I’m always a bit sceptical towards drama that have more that standard 16 episodes. I’ve learned that many times writers just don’t use this additional time perfectly. And it happened here again. For four episodes we have an absolute chaos that doesn’t really changes anything. There’s a lot going on, but it doesn’t have any effect on the main plot.
A lot of new motives were brought then and some were totally forgotten about (third identity, anyone?). And yet, there were just too much information, too much was happening at the same time but the issues were not solved. There was no real plot development.
There was one episode that I swear was just dialogues. Nothing real happened, there was just exposition talking. Who’s who, and what could happen, that sort of things.
And the villain, interesting at first he grew into this exaggerated, over the top bond-type villain, who can do anything and cannot be captured. There were moments that I was wondering if he’s invisible because despite doing pretty obvious things, police still couldn’t figure out that it was him all along.
And don’t start me on the hostage situation episode. Yes, EPISODE. The whole episode when we had exclusively hostage situation. Nothing more happened, just talking about kidnapper. How it ended? I have no effing idea, it was so chaotic that I actually I haven’t catch all of it.
After this we had stretching motives till the very end. One issue had to be talked through by everyone and before anything happened my curiosity was long gone.
And only at the end, last two episodes we had some sense back, those two episodes brought my faith in this drama back a bit, but nothing could bring back my time that I’ve lost before.
So… I’m a bit in a pickle here. I really wanted to like this drama. Despite all of its flaws, ridiculous solutions and poor production. I liked main characters and I really liked how it all ended between them. But the truth is that Hyde, Jekyll, Me should have 16 episodes, no more. That’s it, thank you.
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Wraps itself up nicely, it's not rushed - some may argue it's perhaps a bit slow but I appreciated that they took the time to not gloss over some difficult stuff.
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Hyde, Jekyll, Me is a kdrama centred on a character with DID that came out at the same time as the much better received Kill Me, Heal Me. Because they share similarities in concept and came out around the same time, these two dramas are held up to one another automatically, so I think it's important to recognize how and why KMHM had such good reception when HJM couldn't pull in ratings. Other reviewers have mentioned the similar time slots, so I won't get into that. Instead, let's focus on HJM's shortcomings.
The story is about Goo Seo Jin, a rich chaebol heir who was kidnapped as a child alongside his friend--check off another similarity to KMHM. The trauma from that event and his inability to do anything about it eventually birthed Robin, his heroic, kind-hearted alter ego. But the story doesn't start with Robin's birth and instead, we're shown Seo Jin's position later in life, his bad personality and selfishness as he meets ringmaster Jang Ha Na and the two clash. One big drawback to the series is the very start of it. It took me two attempts to get through the first episode, and another two to make it past the first four. The beginning is clunky with weird pacing, an even weirder setup, and not a lot to suck you into the story. The first introduction to Robin as a character is cringy. He feels less like a person and more like a comic book superhero someone came up with in middle school. Both he and the main personality feel like caricatures, and it's painful to watch. Getting into this drama is hard, there are no two ways around that. But does that mean it's not worth watching? Well... I have a story for that.
I started watching HJM coming off of a few really great dramas. I absolutely fell in love with those dramas back-to-back and once they were over, I couldn't bring myself to get invested in any of the other good-looking shows out there. Ah, I thought, the dreaded burnout. That's when I looked back at my 'dropped' list and saw the name Hyde, Jekyll, Me. I went into it wanting a trashy, badly-written drama that I could laugh at. I only paid half attention, especially to the earliest episodes, and it worked out exactly as I expected it to. The plot was cliche, a bit stupid, with some moments that didn't make a lot of sense and a bit of dragging towards the middle that I was used to seeing at the halfway. Every now and then, I would put the drama back on hold again and would switch to series that I was invested in until the burnout came and I would inevitably need my 'trash drama' once more.
But something strange happened amidst all that. The writing wasn't good by any means, even when the acting was decent, and my wife and I would mock and laugh at some of the things that they were doing, but then it came time for the final episodes. The main conflict was over, the antagonist was gone, and there were still a few episodes to go. All that was left to settle was the conflict of the dual personalities, something that, remembering KMHM, I expected to take maybe half an episode. But it didn't. And as I watched the characters go through their days and saw the inevitable end creeping up on them, I realized that I actually cared about the characters for some strange reason. The characters I thought of as caricatures grew on me when I wasn't looking and suddenly they mattered to me. And sure, what happened from there on was predictable, but I was still invested.
Just like how production values don't make a show, you don't always need a solid story to love something. Sometimes all you need is time and a little bit of passion. HKM is nothing of a masterpiece, but that doesn't mean it did everything poorly. Instead of focusing on the outward appearance of DID like KMHM did, it put time into the internal effects that the illness had on both Seo Jin and Robin, and the ripple effect it had on the people they surrounded themselves with. Even while its handling of the issue was silly, with hypnosis sprinkled in for added effect, and even with Robin being a better person than Seo Jin and more likeable to boot, it remembered that the root of everything was mental illness. It took the time to make Robin a person instead of a stereotype the way that KMHM treated its alters, and it respected its characters enough to give them a proper end.
The production is a bit of a mess, the writing is sloppy and premise is weird, but it's a drama with heart. Don't take it seriously, and you may be pleasantly surprised.
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Overall i would recommend it
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It was a rather fun watch back then but I do not remember anything
One ML actor acts two opposite roles ah so well!!!!I was not impressed by the FL actress... she was ... flat and boring. One dimensional. Speaks too slowly and surly.
And I do not remember anything - plot, characters, etc from this kdrama!!! unless I really really try.... So it tells me it was shallow and acting wasnt genuine
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This one was my favorite of all time before CLOY. Please ignore the bad ratings, ignore all the comparisons between this and KMHM and give your pure heart a try. Like I said it’s not just another rom com because its plot is complex. But to those who love complicated plotlines and plot twists, you won’t be disappointed. Hyun Bin is simply the best actor.
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