Melting Me Softly

Watch Only If You Are a Fan of Ji Chang Wook

I only watched this drama to see Ji Chang Wook. As always he does a good job to portray the character who was frozen for 20 years and woke up just as handsome together with a female volunteer of experiment played by Won Jin-A. The chemistry between the two fairly good but but fail to hold it's passion consistently throughout especially during the last 3 episodes as Won Jin-A was frozen again and poor JCW had to wait another 3 years for her to awake.
After being frozen for 20 years and additional 3 years, surprisingly the heroine still not in a hurry to marry and want to experience more on developing her own self. Luckily JCW character is understanding, compromises and supports her dreams. Somehow, towards the end the mutual love and passion did not seem quite balanced. Happy ending, overall a drama one can watch if there is no other interesting dramas to watch. Strictly for fans of JCW advisable.

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Cryogenics, clichés, and a romance thawing slower than ice.

✨ THE GOOD (the tiny sparks in the frost):

Ji Chang-wook in a lab accident? I mean, you had me at “handsome popsicle.”

The idea is fun kinda ? a couple frozen for 20 years waking up in a new world. Could’ve been fun , cliché but fun.

Funny enough the MC’s brother’s ridiculous “meat song” is somehow the only memorable cultural artifact this show produced.

A very, very small handful of decent acting moments here and there manage to peek out of the ice.


❄️ THE “WHY ARE WE STILL DEFROSTING?” PACKAGE:

Pacing is a glacial disaster. Whole episodes move slower than actual ice melting for no godamn reason .

The science is pure comedy i could swear i've heard doctors cry in the background , cryogenics explained like a drunk TED Talk. Even sci-fi fans gave up.

Tonal chaos: rom-com one minute, conspiracy thriller out of the smelliest trash you know , then straight into filler-ville.


🤦 THE “YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO DO US LIKE THIS” ENERGY:

The chemistry exists, but the writing sabotages it pretty hard . How do you make Ji Chang-wook boring? idfk ?

Side characters feel like they’re on another planet straight outta fairytale none of their subplots shit matter.

Way too much time wasted on nonsense and i mean nonsense i have no f***ing idea about what they were talking about sometimes like i've entered another show without knowing , so instead of exploring the actual cool part of the premise , f*ck no filler exists for a reason .


💔 THE “DID THEY REALLY THOUGHT THIS COULD’VE BEEN FIRE ?” DEPARTMENT:

The frozen then reawakened theme , biggest cliché you may think of yet supposed to be fun ? , could’ve been somehow fresh like sometimes it works , instead it’s freezer burn .

The romance deserved heat. What we got was lukewarm soup served in slow motion.


🎯 FINAL VERDICT:
"A drama that promised ice-cold thrills but gave us room-temperature clichés. Watch if you’re a Ji Chang-wook ride or die.
Skip if you expect science , tase , or common sense."

Best paired with:
🍦 A tub of ice cream (melts faster than the plot) and a YouTube clip of the “meat song” to remind yourself something good did come out of this trash .

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I was just like..I could feel evry moment in it...

This drama just melt my Heart...Dong chans care for Mi Ran I liked the most..

This drama caught my attention only becsuse the role called dong chan...chang wook really a great actor I have to admit that...

Though I Don't know such a guy like dong chan does exist or not...but trust me..I don't thik theres any good example of a perfect guy other than dong chan..

From the very start...when he was convincing Mi Ran for the experiment...When he saw that she is crying..he changed his mind..and stoped forcing her...

After woking up after 20 years....He took all the responsbillites for her...He always took care of her...just evry single moment...And they fell in love..

A girl doesn't want much from a guy...His sincere Love snd Care Respect for her...And thats enough fot win over a girl...I think dong chan does more than this...

I admit that this story lacking so many things..
but still this dong chan charecter is the only reason I watched it....

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I was looking forward to this drama as it was Ji Changwook's first since he got discharged from the military service, but I was pretty disappointed. This show lacked substance, wit and failed to engage with me. As much as I have enjoyed other of his shows, here he just looked handsome and nothing more.

The first episodes were really promising, I liked how the show was shot and enjoyed the part about 1999 (Hongki's role was really cute) and how they dealt with waking up 20 years later. This part, which should have been the hardest to pull of the show, got me emotionally engaged. I liked a lot the relationship Miran had with her little brother, and it was refreshing to see a character with special needs portrayed so tenderly. I also felt for Ma Dongchan's family as I learned about how they suffered for years looking for him and never giving up (and losing their fortune). Also, how he tries to reconnect with his girlfriend from 20 years ago is really sweet, not caring about her aged appearance.

I also enjoyed how they start falling in love, how they actually need to keep away from each other not to raise their heartbeat and body temperature and... omg, the shower scene!

But after that the show became predictable and boring, leaning too much on the plot of the evil twin which was not very well carried out. Also, the scientist, even after regaining his memory didn't know how to raise their body temperatures to 36 degrees?! That part puzzled me... It means he froze them 20 years ago without already having the injection ready, meaning he was reckless to carry out the experiment and basically lied to Ma Dongchan saying everything was fine. That didn't make sense and I think it was the only way the writers had to make the story longer and make viewers more interested, but they lost me.

Now, I am all in for female empowerment, but when the female lead postpones taking the life saving injection to shoot a stupid teaser for a reality tv show? (which they didn't need her at all to shoot) They lost me again. When she finally wakes up after all the ordeals and tells him she wants to study abroad? They lost me yet again. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to see women prioritising their careers, but not actively disregarding the feelings of people around her!

By the end of the show Miran was acting like a spoiled princess that knew she had the guy wrapped around her finger, but to be honest, I never quite understood what he saw in her to be so madly in love. She stole his dream of becoming a PD, she stole the motivation he had to be a PD, her personality turned annoying, and she became completely self-absorbed.

It was a promising show but just when I thought it began to melt, someone turned on the A/C

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The 5 out of 10 I am giving are just for the few laughs that I had here and there and for the effort put by the good actors.
Greatly disappointed. No interesting plot and a wasted cast. Cringe worthy sometimes. Don't watch this if you have other choices. Even for me who's a JCW fan, I didn't enjoy watching him, his character ended up being dull.
The plot could have a great potential and I was expecting to see a lot of the adaptation to a world 20 years later but we ended having a weird mix between a research lab, a mob (mafia) and office romance. All of those were of no interest as I would surely have preferred watching more of the family links and more of what it is to be back 20 years later, how to adapt to an internet driven world, how to understand the evolution of world events, world music, world drama, all the scientific achievements, the new danger the humanity is facing...

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It now seems premature to have called Abyss the worst drama of 2019. Who knew dramaland had this televisual equivalent of listeria-laden warm ice cream waiting in the wings.

Ma Dong-chan (Ji Chang-wook, in the world's most inexplicable choice for a comeback drama) is a smoking hot GENIUS film maker who wins awards and grasps complex scientific theories in mere days. He agrees to get frozen for 24 hours but ends up being frozen for 20 years instead. There is a female version of him but she is mostly just pink. No, really, this excruciating Candy gets literally dressed as candy. I feel quite bad for Won Jin-ah who has a thankless role as Go Mi-ran - forced to be nothing more than a bright, happy, naive love interest for a man who's kind of a jerk.

Both Dong-chan and Mi-ran find themselves 20 years in the future and forced to keep a hypothermic body temperature to survive. While Dong-chan's fiance is now 20 years older, Mi-ran's narcisstic Freud-quoting ex is now a lecturer at her university. There's a lot of potential conflict to work with here but the show ignores almost all of it; steaming full speed for a somewhat-icky romance between a man who doesn't like his fiancé now she's old and the comparatively-uncomplicated Candy he starts making googly eyes at ten seconds after his break up.

It's not difficult to find negative things to say about this shallow puddle of a show: rather it's difficult to know where to begin in outlining them. Nobody involved in this has done anything right - not the writer, director, producer, actors or anyone responsible for anything. Even the music is wrong.

The humour of the show is similar to the worst of Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (this writer's previous work) and the show insists on undercutting any moment that could be powerful and emotional with bland, tasteless slapstick. Between the shrieking and the flailing and the forced romance, the show fails to make you care about either of these people. More importantly, neither of the leads have a character arc. Compared to a show with a similar premise - Thirty But Seventeen - it's shallow and trite with the 20 year time jump treated like a mild inconvenience and the hypothermia a mere romance roadblock.

The show seems to exist for the purpose of getting Wookie in a make-out shower scene to "cool down"; something that will only justify 16 episodes of television for the most ardent Wookie fan.

In a more succinct version of this review: this show sucks worse than Abyss. Don't watch it.

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With such a lineup of actors who are masters at portraying intense emotions, you would think that shallowness and lack of chemistry would never be a potential issue here. Yet it was, but I don't blame the actors.
I think the story itself, the writing and the directing were just not on point.
It felt too slow at times, totally rushed at others. I can see where the story is supposed to go and what emotions I'm supposed to feel as a viewer but the drama didn't manage to catch my attention at all.
The romance was very mechanic, and it felt like they were in love just because they had to for the purpose of the drama but nothing felt organic.
The comedic aspect was overdone and therefore not funny in my opinion. The plot was ... just very superficial, forced and uninteresting.
I couldn't go past the 10th episode so my review is based on only half of the drama but I dont think it's worth watching it further. I still put a 6 for the actors who seemed to try very hard with the material they had.

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Interesting Concept, but did it work?

After seeing Chang-Wook in Healer, I started looking for more of his dramas to watch. One of the titles that caught my attention was this one...but the thing that made me hesitant was all the negative reviews for the drama. Of course, I dropped my expectations very low, but that probably helped me enjoy what I could from it. By no means is it a bad drama, I thoroughly enjoyed what was presented. The two leads did the best that they could, given the flawed storylines and the plot holes that are as clear as day. The side characters were more of an interesting note for me, the villain didn't have much in terms of plot development, only to contribute as filler to help push the characters closer together. The second female lead's actions, well they were questionable to watch. Where does her true allegiance lay? It was hard watching her development, but at least the drama ended on a positive note and gave everyone what they deserved. I'd watch it if you're a Won Jin-ah/Ji Chang-Wook fan, but don't expect it to top your drama list.

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Many people had great expectations towards Melting Me Softly because:
- at the beginning teaser, it really seemed fresh and new
- Ji Chang Wook comeback

However, in general opinion it has become a disappointment. The storyline is really good and has so much potential. It's new, it's fresh and there are many other ways that the drama could have gone to be so much better.

In watching the drama I saw two problems why this drama is generally disliked:
- people had great expectations because we're used to getting quality content drama when we hear the name Ji Chang Wook but sadly the writers didn't do this drama justice
- people started to have prejudice towards this drama because there have been a lot of negative reviews *that being said, although it had been a disappointment but in my opinion, it is not worth all the hate it's getting... it's bad but there there are worse out there* But if you think about JCW and all the other actors here it is indeed quite below them all. The writers couldn't showcase the great cast's potential for sure.

But I would like to point out the things I love about this drama (since I see very few ppl think that there's even something good about it):
- I like how consistent both Ma Dong Chan and Ko Mi Ran with their role being "old-school". Especially at the beginning. It did get better when they started to "keep up" and the things they used started to get modernized but even so they're still consistent in acting like an old person (behind their times).
- The messed up hierarchy. I so so love this about this drama especially when it comes to Ma Dong Chan. He is mostly older than everbody else in the drama following his real age and it's funny how they all act around him. His younger brother and sister, his former assistant director all call him with honorifics even when he looks wayyy younger. I find it funny and interesting when they call him oppa, hyung and sunbae. (I especially loved the scene when his younger sister and brother came to him for a hug.) I also love it when he shows other people his ID card showing his date of birth and they're just stunned.
- The great effort the actors has put into it. And I can imagine how much fun they must have on set.
- The comedy. Yeah yeah call me weird for liking the comedy. But the thing is, I knew from first ep how the comedy in this drama is going to go. At first it will put you off cuz they happen at moments that they shouldn't have but I decided to just let it go and then along the way I started to like it and laugh with it.
- Ji Chang Wook doing these skit-like comedies. LOL. When we hear JCW we automatically think about Empress Ki (an emperor for goodness sake), Healer (a really skillful fighter), K2 (a very dangerous ex-military man), Suspicious Partner (prosecutor/lawyer). All of these drama did have their own funny moments and JCW did well in all of them. But, this is the first time that he obviously went all out. I like that I found this new side of him. And that proves what a great actor he is. I'm glad that he took the risk.

I admit that I watched it because of JCW and not because of a great story (cuz it's not haha). But, I still find things that I love about it so I don't think it's all that bad.

P.S. Rereading the review, I seem like a die hard fan of JCW and it looks so biased LOL. Just FYI I am not hahahaha. I just happened to watch all of his drama and liked them all.

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THE OVERALL RATING ON MDL FOR THIS DRAMA IS SUCH A SCAM.. REALLY GLAD I TRY WATCHING THIS DESPITE ALL THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS :)

for a drama addicted 23 y/o being and had watch 500+ kdramas for about 11y now.. u can say im quite picky but honestly this drama just damn funny and the story line is decent enough for me.. i dont even notice any plot hole and the series wrapped up great. I love Ji Chang Wook's character here in Melting Me Softly more than Suspicious Partner.. his character is more consistent and solid here.

The funny moments start when they wake up from the frozen capsule and notice the ppl around them aging.. i mean when suddenly an ahjusshi and ahjumma start calling him hyung/oppa out of nowhere HAHAHAAHH, the supporting cast really do a good job playing vice-versa character throughout the series.

I mean if u expect this is a sci-fi cryonic marvel superhuman movie with a Captain America character in mind.. PLEASE DONT! This is a kdrama who tell u a story about two human being who trying a cryonics experiment for a future medical purposes to help ppl who got illness, and that experiment was supposed to take place for only 24h but and accident happened and they have to be frozen for 20y without their consent..

Its a story about how the two cryonics human struggling to adapt new surrounding with 31.5 C which is an abnormal temperature for human.. and try to adapt on how the world change with new technologies, trends etc after 20y and of course end up falling in love with each other.. obviously, its a kdrama after all haha <3 their chemistry are lovable! its really funny whenever they tried to kiss suddenly their body temperature gone up and have to date in an ice room at the sauna HAHAHAHAH

Overall i really like the series, its a perfect romcom kdrama with lots of laughing moments.. i really enjoy it <3

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The low score reviews could be quite unfair

I don't quite get such harsh reviews for this drama which is why I am contributing with this review. Maybe expectations were very high and if the writer had chosen to grade down the initial level of exaggerated reactions and actions from family members and FL idiotic "first love" the reviews would be much better. I skimmed through the parts above mentioned and I was delighted to watch the development of a great romantic relationship between the main leads. They are great and provide many episodes of great entertainment and smiles. Family members also get better and even the idiotic support ML even though is dragged for a while in his annoying role, after a while starts to be toned down.

If you like the ML and FL give it a try, don't worry too much with a couple of initial general idiocy and I think you will enjoy it quite a bit.

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