My Liberation Notes (2022)

A lot of wisdom, interesting characters

I joined kisskh so that I could write this review. I have been watching KDramas on Netflix for a few years now and love so many of them. I thought I was going to love this one, too, but I felt really exasperated with how this one ended and I'm not sure I would ever want to watch it again (I've watched Chocolate twice, and there are many others I would definitely watch again). I liked the whole idea of the Liberation Club, and loved it when it gained a new member, and I feel like a lot more could have been written for the club characters interacting with each other, and about the two who were not main characters - I would have liked to know more about them. Although I liked Mi-Jung in the beginning, I liked her less and less as the show went on. The glum look on her face most of the time was maybe interesting at first, but it became really annoying after a while, and I also I think she was really stupid to think that Mr. Gu was an okay person who might ever be rehabilitated. I liked him, too, at first, but really disliked him by the end. What surprised me the most is that the two characters I disliked the most initially, Chang-He and Ki-Jung, became my favorite ones, especially Chang-He. I loved the weird accident at the end where he ends up in the wrong/right place. I love how sincerely sweet Ki-Jung turned out to be. There is a lot of wisdom in this drama - a lot to learn about relationships and feelings and interactions between people - and some funny moments along the way, where I laughed out loud. I don't know, maybe I could watch it again some day in the far future. It is worth watching at least once.

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Good But Not Without Its Problems

I’ll be honest here. I definitely had mixed feelings before I started writing this review with what to put. I guess that I should probably start with my overall thoughts on the show.

Personally I thought that ‘ My Liberation Notes’ was definitely well done from a screenwriting perspective . ( I mean what do you expect from the same writer of ‘ My Mister’?.) There was enough angst to pluck at your heartstrings but also a few opportunities here and there to explore lighthearted respite or focus on building up the characters as the plot went on.

HOWEVER, I have to say that while I honestly adore our main cast ( especially our main heroine played by Kim Ji Won) the show didn’t always possess a necessary spark for me in initial episodes. I’m not entirely what this was down to exactly. Maybe it was the acting slightly. That’s not to say that I thought the acting was bad at all. I was really impressed by the main cast as I said before and I can’t deny that Son Seok Koo really slammed the ball out of the ball pitch with his performance. ( Not a familiar face for me but I’m glad that ‘ My Liberation Notes’ has opened up my knowledge of some impressive actors)

Although while I do have a lot of things to praise by the acting here even I must admit early performances didn’t do a lot to really elevate these characters to life. To be fair I don’t think it was entirely the acting as pacing and writing maybe also played a key.

The first few episodes of the series were really bogged down on character introductions. I don’t think this is always a bad thing but rather than really giving us a lot of insight into the characters being built up, it felt a bit repetitive in this first part of the series before the action kicked off. Did I think this affected later episodes? Slightly. If I’m honest I thought that the second half definitely picked up and took note of these early mistakes but it didn’t always offer leeway to spicing things up. This isn’t to entirely be really negative though. I honestly did like how the plot panned out and the unexpected plot twists which played out here.

I’d say the filming was pretty good here. There were maybe a few moments here and there which felt as though they could’ve had a BIT more attention to detail but alongside the OST, I didn’t think this was entirely bad. Just a little incomplete in parts.

Overall thoughts; You can definitely tell this drama is cut from the same cloth as ‘ My Mister’ and considering it’s the same writer it is no surprise. I had my issues with writing and editing here and there but aside from my complaints, I thought that this was a surprisingly well balanced series with touching moments and intriguing characters. A strong 8.0/10.

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Such a disappointment

I just finished the drama yesterday and I was super frustrated and disappointed because after all I had high expectations because of the writer Park Hae Young with her Masterpiece drama (My Mister) but I was totally wrong. This drama had few amazing written scenes but most of it was a fail.

First of all, Mr. Gu I never understood him… and I found his character very poor written. even thoughI personally like the actor but this character was a big no. Always looking bored, lost and tired with a mystery past that was not exciting at all nor well explained. Also, his relationship with the FL oh my god… I have never ever hated main couple romance as I hated it in this drama. I almost skipped all of there scenes as I found it very boring, uncomfortable and very weird and not charming at all. I didn’t get their relationship at all and I don’t understand when the love bloomed? I hated watching nonsense so I just skipped it.
Chang hee was my favourite character. His scenes and dialogues were amazing and the actor excellently delivered his emotions, but I unfortunately skipped most of his scenes at the last couple episodes right after the stupid THIME SKIP. I the time skip thing was it necessary? Because actually the last three episodes were a total fail and the writer missed up. Ki Jung was also my favourite character as I found her very relatable outspoken and true to her self… but again why she super unconfident after being with tae hoon? Why all of a sudden would she accept mistreatment from his crazy sister and spoiled daughter? What happneed to the outspoken strong confident woman? I was really angry with how the writer ruined her character and even did not give her a clear proper ending. And tae hoon ahhh don’t even get me started. he promised to marry her when his daughter becomes 20??? and the way he ignores all the stupid things that his sister does to his girlfriend and yet pretending that he is the one who is having a hard time?


I would never watch this drama again and I just gave it 5 for the acting and couple of scenes.

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A promising drama about finding happiness and moving forward pulled back by awful tropes

Finding joys in life and learning to enjoy the many details in things is difficult, and that struggle is amazingly captured in this drama. Three siblings find themselves in a hopeless rut, commuting, working, and barely living. What ensues are antics, attempts, and pledges to live better, more fulfilling lives.

Unfortunately, this drama is plagued by some of the most common tropes in Kdramas. A mysterious character (Mr. Gu) is actually running from mafia-themed problems. This kind of random action genre isn't needed in a drama like this, and is often jarring in terms of pacing and storytelling. Not every mysterious character needs a dramatic backstory like this, and in my opinion he would have been a better character without it.

However, the sisters' arcs are the bigger issue. How can two main female characters have their story arc be resolved by relying on a man in 2022? Yeom Mi Jeong finds solace in having Mr. Gu worship her, and slowly gains confidence from them being acquainted. Her older sister, Yeom Gi Jeong, is worried about finding a relationship, and how to deal with all the emotions she has when she eventually gets into one. Both sisters are built up by their relationships in the end, learning to take life one step at a time. But do we really need both of them to learn this by seeking a man? Yes, you will need to rely on others and their support to get you through tough times. No, you do not need to explicitly have a relationship with those people for that to happen. Frankly, it's just unacceptable for two female leads to still require romance arcs in 2022 to actually learn or do anything.

Overall, the drama is well-acted, and it's pacing is excellent but can be too slow for some. The inclusion of bad tropes though is a huge negative for what this drama could have been. The drama does not live up to the potential it has, and I think it would be more well-received if it kept with the slow-burn slice of life genre throughout the entire show.

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Progressive Message: Quality of life increases with the degree of truthfulness (not scham&pretence)

"My Liberation Notes" is a ray of hope within South Korean series production.
In short: The lives of young people in their prime (+/- 30) are at stake here. Considering their groaning under the pressure of the competition in the workplace, the dazzling promises of the modern lifestyle industry, and the claims of society and family traditions, this could all be pretty depressing. But amazingly, it's not. The protagonists manage to give their lives something like dignity - quietly, impressively and with gentle intensity. They walk the way that lies before them, spraying their personal touch, a little bit, but nicely, thus leaving color and warmth on their trail.

The KDrama presents itself as a Netflix co-production and is thus in a certain way 'pimped' for an international audience - you don't see anything of the typical and rather special elements like makjang, slapstick, glitter & glamor of Jaebeol, or traumatic childhood secrets. Just life, every day, like everywhere else. Without spectacular ups and downs. As if someone had blindly reached into a pot full of addresses from a random location on the outskirts of metropolitan Seoul and then simply turned the spotlight and camera on the family living there for a while. In principle, it could be any family living near the terminal stations of the Seoul subway network. This, however, identifies the KDrama as specifically South Korean. Finally, the story is high KDrama quality, when it comes to a carefully, multi-layered narrative with deliberately reduced pace and space for the sensitive moments in between.


----------------- SIDE NOTE: --- Provincial life in the metropolitan area around the capital Seoul ---

So the KDrama simply tells about the normal life of relatively normal people around 30. They don't live in the megacity of Seoul (while almost 10 million people do) or in Incheon (with almost 3 million inhabitants), but in the sprawling province of Gyeonggi-do, which makes up the majority of the metropolitan area around Seoul in terms of space. The provincial population makes up ca half of the population of the more than 25 million inhabitants of the entire agglomeration around the capital Seoul. (And this in fact is about half of the inhabitants of South Korea altogether). An insight into the living environment of those provincial residents thus also offers an insight into a good deal of current South Korean life issues.

The fictional 'Dangmi Station' is actually Line 1's 'Seonghwan Station'. Crucially, most people who work in Seoul (increasingly) cannot afford to live in the city. Every workday they commute about +/- 2 hours to do their job in the city. With the evening company dinners and collegial come-togethers, a day becomes very long. There isn't much time left for a life of your own outside of work. While it is convenient in many respects to remain in the family home until marriage, this further reduces the amount of free time you have at your disposal. Especially if the parents still do a bit of farming and the help of the 'children' is required here and there.

City and country clash, almost every day. Accordingly, different life plans collide, which either fit more into a fast-paced, hip city life or rather into a rural, decelerated provincial life. In reality, however, new hybrid variants are needed that function as a flexible joint between both realities that are equally relevant to everyday life - city and country.

You might want to think about the meaning of life. About goals that you would like to set for yourself. What is life? What does it offer me? What would I actually like to do? Or, wait a minute, is it better not to think at all? It is up to the young people of the recent and the following working generation, to grope, to stumble, to develop new, visionary as well as down to earth attitudes and inspiring blueprints to life in a South Korea from the 2020s onwards...

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"My Liberation Notes" sails in this field of tension. Other than that, tension is not on the agenda. "My Liberation Notes" is processing the wisdom, the questions and the insights that the protagonists come up with over the course of the story - sometimes quietly to themselves, sometimes in conversation with friends.

The focus is on 4 protagonists who practically all live together in the provincial suburb of Seoul. Three of them are siblings and work in Seoul, the fourth is a stranger who helps their father in the carpentry shop and in the fields, eats with the family and lives next door. (A fantastic Son Seok-ko as an inscrutable stranger, as well as Lee Min-ki, Kim Ji-won and Lee-El as very different siblings, are presenting the range of everyday emotional worlds in a wonderfully haunting way.) All four wrestle with life in their very own manner and question, what freedom and quality of life could mean to them under the given circumstances. Promotion? Money? Success? A car? A partner? Marriage? Family? Living in an apartment in Seoul? Where is life? Is this life?

Eventually the aspect of reverence also comes to the fore: To respect and be respected. To be worshipped. To be adored... Yet how to express mutual adoration and respect (in order for your own life to feel maybe a bit more valuable)? ... Maybe just give it more space. That would be great...

The episodes pass as does life itself. The days are the same, and yet each one is new and different from the one before. Happiness is accumulated by the minute. And in the end, life is beautiful after all. Worth living. Distinctive. The quality increases with the degree of truthfulness that they give to their lives. And that's indeed a progressive message (as far as a society like the South Korean with its highly valued tradition of scham and pretence is concerned.)

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It’s a no.

This was one of the most boring and dullest dramas I’ve ever watched. I understand it’s genre and that it was intentionally projected this way. idk if the English subs were just bad but even the dialogue wasn’t that great to me. it didn’t make much sense too. The dialogues were so random and irrelevant. Even though it’s completely relatable stuff I’m also just at a loss for words at how mundane and overly dull their lifestyle was. They need vitamin D in their lives, it might help with the depressive lifestyle they have. Their outlook on life is just so very uninspiring and hopeless. I did not gain anything valuable. I did cry and the acting was superb. But definitely not my genre.

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life is hard, but you can still find happiness

As soon as I was at episodes 3-4 I got super invested and then the investment fizzled out, prob because my break from the show went too long. It’s weird but after the first few episodes, I didn’t really feel like unpacking the show despite the great things it has going for itself. The thing I loved about this drama was the script. What prompted me to watch this in the first place was a tik tok with Miyeong talking about not caring if the world ended but the way she described her fatigue for her life and people was so relatable I had to watch. One of my fave parts in the script was Miyeong talking about wanting to be worshipped. That was pure poetry right there. The way the character expressed their emotions and worded their hardships really stood out to me so props to the screenwriter. This is one of my favorite scripts now.

The characters were great too. The brother ended up being the most interesting character, even though he was the most ridiculous at first. I personally really like Miyeong and found her to be relatable for the most part. The sister was decent but her storyline wasn’t as interesting as her siblings. The liberation club was heavily underutilized and focused more on the characters than the coworker group at the beginning. I would have loved to see them hang out more together so you could feel their different journeys coming together if that makes sense. Gu was really great. The actor did a great job with portraying the demeaner and facial expressions of the character.

The ending was kind of open but I’m gad for the most part the characters decided to continue on their journey to happiness despite life not being perfect and to me that was the point of this show. The human ability to continue to live and seek happiness even when life becomes unbearable. That message in itself was beautifully conveyed.

I def recommend this drama is you’re into slow melodrama type shows as you might get a lot out of this one. I must admit this show is more of a one episode a week thing for me but feel free to binge if that works for you :)
life is

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Slow but wholesome

I am not the one to wait for something eventful to happen in a drama. if it gets boring, i drop it instantly. But for some reason the liberation notes made me stick to it till the end. Not gonna lie, it was too slow yet i could relate to it. All three siblings and their problems were too realistic. I was rooting for them and secretly hoped to find my way through them. Perhaps some words of motivation or a hope that it gets better.

In a way things did change for them at the end but not soo much as one would expect. That’s why the story is too realistic and bit bitter at times, it’s not those big drastic changes but tiny ones at a time that keeps them going. The portrayal of the family and their bond was soo organic.
Mi jeong wanted to liberate herself from her toxic workplace and her situation.She did stood up for herself at the end and gathered the courage to move to a new workplace. It might not seem like a big deal for some people but for a person who is a doormat, it’s a huge deal to stand up for themselves and it takes a lot. In the end Mr. Gu also returned to her. It wasn’t that grand happy ending but i guess it was a new start for her.
The older sister, ji jeong, wanted love, a partner and got one, even though, he had a complex background and all was not well in their relationship yet it was also a new beginning for her. Change always comes with a price.

And the brother, Chang hee, found a new purpose for his life after working hard for years to get a promotion or to own a store. Yet one thing i didn’t understand was why he and hyun ah broke up?? And why was there relationship toxic?? Also, It was soo sad that the siblings got to move to Seoul after their mother passed.

The only thing that bugged me was that ending could’ve been better. Ending wasn’t a perfectly happy one, it was bit unsettling yet it made a point that in order to get what you want, you need to get out of your comfort zone. And change comes with a price.

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