Melancholia

“A Melancholic Fail”

The listless and uninspiring female lead Im Soo-jung, who apparently has been in the entertainment industry for 20 years and has surprisingly won a Best Actress award in the past, is the reason why “Melancholia” is a melancholic flop for me. It’s baffling how, after all the many years of experience and exposure she has had, she displays this level of “lazy acting” that is really burdensome to watch. Her aura here is very much like her demeanor in “Search: WWW” - unappealing and dreary. Her face is lifeless and devoid of any expression no matter what emotion she’s going through. She is enormously outshined by junior cast members and a wrong match for the powerful acting consistently shown by the male lead Lee Do-hyeon, who is much younger and less experienced than her. This awful mismatch is a major distraction and the main reason why I’m giving this drama series a low rating.

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plot that failed horribly just after a good start

It started with very good two episodes or so that's it then it became just normal crush from a teenage kid with sad past and good teacher that helped him overcome his grief then it became an obsession from the student towards the teacher then it backfired on them both ,, the teacher didn't do anything wrong , may be she overlooked the obsession that the kid developed towards her because she liked his mathematical brain ,,, then the drama suddenly jumped four years into future and the kid became adult so now he's allowed to love his teacher ,, he couldn't find her so he became a teacher himself to avenge her from the people that wronged her , ,,, of course that's not smart at all from math Genius then he find his teacher is doing the same but from far hahaha then he started chasing her again ,, they went round and round each other with no affair or love scenes or any actual romance it became dull and very boring turned into revenge plot that is failing too
By the way ,, the first few episodes they tried to make math fun and enjoyable to learn but the writer lost his IQ on the way didn't mention math or did any smart moves after that hahaha
so after 13 episodes all we got is a very annoying characters who are very bad towards each other and two main leads who are lost and trying to get back at the bad people but failing miserably that's it
You won't get anything from this drama but what i've said above
good luck

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Good Enough

Korean Drama '' Melancholia '' is a school drama.

The series has a dark academia feel to it, with the two leads truly engrossed with their science, being in love with math and willing to make new leaps in their field.

The school drama, in addition, was neat, even though, halfway through the drama, got boring and some twists were being repeated. The romance, on the other hand, was nicely handled and was subtle, though the love triangle was forced.

Nevertheless, the characters of the drama were interesting to follow and had chemistry. The performances by everyone in the cast were smooth and nicely executed as well.

So, overall, six out of ten.

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Engaging, interesting, and romantic in a non-traditional sense

This is my first drama review, and the reason why I decided to write one is because I would love to increase the rating of this show. Without any spoilers, this story spans years of uncovering a corrupt school system that benefits the rich and silences those who challenge the system. But it's also a love story, but not just romantic. I initially started watching it because of the noona-romance premise, but this is honestly not the best description of the love described in this show.

It's a love story about friendship between and among generations of educators, students, and mathematicians. It's a love story about minds that understand each other without ever having to physically interact to stimulate passion. There's no insta-love or insta-lust in this story. It's love in a really pure, innocent form.

I usually don't care about the politics in Korean dramas, and I typically avoid them and stray toward rom-coms. BUT, since the politics were interwoven so intimately with the main characters, you had to follow along with the politics to see how it would affect our MCs. So it didn't feel draggy (though I did skip many of the political conversations in the first 6 episodes,) But once the time jump occurred, following the politics became necessary to understand how our MCs would achieve justice for what was wronged. It was actually pretty interesting and I found myself skipping the political scenes less and less the more our MCs got involved. And by the end, I was cheering whenever something was uncovered.

This is not a traditional "romance" drama with lots of physically affectionate scenes. But this is a romance of minds, of understandings brought by healthy communication (by the end, at least), and of the idea of found family. Please give it a shot. I'm so glad I did.

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not my thing

big big big like big hude fan of lee do hyun and i watched most of his dramas and i wanted to try smth new like one of his romance dramas and um so like i like ts drama alot actually and i love the scientific crac in it too but one think im not a fan of the teacher student relationshipp and the fact that the higher people just kept doing wtv they wanted like bro the world does not revole of u trust, i watched till ep 4 and watched the last ep cz honest i was getting boreddd (first lee do hyun drama i got bored of😖) i feel like the whole teacher student thing is alri but ms ji was js so dam blank that i didnt even like get to like her much like no offense if ts was a horror or smth and she died i lwk wudnt caree sooo ya it has a alright plot tho js not rly my likings

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story is good but plot ?

when i read the story ,i loved the concept but when i watched the drama i didn't find myself connected with the plot because with the starting of the drama I didn't see any happiest movement. It started by introducing the main characters , a teacher who is genius in maths and preparing students for some type of competition who had been living with her boyfriend and on the other side a boy who also genius in maths but always kept himself hide frome others . Though he was
sit among the students in a class but never been noticed . Then one day the teacher identified his talent and try to pursue him to take part in the competition but due to his scary past he never wanted to show his talent . Then the teacher helped him to overcome from the past and slowly slowly everybody came to know about him . After the entry of powerful people who were trying to destroyed the teacher and the student's careers . They post their(student and teacher) such pictures which had shown that something was going between them ,may be they are in relation and then many things had happened . At very last of the drama had shown that everything had been solved and they had a happy ending .
i really felt melancholy all the time . All the time sad and sad happened between the main characters. even the background were sad .
i knew the story was about tragedy conspiracy and jealousy and accordingly the music had been given but not even single episode of happiness . In one of the scene the leads went to the beach there also though for the characters they are spending good times with eachother but still i felt melancholy. Literally who has patience to watch the drama till end i recommend this to those.
But i will say the story is good because it had shown how powerful people make the use of power to destroy other person's life because of their willful wish.

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Beautiful Math

Melancholia (2021)

Likes
1. I loved the first 6 episodes when they were still in high school. But episodes 10-13 dragged. They could have cut some of the scenes and made the drama shorter.
2. Loved the relationahip between Seung Yoo and Yoonsu. You can really feel how much they love math. Too bad the present time was focused on the corruption/revenge and not a lot of math.
3. I liked Si-an. She may be an orphan but she grew up well, is smart, happy and is tough to stand against Jina and the bullies. I also liked Jina more than Yerin (she always had this sour face the entire time and was too stubborn and to admit her mistake).
4. Second time to see Jin Kyung play the baddie and i love it. She is so elegant but that maniacal laugh is scary (but not Cheon Seojin level). I also find the feud between the sisters interesting and i was actually rooting for Jungah not Yeonwoo.
5. I also liked Sungjae. I actually wished he and Yoonsu will get back together.

Dislikes
1. I never liked math so although this drama made math sound so beautiful and interesting, i still got lost with all the metaphors about math.
2. I felt that the romance wasn't needed. They could have ended as best friends or teacher-mentor and it still would have been a great ending.

Rating: 8/10

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It seems and feels like a toxic show but it is not. Give it chance.

After watching the 2nd episode i know this drama is off to a good start.

From the beginning there is a romantic air between main leads but i think thats just it,i dont think they will portray anything ROMANTIC before the time skip.

For anyone who is avoiding this drama thinking its a Pedophilic drama or for normalizing cheating on spouse, Dont do it.

The Cast is absolutely stunning with Im So Jung and Lee Do Hyun and many others. The story is about misunderstood scandal and corrupted private schools, not pedo romance.

Even though I'm just a few episodes in, its a good drama with great acting.

DONT AVOID THIS DRAMA THINKING ITS JUST A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP.

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Beautiful tribute to math

Usually I don't write a review but I really needed to do it this time.
Unfortunately I think society is not ready for this type of content, nevertheless this is, until this last episode, a beautiful tribute to math, and a excellent representation how parents and schools are most of the time cutting wings from students due the amount of pressure and strict methods.
Above all, as a neurodivergent, I feel that this is a beautiful representation how our mind works.... The focus, the passion, how we see things.... It's hard to explain but they surely did a great job.
It's a shame that people are too focus on a future relationship between them (that supposedly is going to happen when they're older), ignoring what's really the focus of the story.
It's also a shame the double standards, because in Goblin she was also a student, but didn't have 1/10 of the criticism this one is having.
Society is clearly not ready to this show yet, but it's still a beautiful story nevertheless, so please consider watching it with a open mind, who knows, you may actually enjoy it a lot!

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My Melancholia Diary. So far, a MASTERPIECE- Still watching.

I never do this, but I feel like screaming it: I am at ep6 and this is feeling like a MASTERPIECE. I will update/change this review when I've completed my watch. The space limit here is a challenge, btw. Here's where I am as of ep6 into 7:

Has anyone ever gone on record as being for student-teacher love relationships? Can I get a show of hands? Nobody with a shred of decency believes that's a healthy thing, and this show is not advocating for that. In fact, there's only one adult in M who is desperately trying to do the right thing. Doing the right thing requires filling some big shoes.

M is screaming this at us through a virtual megaphone as it sets up a wild contrast to punch its point home. People enjoy screaming down wrongs and then walking away as if they've “fixed” the dreadful problem. It takes more than words. In the 80's they moved to ban the novel Huck Finn from school libraries because it contains the racist “N” word. The (truly embarrassing) irony is that Huck Finn may be the most profoundly anti-racist American novel ever written. What is more important? The fact that, as part of illustrating how wrong racism is, they first show us racism, or the technicality that they used the “N” word? Of course, the message is what's important. If the people behind the book burning were trying to keep racial tensions stoked it wouldn't look any differently when it comes to Huck Finn. Now we have Hyuk-Fin. Viewers were fin-ished as soon as they heard it was a teacher-student romance. Scream loudly & fix the problem: Activated. What these people missed was the real problem and this elegant show's true message.

Many of us may have to deal with inappropriate feelings of some sort. It is difficult to control feelings. People will fall in love. We are not responsible for the inappropriate feelings or dark thoughts that invade our psyche. We ARE responsible for what we do. The first mistake we make is lingering. If one went to Sunday school and remembers the story of Joseph, the right thing to do sometimes is get your Monty Python on and RUN AWAY!

Melancholia is a trick problem, though. On one plane it's dealing with how we deal with inappropriate feelings, but on another plane it's goosing us. There is only one adult in this show who is not f'g the kids, and that's our FL, the one who is in love inappropriately. She is not the problem. All the other adults are. I'm in ep6 and I'm beginning to think this is a masterpiece. The acting is comprehensive brilliance while the writer and director are legerdemainists of the highest order.

“During the Qjng Dynasty, there was a scholar who kept failing the Imperial examinations. So he decided to commit suicide... Before he did it, he complained to the Jade emperor. “I tried so hard… why couldn't I pass it? How come people who are lazier and less smart than me pass it?” The Jade Emperor summoned the god of effort and the god of fate to compete in a drinking contest… The god of Fate drank 7 glasses while the god of effort was only able to drink 3. From this fable came the saying “Unchil gisam” the success of a person depends on luck rather than talent or effort.” Ms Noh makes her point to the privileged parents of her privileged students. FATE put them there, these owners of manifest destiny. But she's interrupted by an upstart woman; little more than a girl, really. “It was the god of JUSTICE who was in the drinking game, not the god of effort. /Justice/ is society's underpinning,” she asserts. The police come and collect her. They want to know if she slept with her student. Then we go back 4 months.

Lim Soo Jung is the teacher, “Soo”. I haven't seen her before but her look in M is calculated. She's so pale. Crunching numbers has kept her out of the sun for years. She looks like she cut and dyed her own hair in the laziest, most unartistic, & cheapest fashion imaginable. She probably grabbed the dullest scissors from the school's art room. This actress is astounding in the way her facial expressions mark reserve. They show concrete walls behind her eyes when she interacts with her clod of a fiance, but when she's with her student Yoo, she's fulgent.

Imaginative but not imaginary: 👠Walk a mile in her shoes. Soo dresses in drab but her shoes do the talking. At the end of ep2 her feet are in bright green shoes: Green for go, youth, nativity, & growth. She's ready to get moving with this kid. Later, she meets her fiance and future mother-in-law to try on wedding dresses and on her feet are chunky black Oxfords with black socks. They look like combat boots. In ep4 they sit on a park bench and eat Popsicles as she wears pinkish-tan slip ons. They cover her entire foot except for the entry slots, like boat shoes. They are barely pink, but they seem like budding feelings. At Jeju it's utilitarian SNEAKers. It appears that they keep her full feet out of the frame unless there's a message for us.

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Master's opinion

Initially got into this drama for the male lead as well as for the maths but there wasn't much math in the drama after first few episodes. There was more of the politics involed in the schools which i have seen in quite a few dramas.
This drama did make me fell suffocated and the nature of the adults yet showed me that students are not all pure and innocent as they put themselves as it can be considered their cheat sheet. The ending was not so shocking, somewhat predictable.
And i liked the teacher and student relationship and how it went. This was one of the few teachers who showed resistance the most to there relationship , which showed maturity.

Overall .. Not bad

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