A complex political thriller with family drama and personal growth
While the show is dark and serious, it's really engaging. There are numerous plot threads weaving through this series, centering around three sisters characters. The eldest sister who is an outcast at her company because she's poor, lacks a higher education, is divorced, and is also attractive. She forms a unique friendship with another outcast who hides her luxurious alter ego. This relationship leads to our eldest sister gaining possession of a significant sum of money, tainted by corruption. The middle sister is a passionate reporter investigating the background and family connections of a politician running for Seoul's mayor. However, she struggles with alcoholism and often becomes emotional on camera. The youngest sister is an exceptionally talented artist who won a scholarship to a prestigious art school in South Korea. She forms a close friendship with a wealthy girl from the school, essentially becoming part of the rich family. This doesn't sit well with her elder sisters, who suspect that the rich family has ulterior motives. Furthermore, the rich family connected to the youngest sister is the very same family that our second sister, the reporter, is investigating. The connections become increasingly messy as the story unfolds.Now, this show has an exceptional cast. They delivered outstanding performances, with the eldest sister standing out due to her character's development and screen time. The cinematography is a masterpiece, the set design and overall color grading are meticulously crafted, with subtle clues woven into the details. Also the music is as beautiful as the visuals.
What I don't like are the characters and the story all throughout. The sisters seem so unlikeable and dim, they keep making choices that put them in jeopardy. It was painful to watch them being played over and over again by people around them, it feels that the plot just keep happening around them just for performances. While plot twist after plot twist keep happening, the last 4 episodes do not round the story very well.
-Oct 2023, Yovita
Find me on Instagram: @kdramajudge
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TRY TO WATCH, IT'S WORTH IT
Best Drama, Best Casting, Best Writing, And Best Directing. All Cast are working Hard and Job Well done.Kim Go Eun Acting is The Best and Truly A Versatile Actress
Kim Go-eun as Oh In-ju is the Eldest Sister. Typically responsible, confident, and dedicated to her Siblings. She priority and protect her Siblings First before herself especially, the youngest one In Hye. She grew up in a terribly poor environment and is still poor. Ever since she was a young child, In-ju realized that money was the most important thing to protect herself and her family. Her dream is to live an ordinary life like other people. She
Nam Ji-hyun as Oh In-kyung, the middle sister. She is an enthusiastic reporter at a news station. In-kyung believes in doing the right things. She also has always been poor, but money doesn't rule her life. She now begins to dig into a mysterious case that she first faced when she first became a reporter.
Park Ji-hu as Oh In-hye , the youngest sister, who studies at a prestigious art high school due to her natural drawing skills, and sometimes feels that her sisters’ love for her is too much.
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Waste of my time and it will be a waste of yours
Honestly, at first, I thought it would be very interesting. But then they went and continued the show.The only likable character was Choi Do Ill. And that's it. The first two sisters were just annoying and downright stupid. And don't even get me started on In-hye, I hated that girl to the very last fiber in my body. Such an ungrateful, teenager that only whines and leaves her family behind just to live off of someone else's money. People only try to excuse her actions by calling her a child.
The way that the evil characters got away with literally everything so conveniently even when the people had FREAKING VIDEOS OF THEM COMMITTING CRIME!!! was another triggering thing. And the bad guys were comically villian-like.
Overall, the story was quite predictable and bland. Only watched it for the one likable character to see where it goes but nothing really went anywhere.
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Not Bad, But Not My Kind of Drama
I was sucked into this drama by the title. My exact reaction: "Korean drama of Little Women? I can't wait!!" I'm not a purist when it comes to book to TV/movie adaptations. So while this drama did not follow my expectations at all, I still found all the changes they did to the source material interesting. Anyway, you can't really top either 1993 or 2019 "Little Women" in my mind. I see that a lot of people have already posted reviews so I'll just include some of my thoughts.Interestingly, In-joo (Meg) is treated more like the main character than In-kyung (Jo). Sadly like most versions of "Little Women" In-hye (Amy) is given little character development. Her character really seems to be shoved to the side by the end of the drama. In-joo and In-kyung are both clearly outlined characters, but I can't say the same for In-hye. I really enjoyed the two love interests, Do-il (John Brooke) and Jung-ho (Laurie). Neither resemble their book counterpart in my opinion, but I still like them. The great-aunt was also wonderful and a good nod to the book. All I have to say about the villain characters are that I found them both disappointing and forgettable after the first few episodes.
From the comments, I learned this is a "makjang" drama. In all my years of drama watching, I've never heard this term before and will probably avoid any future dramas attached to it. While I enjoyed "Little Women", I never felt really that connected to it. I think that is in part because it is a makjang, meaning it just has some ridiculous/over-the-top moments that I could just not ignore. I also feel the ridiculousness ruined some character development. I will praise the actors who all brought their a-game. This drama was good, but not for me. Had it not been titled "Little Women", I never would have picked it up.
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Too dark, too convoluted, a crazy soap opera without rhyme or reason
Things I liked1 I thought the acting was quite good. Maybe not every scene was great, not every actor/actress was perfect but they were all decent.
Things I disliked
1 The two older sisters. They weren't appealing characters I could stand behind. Their actions were stupid sometimes and their love for their sister wasn't enough to make me like them. All sisters were unappealing characters.
Things I hated
1 The little sister. What a stupid stupid character without any redeeming qualities. Her behavior was inexcusable and no I didn't like how things ended.
2 The villain and all the villains actually. How they never were punished really and how serious things were left unattended.
3 The script. Ridiculous is the best way I can describe it. The writer(s) thought they were too smart to have to make things make sense. Guess what? It resulted in a mess of a series I'd never recommend to anyone. Next time take the time to develop the characters and write a plot that doesn't resemble to a child's fantasies without rhyme or reason.
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Feels like American shows
It starts like a cliche K-dramas where there is a poor Korean family where girls will meet rich guys and fall in love and happy endings. I do not believe there will be a happy ending. This show includes realistic people in the universe they created. There is no good people. Even our characters have their own selfishness and mistakes. I watched without close my eyes and could not guess any of the events occurring. It has high tension, awakens high level of curiosity and make you disgust of rich community. Sorry for the romance seekers, this show is kind of offering massacre. I would recommend to people who enjoyed:- Sky Castle
- Penthouse series
- Parasite Movie
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Very gripping story but got ruined due to historical distortion
i just want little women watchers to be aware of the history distortion and that the vietnamese government requested netflix vietnam to remove it from the platform (now removed). as a little women enjoyer myself, im very disappointed about thisi was feeling iffy when they included it in the plot because kdramas have quite the rep when it comes to inaccurate portrayal of historical events. dont see how the vietnam war is necessary to the plot at this point
this drama couldve been perfect but alas korean media and their never ending list of unnecessary problematic additions to the plot. when will they learn
my favourite part about this drama was the cast especially goeun as injoo and hajoon as Doil. i wish to see them together in a project again
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3 unlikeable sisters in a convoluted messed up plot
I went into this drama thinking it would capture the lovely interrelationships, warmth and support among 3 sisters. Kdramas are masterful at evoking the feel good emotions this show had all the potential to bring.Instead I found myself absolutely disliking all 3. The eldest sister was constantly foolish and greedy for money which never belonged to her. Her only redeeming factor was that she loved her sisters and was loyal to her friend. But the crazy decisions she kept taking constantly put her family in danger.
The middle sis was a reporter with supposedly high moral integrity and yet she became an alcoholic drinking on the job. There is no story arc on how she gave up being an alcoholic, she simply decides that she would quit drinking once it cost her her job and boom, just like that it is resolved. She is supposedly highly intuitive and senses people's feelings and yet can't understand the heart of the long term friend who is a boy right next to her. She couldn't understand her elder sisters decisions or her younger sisters dangerously misguided ambitions or the source of wealth of the great aunt she had been brought up by since childhood.
The youngest sister was the most despicable of them all. A thoroughly dislikeable spoilt selfish brat, supposedly so guilty about her sisters love and care that she snubbed them all the time and publicly chose sides with the rich crazy family the whole family is suffering from. Even towards the end there is not even a reunion among the sisters. It just shows them all planning their lives separately.
Only Mr Choi and the mystery of his character and intentions kept the drama going for me.
The blue orchid arc was a fantasy element which seemed to add an interesting story arc in between. It was supposedly going to reveal the innermost desires of the person smelling it, or reveal visions and hallucinations. It served that purpose for a couple of episodes then this arc seemed to be just dropped towards the latter episodes and it was all about the psycho lady and political games and criminal activities.
The villians never really get what they deserve. They didn't even get to see the public opinion about them change, suffer a day in jail or feel a loss of power or their corrupt money taken away from them. They just suddenly conveniently died without fuss in a matter of seconds in the final episodes. So unsatisfactory.
This show packed a lot of unbelievable and ridiculous twists and turns but felt heavy and frustrating as there was no investment in the lives of these three frustrating sisters. I'm not even going to talk about the sheer number of plot holes and especially a dead person coming back to life and the ridiculous explanation given for it.
Thank God there were only 12 episodes. Even watching them in 1.5 speed made me feel bored and restless to get it over with. This show taught me that I shouldn't get misguided by it's name and if I didn't like the characters by the first 2-3 episodes it would be wiser for me to drop the series than suffer through it.
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Destitute Didn’t Have to Mean Dumb
The first episode kicked things off well, but the story failed to keep that strong premise. I was expecting to see three sisters who were ride or die, bringing down those corrupt killers and manipulators whom they found themselves entangled with, while managing to elevate themselves, even if just enough to do better than they were, out of extreme poverty.Instead, we got three sisters who were as about as bonded as three siblings living oceans apart. The oldest sister was the dumbest out if the three. She spent almost every episode in tears. Sometimes warranted. Sometimes not. She signed her name to a legal document that was in a language she couldn’t read. Repeatedly confronted potentially dangerous people and threatened to expose their crimes. Handed a stack of stolen money to a woman who knew she was dirt poor, while knowing people were looking for said money. Trusted everything a man said whom she didn’t know from Adam. And continued to be a crusader of justice for her BFF who set her up in a serious mess of financial fraud. The stupidness went on and on with this one.
The middle sister had a few more brain cells to rub together. For she could see the forest for the trees. However, she wasn’t smart enough to be meticulous and strategic in her efforts which resulted in her ongoing failures.
The youngest sister was gullible and dumb. I guess she can get a pass as she was a teen and having to deal with being dirt poor and abandoned by her parents. However, her complete disregard for her sisters and total belief in her rich BFF and family was ridiculous. Also, she looked high throughout the series but perhaps that was in effort to convey her depression with her situation. Still it did the character no favors.
The plot actually could’ve been good if those at the center of it wasn’t so dumb. I gave this 7 episodes because I like Kim Go Eun. However, I finally gave up on the series because the plot continued to drag and I became over these characters lack of intellect. Moreover, what also annoyed me was all the educated and/or rich characters in this came off smart while the poor characters came off dumb.
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There's nothing more disappointing...
...than watching a highly anticipated drama, only to be let down. I was so excited for school to end so I could binge watch the crap out of this drama. But honestly, even though there is only 12 episodes, it's been a STRUGGLE to get through. I heard this drama was so good and so intense and I'm just not seeing it??? Everyone in this drama is so irritating! I felt sad for the three sisters initially, but then that slowly faded away and it was just replaced with...nothing. I should be feeling for them, rooting for them, wanting them to win oh so badly but at this point, I don't really care and I'm just watching things play out. I'm just trying to get through the rest of this drama because I hate dropping them and I want the the mystery of everything to be solved and put together. Other than that, I'm just kind of confused with everything that's happening or I'm just confused about how this drama was supposed to be so good and it turned out to be such a let down. The only character I care about is Choi Do Il and he's one of the few reasons that I'm sticking around too. And am I only one who thinks that Oh In Kyung almost seems more like the main character more so than Oh In Joo??? I don't really care for Oh In Joo and Oh In Hye is insufferable. I originally thought this was going to be a drama that was 3 sisters against the world but boy, I was wrong. Anyways, I guess I'll come back here after I finish this drama to finish off the review. Bye for now!Update: Wow, okay at least everything worked out and I'm left feeling a tiiiny bit warm and fuzzy for the 3 sisters. This was such a weird, confusing rollercoaster of a drama that left much to be desired. I would have loved to see Oh In Joo and Choi Do Il's relationship progress waay more than it did even though I know that isn't the focus of the drama. Honestly, I just loved Choi Do Il so much, he was, hands down, the best part of the drama. I thought Won Sang A played her role well too and she perfectly displayed the insane, entitled General's daughter she was meant to be. Other than that, I don't have much else to say. Overall, not that good but not that bad either. I just didn't find myself invested enough and it just didn't do it for me. I even had to speed it up near the end there because I was getting bored.
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Sigh...
This series was so good until the ending it's kinda sad that their only solution was to bring her friend back to life tbh! and how the youngest sister never even got to move into the apartment with the oldest and how she never got her romance! the middle sister had like ZERO chemistry with her love interest too 😭 I loved the first half but it kinda just fell short at the end. Like there was so much build up and so many twists and it just became kinda dull... maybe because it was only 12 eps... idk i was just really disappointed with the ending!Was this review helpful to you?
