This review may contain spoilers
Documentation, adding data to my list,lol.
First of all, great acting from all the cast. I can't imagine trying to act like they are in love when in reality or in the background they haven't met that long. My main dissatisfaction is, I think they couldn't bring the original material into the screen well enough that it greatly hindered it's quality. Unlike other manhwa where you are abundant with content to show, the manhwa this show derived from is apparently short. In my opinion or guess they wanted the show to last at least 10 episodes, to cover the costs in production, so they added stuff that is genuinely not related at all to the story, one example is the company owner who went bankrupt, after watching the show he had no actual purpose whatsoever in the story. I honestly think that they should've just added more to the story to comfortably make it a twelve episode drama, and to also make the story more comprehensive. As seen with the reviews and comments they are confused, and were bored, and lastly disliked it, due to a lot of reasons. First is that it was about a guy stalking a girl, obviously we see the story through the pov of the ML so it doesn't come off as too creepy but can you imagine it in the real life. Second is that the pace is really slow, I understand if the plot needs the drama to have a slow pace but this time it was due to production reasons. But for the third reason I will blame the audience, I think the drama isn't confusing at all and wasn't made to be confusing at all, it might be because of translation error or something but, as long as you actually watch and read the subtitles, there is no way, at least to me is this confusing. One thing is the chemistry wasn't great in fact, I was amazed that they could form tears interacting with each other even though they've rarely met in the background. Unfortunately the ending felt like nothing to me, the chemistry wasn't great and it felt forced that the two couples loved each other especially the second couple. To me they needed to revise and add stuff to the story while still being faithful to source. Great music, cinematography, acting and all that but the plot was too cluttered with unnecessary and uninteresting stuff. Also the electric romantic chemistry wasn't there. They felt like new friends that only began in getting close to each other. Gave it an eight due to the potential it had and because of the other good qualities it had. Maybe the trip to Austria costs too much lol.Was this review helpful to you?
A story where your own beliefs will be questioned ;)
I launched "THE WITCH", a bold ten-episode project, aware that the pace would be slow and that the style would take the paths of melodrama. However, I decided to launch myself with my eyes closed, carried by the undeniable talent of Jin Young, this actor and idol, a real green flag, capable of drawing the most buried tears in me. From the first moments, one element appeals to me: cinematography. The shots follow one another, colored with graying hues, while the snow falls gently, inviting me to immerse myself in a universe that is both sad and poignantly beautiful. The first episodes oscillate between the past and the present, skillfully mixing the memories of the leads with their evolution. We try to unravel the mystery of their meeting, while questioning ourselves about the sinister fatality that strikes all men approaching the female lead. This enigma is at the heart of the quest for the male lead, who works to decipher this persistent tragedy. With his mathematical and scientific approach, it is certain that this quest causes some headaches. Nevertheless, this approach gives the fantastic element "witch", a tangible and fascinating dimension that captivates attention and arouses curiosity. It makes the drama much more “earthly”.We can't really talk about alchemy here since encounters and dialogues are limited. The drama stands out more as an endless investigation than a love story even if that is the goal behind it all. However, I found that the actress perfectly managed to carry the weight of her "curse" with a deep sadness and a very lonely behavior. Park Jin Young, for his part, once again proved that he was an excellent actor to convey emotions. I really liked the cop friend in it who touched me a lot and who would have deserved more development. Overall 10 episodes is short to get attached to the characters given the few encounters between each. But I found that each of the people in the cast played their role well.
The main assets to consider for the launch of this drama are undoubtedly: the format, the cast and the originality of the story. Indeed, we have here the opportunity to explore a story that has never been addressed before, a rarity in the universe of contemporary kdramas, which suffers cruelly from it.
Overall, I was satisfied with the plot, despite a romance that sometimes seemed frustrating to me. But, in all honesty, I was not bored for a single second, I was so impatient to collect the pieces of this fascinating puzzle. The drama manages to maintain a captivating suspense, a real force that distinguishes it.
Thus, if you are looking for stories that stimulate reflection and that mix beliefs, mythology and strange phenomena, do not miss this kdrama!
18/20
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A slowly but thrilling told tale of breaking free from a hurtful past
"The witch" was the drama that kept me hooked the most during it's run. Although it starts really slow and tends to use flashbacks a bit too often, the plot manages to stay gripping due to it's excellent source material, beautiful cinematography, fantastic score and heartfelt performances by the main cast. The past of the main leads is peeled back layer by layer. The main lead tries to solve the mysterious deaths seemingly connected to his high school crush. Working as a data miner he digs deeper and deeper in her past and present bordering on stalking. His obsession with her fate drives him forward and - although troublesome to view - also makes you feel sympathetic. As viewer you route for him and want him to succeed. There's also a second storyline interwoven with the main plot which may seem unconnected at first but isn't.The points that keep me from giving 10 stars are the pacing, especially at the beginning, and that some facts should have been revealed a bit sooner. I also think that the flashbacks could have been used less.
It's also important to know that the story isn't a classic romance. There's not much interaction between the leads throughout the show. It's not needed in this story which is more a mystery thriller with a love story at it's core but could dissapoint viewers who love seeing the classic love story tropes.
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How Not To Stretch Out a 5 Hour Drama
My 4 categories are Acting/Cast, Writing, Direction/SFX/Music, Entertainment Value.I think this is the worst directing I’ve ever seen regarding pacing and story telling. I’m awestruck.
Acting/Cast: It’s okay. This drama is really slow with a focus on aesthetics. There isn’t much ‘acting’ going on. The female lead is the emotionless, stoic one. The male lead’s character is a little different than what I’ve seen before. He’s super nerdy but also really happy and energetic. It felt forced, though, as if he’s playing it up to lift the moods of those around him. I don’t know if this was the director’s intention or not. Well...maybe it is a problem with his acting. There’s a scene where he gets angry and that felt forced, too. The second male lead is also a stoic character with a small role. The second female lead actually has to do some acting. She does well. Her personality doesn’t feel forced. I like the male lead’s mom played by Jang Hye Jin (장혜진), but she’s not in the drama much. 4.5/10
Writing: The concept of this drama is really interesting. I like the idea of approaching something supernatural with scientific experimentation. However, it takes a bit of time to actually get to that part of the story. Unfortunately, this is the only good aspect of the writing…Let’s start at the beginning...After 3 hours, barely anything has happened. It shouldn’t have taken 3 hours to set up such a simple drama. That’s not the worst part though...every other episode seems to be a replay of the episode before it, but from another character’s perspective...sort of. I say ‘sort of’ because these new perspectives actually don’t add any new information to the story...so what’s the point? The set up takes 3 hours because episode 2 is episode 1 all over again. It’s the strangest shit I’ve seen in a long time. Literally, at least half of this drama is just replaying scenes we’ve already seen and have gotten thorough information from. But that’s not all...It gets even dumber at the end. We spend the entire drama following the male lead around and seeing everything that he’s doing and hearing everything he’s thinking. Then, suddenly at the end, we follow a different character who has no idea what the male lead has been doing. So this character has to do some detective work to figure it out. But the audience already knows everything, so there’s no mystery here for us. We are then made to suffer through a rewatch of the entire drama in flashback fashion as this character is learning everything that we already know. I’m just completely dumbfounded…Also, why was the male lead going back and forth about whether or not the female lead is a witch? That was really confusing. Was he lying to her to encourage her to live her life and not care about who gets hurt? Anyway, the ending is okay. It’s not the worst I’ve seen but it’s definitely not good. There’s not enough relationship development for any of the characters for the ending to be satisfying. It felt like it wasn’t over, as if an episode is missing. Also, I have to talk about the male lead being a stalker. It actually is mentioned in the drama, which surprised me. But, the male lead really is a legit stalker and it’s pretty scary at times. If someone has been a victim of stalking, I would not recommend watching this drama. The male lead can get away with it because he’s doing it to save people who are cursed as well as save the people around them. However, there is still the fact that he’s in love with the female lead to an obsessive point. From what I gather, witches seem to have something mystical about them that draws people to them (they’re basically all Mary Sues). So, guys fall in love with the female lead for no reason and that seems to be the case with the male lead, too. So does he genuinely love her or is he just drawn to her because she’s a witch? His stalking/data collection on her is extremely detailed. Why does he need to record that she takes a break from working and stretches at 2 pm? He has all the books that she’s translated just because she translated them. It’s things that have nothing to do with trying to free her from her curse and it feels like it’s going way too far. 1.5/10
Direction/SFX/Music: The pacing is terrible. The first 3 episodes barely set up the plot. A lot of this drama is just replaying previous scenes without even adding anything important to the plot. I feel like most of the issues with this drama could be fixed by shortening it to 5 or 6 episodes and changing the point-of-view to be strictly from the male lead throughout the entire drama. If we are only able to see things from his perspective, the story would be a much more engaging mystery for the audience. The cinematography style is actually pretty nice. I could tell they were trying to be artsy with this drama. Although I do hate the intro that plays at the beginning of every episode. It was just random scenes from various episodes put together in a montage. It felt low-effort. The OST is nothing special, but the music scores are decent. 1.5/10
Entertainment Value: Despite the very slow start, all of the flashbacks, boring characters, and terrible story telling, I actually enjoyed watching this drama. The mystery aspect was interesting. There was a style change up midway through the drama where it felt more like a suspense/thriller drama. That was cool. I wish they really leaned into that though. 5/10
Overall, I gave this drama a 3/10. Although I liked The Witch a lot more than The Trunk I gave them both the same overall score (both dramas suffer from pacing issues). Even though I wanted to drop it, The Trunk earned a 3 from me for its cast and production value. The Witch, although the execution was terrible, earned a 3 for its interesting premise and entertainment value.
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Overall good one - Only drawback is the scale of drama
The story was awesome, slow burn into story. Background score was good. Acting was good. the only thing I feel the show was a downgrade was the taking of series. If it was done in a little more dramatic visual way, this would have been really good one. It might feel like a sloppy story to some as they are not used to slow story build ups. But this has a really good perspective oriented screen writing, giving us all kinds of understanding of characters and their thoughts and ideologies.Overall good one - Only drawback is the scale of drama
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a new and refreshing plot but a wasted potential
honestly, i knew i was going to love this drama as soon as i heard about the plot and as soon as i watched the first episode. but as the story progressed, it became repetitive to the point that the story became kind of predictable. i think that the show had a lot of potential only if they focused on her curse as much as they did on the main character. the repetitive flashbacks were boring and added nothing new to the narrative most of the time.regardless of all, i loved the idea of him continuing his research because at a certain point, her being a witch didn’t matter to him and how he risked his entire life to reveal his feelings, even after knowing the outcome. i loved the conclusion of his research being him searching for a way to love her despite it all. i just wish it was carried off well.
in conclusion, it’s a nice drama to binge watch all together if you’re looking for something other than romcoms. overall, it’s good for a one time watch.
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The story in The Witch 2025 is gripping and well-paced, keeping the audience hooked.
The implementation of the story in The Witch 2025 is gripping and well-paced, blending suspense, action, and emotion in a way that keeps the audience hooked throughout. The twists come at the right moments, and the characters are introduced in a way that makes you want to know more about them. The plot doesn’t feel rushed or dragged out — everything moves with purpose. The mix of mystery and intensity is what really makes it stand out. It’s the kind of story that keeps you thinking even after an episode ends.Was this review helpful to you?
The witch
First thing (I do not even know why I have a need to add disclaimer, from now on I will not do it anymore, it is my last one - cause everyone will have different opinion, there will be a lot of people who love some drama while I will hate it or many will hate while I will love it - so in general I gave it pretty high rating, many will rate it much lower, it is not perfect but as long as I have good time then I will rate it pretty high - to put it simply, it did not felt right to give it 7/10.So moving on from this too long explanation - it is rather slow drama, no crazy action scenes but at the same time I do not think that it is a healing type.
Story in my opinion was interesting, what need to happened with her to end up with injuries or worse (and not only her) - although I wish there was explanation why actually this things was happening, if it was actual curse or what.
Yeah - Park Jin Young's (character of course) behaviour was too much as stalking, at the same time if he wanted to solved it there was no other way for it, still nod justifing his actions.
I do agree that it was not really love, not then (too early and they did not know each other well) - it was rather opening for it, letting them to actually be in each other's life and developed such strong feeling - also this city in Austria was beautiful.
Truth be told - there is definitely too many repeating of scenes - I know that it is often in dramas, I do not mind it but in this case there would be 8 episodes (maybe less) without retrospections - these time could be for second couple, to developed their connection/feelings more.
The cast is cute, they played really well, there is no way to not like Roh Jeong Eui in it.
Hmm also worth explaining is that many people thought that it was in the same universe as Moving (still have not watched) and Light shop (although flickering lamp reminded of it) - it is not, it is by the same author but not the same universe/story so if you want to watch only because of that then you will be disappointed (but I do think that if creator will want he could make it happened in one universe).
To sum up - it is slow and calm story but it is enteirtaining, especially if you watch something crazier at the time, it was my meantime for Burried hearts and "heal" after Newtopia ( I love it, need season 2), so perfect option to add something "lighter". In my opinion it is worth giving a chance.
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My opinions
I would say that the story is intriguing. Some critics that I have with this is are so many of the episodes are flashbacks. The first few episodes are purely flashbacks then the next are new information that come with even more flashbacks. The side couple could've used more time, because I'm not even sure where they started liking each other. The main couple I could see it building up, with them playing seemingly insignificant roles in each others lives during high school, I could see how much the ML liked the FL which was cute( even without the "stalking") and I could see her gradually starting to like him. Like when she was trying to give him the energy drink, and was relieved when he said he wasn't hurt because of her, and how worried she was when he was going to tell her that he liked her on her rooftop. I liked how they built a series of relationships, example being when he was delivering her food and they went down the receipt checking if everything was correct. How she started to appreciate his company and the conversations that they shared. I see how the main couple ended up together. I think fear was keeping the FL away. The second couple I don't know how that happened.Was this review helpful to you?
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The mystery of this student, nicknamed witch, leads this classmate to study statistics. He will sacrifice his whole life to discover the variables for the accidents and deaths that surround her.For some, this obsession of his could compare him to a "stalker" for others only the fact that he is in love with her and wants to find a way to get close to her without dying.
The ending, a bit like "Crash landing on you", in Austria instead of Switzerland, but it reminded me a lot.
If I were her, I would have immediately gone to an exorcist rather than live a solitary life.
I honestly watched this series for the main character, Park Jin Young, singer of GOT7.
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Statistical Variables of the Witch's Curse Breaker
Once again I prove that ratings aren't everything. The Korean drama The Witch only got a rating of 7.9 from Mydramalist, then dropped to 7.7 at the end of the episode.Korean viewers were also less enthusiastic about this drama, seen from the acquisition of only 1.3% (nationwide) in period 9, and 2.6% (nation wide) in episode 10, not even entering the top ten of Seoul viewers (Source: AGB Nielson)
There are many reasons. Among them are the presentation of data that is confusing for many people, and the two main characters who have not met. Imagine Lee Dong-Jin (played by Jin Young) only met face to face with Park Mi-Jeong (played by Roh Jeong-Eui) in episode 6!
The rest of Lee Dong-Jin only stalks the girl he loves and does some hypothetical proofs, whether he was unlucky (had an accident or even died) when he met Park Mi-Jeong, or not?
This, for some viewers, might be annoying.
I actually like it! Yes, statistics to break the rumor, that's interesting! Moreover, the casting is very fitting, Jin Young who has a childish appearance becomes a stalker because he wants to save the life of Park Mi-Jeong, a beautiful girl with a gloomy face and is in a slump.
In addition to Jin Young's busy breaking the Park Mi-Jeong rumor with his various researches, I also like Jin Young's very close relationship with his mother.
The scene where his mother gets angry when Jin Young reports his GPA is 4.5 is very funny! Hahaha, that GPA is very high, but those who have never been to college certainly don't understand.
The rhythm of the Korean drama The Witch is quite slow, but it can be understood because Lee Dong-Jin is proving his hypothesis. The slowness of the drama is also intentional so that the audience is nervous about the possibility that Lee Dong-Jin will be injured or die.
But overall, writernim arranges the storyline gradually and comfortably to enjoy. Each character is explained carefully, the relationships between characters, and the haunting mystery that must be solved.
Although honestly I'm a bit annoyed with the inclusion of another character who has a disorder like Park Mi-Jeong. Lee Dong-Jin's best friend suddenly falls in love with Park Mi-Jeong's best friend out of nowhere.
Maybe the writer wanted to make a surprise, but …….... oh well. 😊😊
Full review can be read at https://www.maria-g-soemitro.com/2025/03/the-witch-kutukan-penyihir.html
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Can you say "stalker"?
The premise sounded new and interesting to me. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. It could have been done so much better. For me, I vacillated back and forth between getting the creeps from his stalker behavior, to not caring about them at all, because they had very little screen time together. And can we talk about the repeated flashbacks?As I was watching it, it felt like an accident site, you don't want to watch, but you can't help yourself.
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