Kokdu: Season of Deity

There were times I wanted to gouge out my eyes!

Positives:
Kim Jung Hyun as Kokdu: I love him as an actor. He's got a somewhat rugged look about him. He's not a "pretty boy", and he's very expressive. He's an actor that is able to do broad comedy with flair and believability and then cut your heart out in his serious scenes, with tears running down his cheeks. It gets me every time.

Cha Chung Hwa as Gak Shin: She's a very interesting actress. She has the ability to look totally different, based on the part she is playing. She can appear older sometimes, younger at others. Her character was funny, quirky, and I loved how she took Gye Jeol under her wing, walking the line between here and the afterlife.

Kim In Kwon as Ok Shin: This might sound strange, but I love his face, it's big and round with lots of surface area for the great expressions he conveys. Ok Shin was a good character, and I really enjoyed his story line with Gak Shin.

Cinematography and locales: Beautiful! The church was lovely, Kokdu's house was awesome, and the lighthouse area was just beautiful. I loved the color palette they used for filming and the soft filtering they did with the camera work.

There was a happy ending, which kept me from throwing something at my tv after wasting my time watching this.

That's pretty much it. Now, on the other side of the coin, the negatives for me were:

Im Soo Hyang: I don't care for her AT ALL. Personally, I don't think she could act her way out of a paper bag. She has a totally flat affect, and her eyes are always open really wide like she's wandering around in a constant state of surprise. I've seen her in other things and haven't cared for her. Remember, just my opinion, but I had to fast forward through a lot of it, especially her, because it was so bad. Add her bad acting to the awful character she was portraying, and it was a train wreck. She was supposedly a doctor, but every time anyone had a medical emergency, she did absolutely nothing. I didn't buy her as a doctor for that reason, as well as the fact that she was whiny, immature, clingy and spent most of the drama sobbing. Was that so it looked like she was displaying some emotion? I don't know, but her character was awful, from beginning to end.

The storylines: Too many! There was so much going on. They could have cut back on the multiplicity of story lines and given us some more depth of character. I fast forwarded, a lot, and I still felt like it would never be over.

Chemistry: The brother and his girlfriend - The brother was so cute, and I enjoyed his story line, and I liked the wedding, but not much chemistry between him and his girlfriend. But you will never go amiss with a man that can cook. Which brings me to the ML and FL - I wasn't feeling ANY chemistry between these two. The kisses were not the typical open-eyed, arms at the sides kisses, which I appreciated, but I just didn't buy them as a couple. Wait, I could buy them as a friend couple, but not as a romantic couple.

So, I would say that I you have a lot of patience/tolerance and are wondering if you should watch this, you could give it a try. These opinions are just mine, but there is no way I would recommend that anyone watch this.

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Exceptionally disappointing

May 2025
Oh dear. Amazed I didn't drop it, but I like Kim Jung-hyun, and the rest of the cast; plus I wanted to see the outcome.

Pretty awful, sadly, with dreadful dialogue, lots of shouting, plus one of the MOST irritating, unlikeable, STUPID, FL characters ever!

The actress (whom I liked in 'My ID is Gangnam Beauty'), was pretty bad too; very unnatural and poor acting in this part.

I did like the character of Kokdu (which KJH brought to life wonderfully), and his 2 assistants (plus the actors; Cha Chung-hwa as Gak Shin looked great!)
Totally underwhelming, I've forgotten a lot already (reviewing late). Too few characters that I liked, mostly stupid humour and I don't even remember the ending, but think it was poor.

I do not recommend this, sadly. Not even the wonderful Kim Jung-hyun could save it!

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