This review may contain spoilers
Tedious lead female character & Alot of handsome men
This is total female escapism stuffed with handsome men & swoon worthy closeups of them. Pure fantasy fuel.
Even though it's not without it's flaws, this is a fangirl's delight that's embarrassingly addictive & smile inducing. It will have you mesmerized while at the same time appalled at how often you fins youyrself entranced.
I'm going to explain why I only gave it an 8 at the end, but let's start with:
Date # 1 : Lee Soo hyuk - he's coolly suave here & so he has to be first so you can put him out of your mind as the drama continues- because really no one else even comes close to being so heart fluttering. The scenario he's in is cringy & total trope but the truth is the other dates pale in comparison.
(with the exception of Lee Sang yi' : whose frustratingly blink of an eye comedic cameo as a firefighter-who given more screen time WOULD make for an impossible choice if up against Lee Soo hyuk) .
Suffice it to say that the camera gives you plenty of swoonful, heart stopping moments involving Lee Soo hyuk's character & he sets the bar pretty high for the other dates that follow.
Date # 2 made me cringe. School dramas are not a genre I enjoy & not only was everything pink but it was weird as the female lead was SO much older & experienced than her date. He also was more of a boyishly earnest puppy/golden retriever type boyfriend, which didn't appeal to me personally. Additionally, it was a painful episode, raking up the female lead's dating past. Oddly, it didn't make me sympathetic towards her, as both she & her ex had changed as well as both had become mean.
Now about the virtual world:
They seemed to be making a point that being in a fake virtual romance/relationship will leave you dissatisfied with real men, ( I mean isn't that the same expectation vs reality dilemma as with men & porn ? )
As the unmemorable, but good looking dates rapidly fly by in the virtual world, in the real world, Seo in guk hides his charisma in a cave somewhere off camera. He dead pans most of the drama -sleep walking around with barely any dialogue & is bafflingly bland. (Now THAT is acting !!!) Seriously, The blame is completely on how his character is written as we know he normally radiates charisma in anything he does.
Not to despair; his charisma is revived near the end of the series.
I think that it's possible that the very point that the drama is attempting to make is that women may over look a perfectly nice, attractive guy in thier search for exciting & thier definition of "perfect" & that both men & women a fearful of being hurt.
So what makes this less than perfect ?
The female lead is not very likeable. She's only nice when it benefits her. She is cold. Though they do show a reason, I was not convinced that it was actually a valid excuse for how she keeps brushing the male lead
off . Honestly, they don't give a good reason why she's worth the male lead's effort. Further more, she wants him to prove something that he has no control over & make promises that she herself can't make.
So here is where the discontent lies:
As with most other new dramas this female lead only turns nice once she is in love. She will inevitably revert back to her natural unlikeable personality once she's been in a relationship for a length of time- we actually see this occur in her previous relationship.
I found the "follow your heart" trope/theme to be a stagnant & a damaging bit of advice to the plot as a romance as it equates to: "follow your emotions & feelings" and only consider yourself.
For a story to be really good & satisfying you need to feel that there are things that are worth investing in & that "keeping" those thingss/relationships takes effort, which requires commitment & discipline- all things that might not feel good in the moment & you might not want to do, but it's those things that makes great love stories.
Endurance-
that's what this drama is lacking. How long can the couple "live in the moment" ? Once they stop having heart fluttering moments ? So they pretty much are setting themselves up to fail with no thought to the future & a lack of commitment.
That the female lead asks advice from an AI that was created from her own detailed input means that it's her advising herself- so everything is from her persecutive-which seems rather unhelpful to her. AND of course the AI guy will tell her to leave her heart with him as he is programmed to keep her attached to him, to keep her a paying customer for the program! The game is a "Honey Trap" and as addictive as opium. I was glad that there were consequences & that the resolutions didn't take long to get worked through, but I couldn't ever really warm up to the female lead .
**************spoiler***********
this is why I only gave it 8 stars.
The female lead continued to be unlikeable.
At a critical point she could have been honest about the doppelganger boyfriend, but she isn't. That she sees the virtual boyfriend a few times afterward the male lead found out about it, made me like her even less.
I was glad that they were very tasteful in only implying that the leads spent the night together, (leaving a question mark there) but was very disappointed that the end had them implying that she was pregnant- BUT there was no definition to thier relationship- not engaged, not married, just living in the moment. TTHAT's not going to work now, is it!? !
there is enough here to lose yourself in the warm fuzzies, but the rewatch value is only for skipping through the story to get your fan girl fantasy on if that's your thing.
Even though it's not without it's flaws, this is a fangirl's delight that's embarrassingly addictive & smile inducing. It will have you mesmerized while at the same time appalled at how often you fins youyrself entranced.
I'm going to explain why I only gave it an 8 at the end, but let's start with:
Date # 1 : Lee Soo hyuk - he's coolly suave here & so he has to be first so you can put him out of your mind as the drama continues- because really no one else even comes close to being so heart fluttering. The scenario he's in is cringy & total trope but the truth is the other dates pale in comparison.
(with the exception of Lee Sang yi' : whose frustratingly blink of an eye comedic cameo as a firefighter-who given more screen time WOULD make for an impossible choice if up against Lee Soo hyuk) .
Suffice it to say that the camera gives you plenty of swoonful, heart stopping moments involving Lee Soo hyuk's character & he sets the bar pretty high for the other dates that follow.
Date # 2 made me cringe. School dramas are not a genre I enjoy & not only was everything pink but it was weird as the female lead was SO much older & experienced than her date. He also was more of a boyishly earnest puppy/golden retriever type boyfriend, which didn't appeal to me personally. Additionally, it was a painful episode, raking up the female lead's dating past. Oddly, it didn't make me sympathetic towards her, as both she & her ex had changed as well as both had become mean.
Now about the virtual world:
They seemed to be making a point that being in a fake virtual romance/relationship will leave you dissatisfied with real men, ( I mean isn't that the same expectation vs reality dilemma as with men & porn ? )
As the unmemorable, but good looking dates rapidly fly by in the virtual world, in the real world, Seo in guk hides his charisma in a cave somewhere off camera. He dead pans most of the drama -sleep walking around with barely any dialogue & is bafflingly bland. (Now THAT is acting !!!) Seriously, The blame is completely on how his character is written as we know he normally radiates charisma in anything he does.
Not to despair; his charisma is revived near the end of the series.
I think that it's possible that the very point that the drama is attempting to make is that women may over look a perfectly nice, attractive guy in thier search for exciting & thier definition of "perfect" & that both men & women a fearful of being hurt.
So what makes this less than perfect ?
The female lead is not very likeable. She's only nice when it benefits her. She is cold. Though they do show a reason, I was not convinced that it was actually a valid excuse for how she keeps brushing the male lead
off . Honestly, they don't give a good reason why she's worth the male lead's effort. Further more, she wants him to prove something that he has no control over & make promises that she herself can't make.
So here is where the discontent lies:
As with most other new dramas this female lead only turns nice once she is in love. She will inevitably revert back to her natural unlikeable personality once she's been in a relationship for a length of time- we actually see this occur in her previous relationship.
I found the "follow your heart" trope/theme to be a stagnant & a damaging bit of advice to the plot as a romance as it equates to: "follow your emotions & feelings" and only consider yourself.
For a story to be really good & satisfying you need to feel that there are things that are worth investing in & that "keeping" those thingss/relationships takes effort, which requires commitment & discipline- all things that might not feel good in the moment & you might not want to do, but it's those things that makes great love stories.
Endurance-
that's what this drama is lacking. How long can the couple "live in the moment" ? Once they stop having heart fluttering moments ? So they pretty much are setting themselves up to fail with no thought to the future & a lack of commitment.
That the female lead asks advice from an AI that was created from her own detailed input means that it's her advising herself- so everything is from her persecutive-which seems rather unhelpful to her. AND of course the AI guy will tell her to leave her heart with him as he is programmed to keep her attached to him, to keep her a paying customer for the program! The game is a "Honey Trap" and as addictive as opium. I was glad that there were consequences & that the resolutions didn't take long to get worked through, but I couldn't ever really warm up to the female lead .
**************spoiler***********
this is why I only gave it 8 stars.
The female lead continued to be unlikeable.
At a critical point she could have been honest about the doppelganger boyfriend, but she isn't. That she sees the virtual boyfriend a few times afterward the male lead found out about it, made me like her even less.
I was glad that they were very tasteful in only implying that the leads spent the night together, (leaving a question mark there) but was very disappointed that the end had them implying that she was pregnant- BUT there was no definition to thier relationship- not engaged, not married, just living in the moment. TTHAT's not going to work now, is it!? !
there is enough here to lose yourself in the warm fuzzies, but the rewatch value is only for skipping through the story to get your fan girl fantasy on if that's your thing.
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