Brogana Sunfrog

Female lead runs hot & cold & can't convince you she's in love

The male lead is a decent actor & SO attractive that it's a shame the writers haven't given him enough of a part to save this drama. Realistically he couldn't carry the whole series but I found myself wishing they'd let him. The female lead spends 90% of the series crying as she deals with constant trouble mostly due to her stubbornness & unwillingness to trust the male lead. She runs hot & cold , being purposely coy & obtuse which makes it seem as if she is enjoys teasing & toying with the male lead. She looks good for the part but her character, no, really, it's the whole series that's written poorly.

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Food is interesting, but Not a single endearing character

Neither leads nor sidekicks are endearing. You have a grumpy female lead who is hyper focused on just food paired with a sly conman male lead who goes around stealing recipes. Female sidekick is a shrew who verbally & physically abusing male sidekick because she can ( as female he's not allowed to retaliate.) male sidekick is a clingy loud whiny dullard. Who wants to see any of these people for 10 episodes ? Male lead evolves & tries to be charming, but they base the reason for his attraction to initially be based on a memory of someone else, so it's really not valid to transfer that emotion.
The female lead does begin to be less abrasive (late in the series), I still did not find the romance (such as it is) to be something I wanted. The series takes a turn for boring after episode 5 & pulls the leads into a love triangle . It's not only depressing, it's also not really well explained. The food is interesting. The romance feels forced. (Also, DO notice that the female lead is eerily similar to the male lead's despotic mother so yeah in a few years he will be regretting this) .I only finished this because it was 10 episodes, because , honestly, I was ready to quit early on- it just wasn't fun to watch.

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It's a Fight Fest that focuses on Bo Gum's character

That Park Bo Gum's character survived this drama was a miracle! Honestly, if they had him sacrificing himself in the pursuit of justice, THAT would have made him more of a noble character/hero than what he ended up as in this drama.
And since this drama revolves around his character, let me comment on my probably unpopular opinion that when Park Bo Gum is in action & being fierce : he's interesting. When he's not, he's just boring. His always hungry, puppy dog man child is totally unappealing & especially unromantic . I will give him due respect for how he got himself ready for this role & for how he put his heart & soul into the action scenes .For me, though, it's Lee Sang Yi that is more leading man material as he is increasingly interesting & appealing as he exudes depth & maturity . Unfortunately they don't flesh out his character very much, even to the point of not giving us any explanation as to why he & Kim So Hyun's character broke up! They also have given no reason as to why she is so sought after by the male leads -making the attraction feel forced (& unnecessary). They should have made this just a buddy/coworker ensemble. Ironically, as the drama progresses , the female lead's character stands back a few times, realizing that though she is the romantic interest, the guys pretty much have better rapport with each other ! yeah, the bromance is not well set up or explained but it's fun to watch. Sadly ,the drama suffers from a glut of violence & ridiculous recoveries from injuries on both sides. Also at fault is the wearying relentless & often brainless pursuit of the villain by Bo Gum' Character. I stopped & started this drama 3 times. By the last 2 episodes, I honestly just didn't care & wanted to be done. As far as the title goes, Park Bo Gum's character is NOT actually a "Good Boy" & he proves it by being a law unto himself, punching people out of anger more often than out of necessity, effectively making him just as much a thug as any of the "bad guys". Not much noble or heroic about alot of what he does. If you need to know: there is a happy ending for all the main characters.

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convoluted, romantic, intricate & violent

I've been nonplussed by all the fuss over Lee Min-ho since Boys over Flowers so this series was way back on my maybe later list. Also, I was equally unenthusiastic for Kim Go-eun as the female lead as she came across unlikeable & manly (uncouth) in the trailer. I had some concern that the series might be dark than I would enjoy & having read the negative reviews, I was completely taken by surprise with how much I enjoyed it ! It was convoluted, romantic, intricate & violent . The romantic light fluff coupled with the political intrigue + blood spatter was something that was juxtaposed, yet was well balanced . I never did fall For Lee Min-ho completely, but he WAS very endearing & his role was not that taxing as far as acting went. I never saw that Kim Go-eun was a woman to go through so much trouble for, but at least she became more likeable as she really appreciated Lee Min-ho's extreme efforts to be with her. I secretly wished that Woo Do-hwan had played the main role, but his role here was SO much more interesting than the role of the king. It didn't hurt that his visuals were off the chart he-was definitely a scene stealer. The ending was "happy" for most characters but left the main couple with no long term solution. Instead we are encouraged to just "go with happy" & not think too hard about it. Annoying, but even though I prefer tidy endings, this one I will give a free pass to be acceptable. I will definitely watch this again

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Kim Woo Bin carries this drama & brings his A game

Kim Woo Bin has the arduous task of carrying the bulk of this drama as the plotline requires Bae Suzy to be emotionally disconnected throughout. It makes it incredibly hard to like her character & the romance between her &
Kim Woo Bin's character is problematic at best. This is a rewatchable drama that has alot of tragedy and sober plotlines that balance out the quirky amusing parts. [By the way-There is a happy ending, but it's not the kind you think you will get.]
what kept this from being a solid 10/10 is :
1) many times it seemed like a travel commercial for Dubai.
2) they muddied the story with gay characters (only)revealed later in the drama & it presented unspoken speculations that naturally come with such a reveal-such as the motivation of the steadfast loyalty of an important side character,
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Spoilers ahead
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it was also very weird that the grandmother (with no indication of having been dissatisfied in her marriage) seems to be gay once she's made young. The whole dynamic of grandmother to grandchild's best friend changing into an attraction doesn't play out well.

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Low key but satisfying. Touching not maudlin. Interesting & thought provoking

I wasn't sure what to expect from this, but even so, it took me pleasantly off guard , surprising and impressing me.
Do note that this is a slow, almost "no burn" romance for the leads, yet, the relationship is fulfilling as the leads to know each other. There are enough meaningful looks & indications of mutual respect, admiration as well as consideration for each other that ,by the end, you somehow don't feel cheated from not having more.

The strength of the drama lies in the character growth as well as how endearing the leads & second leads characters are.
The leads do a good bit of profound & stirring expounding (though it does feel a bit preachy at times)

The cases deal with sensitive social issues, bullying, abuse, illness, social norms & expectations. There were quiet a few that I found very distasteful & more often than not, I found myself not siding with the victims, but still the cases were interesting.

Steller 2nd lead couple's relationship fills in the warm fuzzy romantic gap that you might be missing from the lead's relationship. FYI: Though there is adult intimacy, it is tastefully done off camera.

I was glad to see that Kim Yeo Jin (who has not only been cast as a lawyer before, but also as unpleasant characters) plays a refreshingly different character here than she has done recently (most notably in Vincenzo ).

What kept this from a higher rating :

1) male lead's romantic back story & his ex. was messy in a forced way.(wow, 5 years after the break up & his heart is still frozen in time) & really , the ex was tedious & toxic.
2) Age gaps: too many & too wide (which were a big part of the drama's romantic couple's stories).
3) Getting drunk as an excuse to sleep together. This trope is really unromantic to me.
4) An eye for an eye & doing to others what they have done to you; yet you want others to see you as the righteous victim (?)
5) women get more sympathy & a free pass on things because they are women
6) No one holds the dog daycare accountable for thier mistake AND guy uses them for his dog even after thier mistake !
7) Too lenient & emotionally motivated law that allows people to get sympathy & or free pass for violently acting out badly just because they had a sad story & were distraught at the time.
8) the "good guy" beating up bad guys ;yeah they deserve it, but it's no longer justice & it tarnishes the good guy
9) woman does not take responsibility for agreeing to abuse but puts full blame on significant other
10 )boring inter office politics
11)Times when the lawyers didn't hold to thier own high standards , or used the law as a weapon according to thier own personal world view.
12) A general consensus that allowed, (even endorsed), revenge
13) ethics & laws were broken by the characters that were more than capable of using thier legal genius to deal with the miscreants.

I never consider the OST to be mentionable unless it's annoying, but this drama deserves alot of praise for it's incredible OST. ALL the songs fit So perfectly! It was so gratifying to end each episode with a satisfyingly compatible song that totally meshed with the vibe of the drama. This is serious high praise from me & so I give it a rare 10/10 ! I especially loved KimMuseum's song "Quiet".

Though I only rated it an 8, I still thought/think it's a good worthwhile drama

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Unpleasant waste of time, why did I even give it a 5 !?

Female lead is abrasive & cluelessly unkind, then later suddenly turns into loud, pushy & thoughtful. The male lead was cast well, but he has a soft body type that was a joke when they present him as someone who eats carefully & works out alot ! His face has a mochi charm but his character was petty & needy. there was so much I did not like about this series: the girls being mean to the guys & being abusive, the intestinal issue plot device, the gay boy counter plot, the crude humor, the awkward unfunny attempts at having sex. So much of it caused me to cringe . Absolutely hated how they had the 2 male lead be an idiot over the female lead though he knew he did not have a chance .So many negatives that sucked the life & the enjoyment out that it's hard to even care about writing a coherent review ! The best acting was done by the female lead's older brothers, but thier plots were messed up too

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Nothing truly bad will happen & the only thing you need to focus on is the male lead

As I finish writing this review I want to give it a 5/5 because I almost dropped it 4 times.
It might be that with every trope I felt a :"dun-dun-dun" dread! But weirdly, everything that presented as a difficulty was rapidly resolved. Many familiar drama tropes that everyone complains about ,(especially the toxic relationship tropes) are teased here but then dissipate with pragmatic , reasonable application of-[GASP!]- communication!! Which you think would just make every viewer happy BUT ; Basically ALL the "drama" of the story is diffused", leaving nothing but blandness. The male lead has alot of charisma & does a brilliant job emoting & the camera blatantly stays trained on him, mesmerizing you with his impressive repertoire of sincere, flirty ,soulful longing looks-all of which pushes everything that's annoying about this drama to the edges of your peripheral.
He strongly reminds me of a young Jung Ji Hoon (Rain)
This drama seems interested in fulfilling the viewer's fantasy of boyfriend material/eyecandy. And yet, it didn't engage me fully or give me that " I can't wait to watch the next episode" feeling. { & I could have binge watched it.} The many positive reviews gave me really high expectations ,but It started off well & initially captured my interest, But by the end of Episode 1, I was very close to dropping it as

1) They did a TIME Skip with both characters over 3 (?) years , putting a BIG kink in the momentum.

2) And, Unforgivably, the writers have the Male lead encountering female lead ON the toilet (having intestinal distress). This kind of humor is a "nope" for me

Thankfully, the next 2 episodes are much better. But

3) by episode 8, the female lead's unflappable smug demeanor ,with her ever present smirk, REALLY grated on my nerves.

4) All of Episode 8 is one long Tedious travel advertisement for Thailand ,(that's like a youtube video of someone's vacation.)

And I can't believe that I am saying this, but

5) There is WAY too much kissing- it just stops being cute, romantic or special.

6) Episode 13 has the male lead reacting in such an unexpected way that it destroyed every positive feeling I had towards him.
[Though, like every difficulty in this drama, it's resolved in record time.]

No misunderstandings due to lack of communication here . !

All the men (but one who gets payback) step up, show up & behave the way they should (for the most part).

7) In Episode 14 the writer's suddenly decide that women want, need & must have everything on thier list of dreams for the perfect life.
8) Infuriatingly , the male lead is ,yet again, ready willing & chomping at the bit to do all the right things , BUT the female lead needs yet MORE in her life to be fulfilled.

9) The writers fake us out with a faux split with the female lead being sorry, not sorry [for being more interested in her own personal dream fulfillment than in working towards melding her life with her boyfriend} !

10) . ANY of the many sacrifices & changes the male lead has made For HER are taken for granted, & at no time does the female lead consider that she should actually care about what the male lead thinks & wants as well.

This like every other obstacle in this series, is quickly resolved, but as always,

11) it's made clear that the direction of the relationship is directed by the female lead (all of her friends likewise are alpha females in thier relationships).

There will be a happy ending for all the couples and even the semi villains . Perhaps I might have been less inclined to put off watching episodes had I known going in that nothing bad will happen and the only thing I need to focus on is the male lead (& the Male airline steward).

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Over confident female lead , Super creepy villain,

I wanted to like this & I really tried to over look the bothersome plot points, but I kept stopping & starting until it finally took me over a month to finish this! Where to start ? Male lead is great to look at but [here] it seems like his range is limited or he's directed poorly. Despite that, his character does all the things that would make him the perfect boyfriend. Then you have the female lead, who Time after Time [after Time after Time!] puts herself in harms way. If you have a stalker , WHY would you seek them out- ALONE ? Why, when you have been threatened [& the bad guy's out to get you] would you go off into the woods-ALONE ? The repeating theme is that She knowingly takes risks because she thinks she's a strong capable confident woman, when she's simply over confident.
Uninteresting Side characters are annoying space fillers .
The creepy villain was a bit too creepy
spoiler:

and it is never explained why he had a thing for her. The spell actually did not seem to have worked at all, so the whole premise seemed like bait. The happy ending was nice, but bland and really I was just glad to be done. The plot and the actors should have made for a good drama, but it just falls way short of expectations.
also at some point the Female lead thinks she's pregnant but does not want to get married.

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Takes awhile to warm up to female lead. Unromantic drunken intimacy. deflated ending

This felt like a screwball comedy , with over the top cringe worthy comedy in Episodes 1-6 -which I found incredibly irritating. It took a Long time to make the female lead likeable. The series improved after episode 6 . The last few episodes were so nice that I almost forget how much I had to push myself to get through, but I rated it low because episodes 1-6 really ruin it as a whole. Both female leads have sex with thier boyfriends and it really did not seem romantic . The drunken hook was especially unacceptable because the guy was not even remotely drunk & ,it seemed like he took advantage of the drunk girl. There was a Dumb Time skip trope ;Long distance separation where they vid chat for 1year ! wow way to deflate a happy ending, so those negatives left me feeling just blah about this.

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wouldn't recommend unless you think a man child is a cute thing

This series fell flat for me. The lead male character (Goo Dong Baek ) was supposed to be sweet & nice, but they took it too far & so he was portrayed as an idiotic simpleton, it was almost as if he had brain damage. He was just a loveable puppy & who never turned into a man. Why would a woman want to marry a man who acted like a 5 year old ? !They gave him a very unattractive hair style and never had him transform into handsome. It was really unbelievable that any girl would fall for him. Throughout the series they often had a sound effect of yodeling...it was funny once, but it became irritating & was an embarrassment to the story.

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Fun with some Quirky characters & alot of full length staged songs

This could almost be called a musical as the characters sing alot of songs on a stage of one sort or another. The music is fine for the most part, but I was more interested in the plot. I would have liked this better if the music had just been snippets instead of full length songs. Mukai Osamu shines (he literally seems to glow) as the male lead who benevolently wears a fixed smile throughout the drama. He's attractive, & in character, so he can get away with that! I felt that they kept trying to make female lead Kamishiraishi Moka look & act very young. This drama is a bit of fluff that tries to make the plot about how songs/singing can bring peace to the world (no, seriously the goal is world peace...through music)
There are some quirky characters that show up every so often giving the drama a circus vibe when unsettling Avu Chan & Sekiguchi Mandy are on screen. The over all story is heart warming & the conclusion unsurprising,
though I have to say, as a character, you're a wussy if you choose to be a mentor/facilitator in the modern world over standing as tactician with your king (in the past) to fight wars!

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An "old school drama" that still has more charm than many newer dramas

I put off watching this for a long time because years ago I saw Lee Min Ho in Boys over Flowers -which I hated. I didn't think much of his acting or his appearance, so I avoided anything he was in. Then in 2020 I inadvertently watched The King Eternal Monarch & was struck at how much his acting had improved. I liked that drama so much that made me open to watching this drama when it popped up for "free" on Netflix. Yes, this drama is dated. And you kind of have to ignore the fact that all the actors ( that are playing 17 & 18 year old high school students) are actually in thier early to mid 20s ! Which is problematical as the story should be about college students, but the plot needs them to be believably old enough for serious relationships, but also young enough to be powerless to do much about it (being minors & all )

It does have the posturing male stereotype and the "old school "format & the characters don't do anything really surprising, But, I was also watching the drama The Potato lab the same month as I was watching this & I have to say that though the male lead in the Potato lab was very attractive (to my personal taste), I found myself enjoying & wanting to watch The Heirs more! ( I finally ended up dropping the Potato lab). WHY!? With all it's faults : being dated, not so great music & stereotypes that haven't aged well, the story & production value is still good. There is also a sweetness about it & an evolution of characters that is very appealing. I like that many of the main characters are equally invested in thier relationships. I like the equality of feelings & regard of the male & female characters for each other!

It doesn't hurt that it is stuffed with handsome men [Lee min ho, Kim Woo Bin, Choi Jin Hyuk , Park Hyung Sik & alot of others]

Park Shin Jye also brings her usual pretty & perky self to the drama with her consistent range of skills.
If you have a stomach for the older dramas like My girlfriend is a guhmio or Secret garden, or if you are just finding the newer dramas too unbalanced & crass, this might just hit the spot for you.

Be warned : you will encounter the ever stupid : " I will leave you because I love you" trope as well as the distant cold parent.
but silver lining, there is no time skip !
Ah, the OST :
Lee Chang Min's song "moments" is used WAY too much to the point that you loose the feeling they are trying to convey, and Park Jan Hye's song "Love is feeling" is a bit annoying but not as annoying as the female lead's childish sounding "Story" . The OST is redeemed by the other songs as well as the decent if not stellar "painful love" song sung by the male lead .

The end is happy for all the main characters & they try to tidy up the relationships by doing a really lame look into the imagined future (10 years forward!) that really gives you nothing more than a visual & not actually any new information

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Non traditional happy ending. Story not exactly the same as the 2015 version

I watched the 2015 version:"My Little lover "before I watched this & so I was expecting this to be the same story (with the same ending). The 2015 version does NOT end the same. It took awhile for me to get into this version as the male lead looked (to me) like he was in 6th grade so imagine my confusion when he invites his girlfriend on an over night (intimate) getaway ! Much later they reveal that he is supposed to be 18. I deducted points for things in this drama, like :

1) The grandfather ,a father & a male teacher are physically abusive to highschool aged kids.

2) A female student makes bold sexual statements to a boy student. I think the point was to show a test of loyalty.

3) too much talk about sex & then a young girl mentions (to her brother)that an older girl has big breasts . All that just was uncomfortable & unnecessary.

I did not like the girl lead in the 2015 version, but I think I still like it better because it was a nicer story with a MUCH better ending. This version's ending really left me annoyed. If you like traditional happy endings, this is will leave you frustrated.

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