Brogana Sunfrog

Slow paced with even Slower burn romance that wastes it's potential & turns tepid

Cute & Pleasant but Sloooow burn romance.
Acting was good but personally, I was not really awe struck by lead guy. Lead girl didn't seem to find his kissing very inspiring either.
Rewatch value: no, pace is too leisurely so plot progressed too slowly, stretching my patience. I didn't find the secondary couple or the work place plot line interesting .
The last 2 episodes were a mish-mash of the moments we'd been waiting for & filler pertaining to parents, side characters, and future.
I wish I had skipped a certain part ,fast forwarded & stopped watching 9 min into ep 24, Then the story would have been much more satisfying & left you feeling good instead of having those good feelings dulled by resolving every conceivable aspect of the character's lives. I personally am not entertained by
child to parent awkwardness concerning the adult child's love life. Neither am I ever going to be interested in seeing a peek into the main couple's lives a few years down the road (when they have children!)

here's why I rated it so low:
**********Specific-Spoilers***********

A) failed attempt at sex , with the guy doing research online afterwards on anatomy (complete with diagrams) to figure out what went wrong.This was not funny to me.
if you feel the same :stop in Ep 22, 9 min in & fast forward .
B)I hate the typical time lapse/separation (this one is a mere 6 months) but the story has already dragged you slowly to this point only to just stall, yet again.
Ep 23 (Just skip it !!!!) seriously, you miss nothing but filler.
C) Ep 24 has a non romantic bedroom scene (in what culture is it considered romantic to have a guy straddling a girl, while he holds down her outstretched hands on either side of her ? )
Plus it has the non romantic conclusion of taking an abortion pill afterwards. EU !]
Even with the slow pace & filler, I'd rate this a 9/10 If I could have skipped 2 scenes & stopped watching the series completely at any one of 3 places.
If I were to rewatch this again this is what What i would tell myself:
1) stop in Ep 22, 9 min in & fast forward through the failed sex & research scene.
1) skip the 6 month separation in Ep 23 completely
3) End before the end:
9 min into ep 24 they get married & that is a really good place to end the whole series, or even stop 10 min in after they meet a colleague at at cafe but either way,skip the non romantic bedroom scene that follows & the taking of the abortion pill 10 min 44 sec into the episode. just skip them being in bed altogether really.
4) I for some reason I you feel compelled to slog through more, 37 min into ep 24 where he sees her in her wedding clothes is also a great place to end watching the series (before those warm fuzzies go tepid & boring)

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Warm fuzzy inducing romance. Well thought out time travel trope

Even though female lead is not one of my fav actresses, I keep ending up watching a good many of dramas with her in them.
I would have rated this a 9/10 except that there was a 1 year time skip at the end as well as the last 2 episodes being unnecessary , annoying & a bit of a let down warm fuzzy momentum wise. If this series suffers from anything, it's tail chasing; plot points where they revisit & rehash the same circumstances over & over. It diminishes the impact of a plot point. That complaint aside, the story moves along well. The male lead's reticence & bemused low key reaction to what happens to him is reminiscent of Star Treks' Spock. It was hard for me to see what exactly attracted him to the female lead's character, but, hey, he's a simple man from the past & she is kind AND pretty, so let's not make it complicated!? Kudos to the writers who put alot of thought into building a detailed structure of how this time travel story would work. And it mostly does. As much as I disliked episodes 15 & 16, I will admit that 16 does tidy up loose plot holes that you may have perceived (but which I did not particularly care about as this is fantasy after all). I found all the happy ending I needed at the end of episode 14 & if & when I rewatch this I will stop at the end of 14. Episode 15 is a bland slice of the characters saying "now we can relax", only to set you up for : "wait ! One more impossible plot point !" Yes, the male lead needs (?really!?) to risk everything, again AND there is a 1 year time skip (I HATE time skips with a passion !!). The biggest failure of those episodes is that 15 is bland & does not address the question we are all thinking : "what IS he going to do with his life ? He didn't bring back any more artifacts to sell, so how is he going to make a living ?" There is a second happy ending with the conclusion of episode 16, (with some steamy award worthy kisses!) but it doesn't really hit as romantic as the "1st" happy ending" at the end of episode 14. This is a case of more episodes are not always better. Still, I enjoyed this & found the male lead's character endearing. I like how they used traditional Korean instrumentals & the drama checks all the boxes for having rewatch value! [a feel good, frequently smile inducing, warm fuzzy inducing, not an abundance of violence, ends happily]

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Maudlin series with alot of bickering. Leads lack chemistry

I put this aside for awhile because initially there was too much discussion of sex & innuendos in the first few episodes & the personalities of the leads didn't seem mesh-able. Nothing really grabbed me & made me want to watch more.(yes the Male lead is attractive, but his demeanor & the things he insinuated were off putting. didn't feel that the leads had any spark & female lead was not written well (in the episodes I viewed) Turns out that my first impressions were spot on! After I picked this back up I thought perhaps it did have a certain amount of charm. I thought the concept of the radio/songs intertwining with real life was somewhat interesting. Unfortunately this is more than a bit of a maudlin series. Though there are blessedly few, if any, misunderstandings , too may secondary characters are over bearing & really push too hard for thier own agenda & make themselves completely unsympathetic when you know the writers are trying for the opposite. Too much bickering !Also, sadly, the leads have NO chemistry and the romance is a hard sell. The male lead is either a terrible actor and can't emote or he is directed poorly. The female lead is boring & slightly unappealing. The kisses between the leads are awkward & boring. You can give them a pass to begin with since it's supposed to be their first time in love but as they kiss more, it just looks like 5 year olds kissing. Cold, embarrassing, tentative & immature. I could not figure out why a nice second lead impulsively proposes to the abusive trashy girl. And the lead's happy ending is a result of a VERY unromantic proposal. it doesn't help that after the big reveal of the mystery behind the male lead's trauma, you actually like him less

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Comedic train wreck that becomes depressing

I actually had this marked as "not interested" because of the compelling bad reviews & I should have not allowed myself to be tempted , but it was free on Netflix & I thought :oh, it has Choi Si-won in it AND it has a happy ending ( I cheated & looked). Ah, I was SO very wrong to watch it. I wish I hadn't because I now like Choi Si-won less & that is harsh, but his character was horribly irritating & written badly. I loved Choi Si-won in 'She was pretty' & wished that he had been the lead. This series should have been the answer to his fan's prayers, but no, it fails miserably. the first 10 episodes are a comedic train wreck .It's so bad that Choi Si-won's mischievous smile actually becomes less & less attractive & for that I hate whoever was directing him. His character is selfish, even in his selflessness. He never really shows any real growth & even in the happy ending, he is not considering the female lead's feelings or wishes, only his own. The last 6 episodes have a totally different feel to them as things get serious, but though you get a relief from the comedy, it just starts to become depressing. To make matters much much worse, they play Gu Keun Byul"s "sing my song" not only as a theme for the 2 leads, but also for the the bromance ,as well as the unrequited love with the 2nd lead. It is SO over used that is looses it's charm completely. The series is lovely to look at & the actors are all charming, but it is not a series I would recommend. Only my affection for Choi-si won kept me from giving this 1 star

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High rating is a mystery even to me

Sadly, the modern ending made this a not something I'd.
This was a SLOW burn romance with a good dose of feminism; Featuring strong ,determined, selfish & career focused women. In contrast, the men were ruled by thier emotions & overall seemed a bit dimwitted (clueless). The end is modern, not giving you the traditional happy ending, but hinting at the possibility the couples might be together. ( would be interested to see how others interpret the ending, as I'd like to be wrong !) However, the way I saw it, It was a cowardly, waffley "cop out". I found the lead female's character to be hard to warm up to & really it felt like she didn't know what she wanted. The whole " yes I want him & I want him to want & commit to me, but only if & when it fits into my mood & schedule, AND my goals are more important than he is !" , thing was just badly written character to me. I also found it odd that the female lead was too dense & could not see the obviousness of the male lead's interest. I did enjoy the series, but the female lead & the noncommittal ending put me off. I think what really impressed me what that this was a Netflix original. I hope they do more Korean dramas that we can view in the US

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A classic that might not age well for some

high rating is probably unjustified, but it was One of the first 3 dramas I ever watched. It made me fall in love with the genre. Time may not be kind to this drama as the clothes ARE going to be outdated, as are the many tropes & sensibilities. The tsundere male being demanding & over bearing while being a (Jane Austen's) Mr. Darcy type in many ways; I found it fun & didn't care about the possible masculine toxicity because it just doesn't bother me.
I wasn't thrilled about the parental drama or the soul/body switching, but I over looked it as they didn't delve too far into the ramifications. Has a Happy ending.

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I wanted so much to love it but it fell short

Years ago I saw & loved the original Taiwanese version- & Highly anticipated a Korean version, especially with D.O. in a romantic role . As of this writing it is on Amazon Prime video [for purchase.] I dread saying it but to be brutally honest, [and honesty in this instance does feel brutal] It felt rushed , right from the start. The original version suffered from the same issue . There needed to be a sense that the leads were meeting over a few weeks , if not a few months to build a relationship. Another negative was that the camera gives you whiplash as it bounces back & forth around in different scenes (piano competition "duel" for instance) . Beautiful scenes lacked seamlessness making for a disjointed storyline. I blame the director & the editor for depriving us of perfection :P
That said; I will watch it again, good cast, lovely romance (even if it is too quickly started)

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One long joke . Stuffed with tropes, but Daniel Henney is in it

the only thing keeping this movie from a 1 star rating is Daniel Henney & the fact that they keep repeating Sweet Sorrow 's song "Tangdanghan Kunyoga Arumdada (Seducing Mr.Perfect OST)".
There is really too many of the typical tropes: getting drunk & doing karoke then mouthing off at the boss, the piggy back ride, the drunken kiss, the constant running into each other, the embarrassing moments. And though Henney really does his part, somehow the movie just doesn't work. It doesn't pull your heart strings or cause you to care.Maybe it's because the 2 leads don't have really any chemistry. But mostly I think alot of the fault lies in the way the characters are written.(& of course the tropes) The romantic happy ending is cut short & skips to a more modern one with Henney confessing to her family that he loves her, he just has no plans to marry her. Yeah, that pretty much puts him in the same category as all of June's former boyfriends...using her until they get tired of her. So everything she's learned about self respect is put aside

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unmemorable

it's one of the first Asian movies I watched, back when I did not know that mydramalist existed, so all I wrote for notes is the rating. I remember the premise (it's the same as the American remake ) but this a better movie. I found the story sad. I enjoyed the dancing & the music. I especially like how there is not alot of chatter for filler, but it lets the story have quiet reflective or other quiet but powerful moments, something American films rarely do. I'm not partial to sad stories, & this was a one sided romance that wasn't going to go anywhere, so it really didn't appeal to me

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Attachment to who the people were in the past, not to who they are now

I liked this drama but
1) if you watch it on DVD (official or otherwise) you will find that there are alot of English subtitles missing- like things are just not translated ( I know this because I speak a good bit of Korean!)
also;
I don't think the writers did a good job because they wrote a character that does a 180 degree turn about in how they treat a girl just because of her identity. (Yes, it's fiction, but honestly in fiction or in reality; Guys that are worth having treat ALL women with respect, not just the one they are crushing on !). The romance for me was a bit off because the attachment is to who the people were in the past & not in the present. it was sad that they were not attracted to each other for exactly who they were as a complete person in the present. The writer's somewhat redeem themselves by giving us a good happy ending where you can see the girl can be herself and the guy is fine with her not fussing too much about her looks, though, dang she could put a tiny bit of effort into it !

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