Brogana Sunfrog

Similar to the American series: Leverage

This is 16 episodes, not 32
I was unsure if I would like this because it has no romance but Jang Keun-Suk smirks & side glances with a twinkle in his eye as he romances the camera, so fans will still get thier fill of his charms without having to share him with an onscreen love. this is very much like the series Leverage, (there are times when the soundtrack sounds similar to that of the American Leverage theme song!) This is much more enjoyable than the Korean leverage series (which was very forgettable.) Their are some intense scenes of violence & car accidents that people ridiculously recover from. The series does an impressive job of switching the two look alikes; keeping us guessing which is which at key points.

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rollicking bromance is violent & creepy but still engaging

intense, interesting & much more fun than I anticipated. Mostly a rollicking bromance with alot of friends fighting friends without the intent to kill. I gave it a lower rating because there was alot violence and scary/creepy evil. I was glad to see alot more of Rang & for him to have a romance WITH a happy ending. Female mountain god was a bit brainlessly fixated and shallow, but then again pretty much every woman in this was just a pawn, scenery or both. this is all about the guys having fun
tussling each other & kicking bad guy butts. main characters all end up alive . Very strong Korean ethnocentricity theme, which given the era it's set in & thier history with Japan-totally appropriate & warranted fitting the story. Very engaging, well acted drama-just too violent & creepy at times for me to make it something I'd put on my shelf to rewatch. Kudos, by the way for making it only 12 episodes. 16 would have been draggy .

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Not light hearted. Has a good bit of melodrama

(has same actress as my girlfriend is a 9 tailed fox, which is why I watched it)
Though Shin Min-a steals every scene she is in. This is not a light hearted film, but a drama where Shin Min-a does a good bit of agonizing , waiting & crying. Having said
that, it's Still, very enjoyable. It's hard to grasp why Seun-beom Ryu is so insecure about his looks (scar is not disfiguring) & so the premise is kind of ridiculous. I was not impressed with his selfishness in his self sacrificing. Has a happy ending

Spoiler

but incongruously, he has both his eyebrow and his scar back at the end

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story of deceit, manipulation & revenge

This would have been better if they had made it longer than 1 hour 28 minutes because they don't take enough time to show WHY the guy is such a "catch" (OK he's rich & supports stray dogs, but still; he's a womanizer fixated on a model, though neither one of them is faithful to each other). Nor do they really develop the romance .Listed as a :Comedy /Romance, it is really neither but rather a story of deceit, manipulation & revenge. The story begins & proceeds with a seemingly generic Cinderella story until it gets to a point where you see that Cinderella is not who you & the other characters think she is. Then it becomes heartbreaking. The story twist may be difficult for some viewers to accept because family & loyalty to family at the cost of one's own interests & happiness is what drives the main character.There IS a happy ending but the end kiss scene is a mess as the guy initially misses her mouth but then proceeds to devour her, ( not in a sizzling first kiss way but rather in an unromantic " will suck you into my vortex & inhale your soul way") . Still, the movie is not a bad waste of time, it just could have been better.

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Graphic violence & overall solemn tone

this is reminiscent of the Movie "Dave" but alot less lighthearted. This Dramatic slice of court life intrigue has scenes of killings that are too graphic for me. beware of "happy" ending

Spoiler

male lead seems dead , the queen, steps away from the throne , grieves for over 2 years!!! Then he just suddenly shows up ( he’s been in a coma) and they have this cheesy long emotional moment. heartbreakingly, 2 main supporting male characters die & stay dead. it pretty much had to happen so that there were really 4 people left at the end who actually knew who the "clown" /king" really was. Too solemn for me to enjoy

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high action .rehashed scenes. Slight romance . More crying than warm fuzzies

This was 9 years old when I watched it, but I didn't feel like it was dated at all. Rain really impresses with his stunts & the way he rapidly switches from being goofy one minute to bad ass & then unexpectedly smoldering & then back to goofy. This high action series had SO much running, hand to hand fighting, people getting beat up, taking hits to the head & getting stabbed multiple times & still surviving. But the action sequences were too often too close up to really appreciate or it was in the dark . They went on much longer than was interesting. It would have been more satisfying if they had edited it to 16 episodes. The idiot Private eye from the other country was too stupid for this story & just makes you want to fast forward. Another negative was that things reoccurred too often. How many times does a person have to say :"I never want to see you again" to the same person ? To get caught once by the bad guys & get beat up is bad, but then to let yourself get caught, invite them to catch & then also walk onto their turf is just stupid. The happy ending is a little bland. Rewatch ? yeah but only for Rain & Henney. The romance is slight & there's more crying than heart moments.

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compelling, but heroes act just like the villains & drama loses steam

A well acted decent crime drama with some fun moments of romantic flirtation but overall it's a gritty, dark, sober with a mountain of political intrigue. I dropped it after 4 episodes, but then needed something in the back ground, so I watched another episode,( thinking that I wasn't invested, so it wouldn't keep me up.) Joke's on me ! I kept just watching an episode every so often & found that though it wasn't the kind of drama I normally like, the cast & the camaraderie of the cops , with thier tenacity for justice somehow drew me in.
Final thoughts :
Kang Do Chang's sister was so miserable, rude & selfish that I could not muster up any sympathy for her. Near the end, she did "evolve", but by then, I disliked her so much it was hard to accept the change as genuine.
The drama lost it's steam around episode 13 and from then on
I was sad to see that the 3 main characters compromised thier morals & took justice into thier own hands. I'm not saying that the bad guy didn't deserve his punishment, but in the fake world, I want heroes to get it right by not taking the same sort of actions that the villains do. So, ironically, all three ended up tainted by the desire for vengeance & so were not actually "Good". This ruined the series for me.

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Leads lack chemistry. Vague plot points

Kim Min Gue is not my ideal type of Male lead; he has a perpetually sincere face, which I actually don't find endearing because to me, he just looks concerned. And that's the look he had for most of this series. Female lead was good but they had her staring blankly alot. Chemistry was lacking between male & female lead & the kisses were lacking { I blame that on the director & photographer} I was expecting more from this drama and ended up frustrated because the whole drama was rather incohesive. They kept calling the deity Lord Redrin but they were referring to a woman. The "idol" group sang & danced for only milliseconds at a time and did alot of nothing . The Character building was awkward. So many things were important to the plot were just vague . A mish mash of religious things that did not mesh well { grim reaper, goblins, an untitled head person, deities that were only deities because of people trusting in them, and yet deities that got energy from people's unkind thoughts. Around ep. 8 & 9 it got tiresome, dark, draggy & repetitive. Happy endings for main characters and tidy ending but it just didn't work for me.

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Lead's romance was a fail. Boring workplace drama

This drama failed on multiple fronts. It started out a bit spastic & went at a frenetic pace for many episodes before alternating between dramatic & annoying. it didn't help at all that they overplayed songs like Tuesday & Blind for love until I had to use the mute button. I'm not a fan of Jung Ryeo Won, but I didn't hate her in this. Kim Myung Min's character was written badly for a romantic lead. it would have been better if they had paired the Female lead with another character (though none in this drama was fitting) . Choi Si Won (as endearing as he is) played the idiot clown & got way too much screen time doing so. (It's frustrating that they never have him play a less goofy, irritating character ) His character is too over the top. I found the work place drama to be boring- just too much of it. The romance did not really work. The male lead being all Tsundere was fine, but the writers did not sell him as a romantic lead. I found it annoying that there was hope given for a character's impossible diagnosis, but the character chose to not delegate & what was supposed to be a "grand gesture" of love & sacrifice came off anything but, (as other characters should have been able to step in & take care of the issue). This made the ending frustrating, seriously, it was Lame. While it is a "happy" ending for many characters, it came after a 1 year time skip and the leads are more like siblings or coworkers than anything else. The balance between serious & silly was strained. There was alot of tedious filler, that fleshed out the story, but honestly, I just didn't care about all the side characters.

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intense edge of your seat drama sprinkled with sweetness. Wounds heal super fast

My initial take was that it was similar to Shakespeare's 12th Night- struggling with gender attraction. the leads I have seen before & are worth watching". This has enough fear, gore & violence to keep you on the edge of your seat. The moments of sweetness provided a lull-that sometimes lasted so long you forgot you were not in a drama that was simply romance driven. There's alot to like about this but
I got half way through & took a break-there is alot of intense drama & it got tedious -losing it's plot momentum . It should have been a 16 episode drama. There was too much plot resolution that came unraveled & had to be rehashed. Other issues were that 4 main & secondary characters are repeatedly (REPEATEDLY) slashed, stabbed beaten up & generally abused. They recover within a miraculous time frame & are up & ready for altercations quicker than blood dries on a rock on a sunny day. We are to then ignore when a major character gets a minor slash wound to the arm & it takes them more than a week to recover.
A big negative for me was that so many characters had beards that I could not tell who was who. First you have the old guys, which is really important as one of them is the main villain ! Then you have the man of arms in the maroon, another guy in grey, blue & yet another one in red....but they all are important characters on a particular political side, so knowing who they are is vital! !!It doesn't help that more often than not they are in stealth mode-so you see them mainly at night. I'm guessing that if I was more fluent in Korean it would have been easier to identify them, but they don't exactly call out thier names as they enter the scene! nice tidy happy ending but I was irritated that they did not explain how they achieved everyone staying alive for the happy ending.
**spoiler of a sorts**
(how hard would it be to say :"ah, I figured out the antidote ?)
random rant : WHY did the King's bodyguard not have his hair in a top knot like literally every other man in the palace ?
I would not rewatch but I do think it is a decent drama-just too much violence , beards & needed to be shorter

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