Wasted a perfectly good male lead on whatever depressing thing this is
extremely disliked this. the pain of poverty, the over the top domineering parents, the harsh realities and no romance-this is not entertainment- it's a case in study on human frailty. The music WAS good but most of it was sad. all along you wonder how is the female lead paying for food & rent considering that you never see her work in the end she has totally forgiven her deadbeat father and the male lead has gone off into the sunset with no particular destination. The magician is AWOL as well. The whole thing was very depressingWas this review helpful to you?
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Too much serious relationship melodrama & not enough action. Bland happy ending
Female lead is one of my least favorite actresses, so it was a rocky start .The first few episodes give off a weird vibe because the female lead is happily married. So it feels uncomfortable/unpleasant & wrong for her to be spending anytime with her ex.
It was annoying that we don't ever really get concrete answers about how long her first marriage lasted (my guesstimate is a year) or how long in between her divorce & meeting husband #2 was. The series gives you a feeling that it has been a LONG time since she saw her ex AND that she has been married for more than a few years.When actually she has only been married to husband #2 for a year! The "perfect" marriage is shown to be based on things that aren't quite obvious or normal for some societies [or for me!] . The married couple don't actually kiss or get intimate [it's never suggested either], which is odd to me. The tug of war between who IS the best man for the female lead does keep you wondering for awhile. What disinterested me was the long soliloquies where the main characters reminisced for long periods of time about thier relationships. Sure, they were setting up a way for the audience to get into the character's heads, but it was SO tedious & maudlin. The mystery of who killed the scientist is only slightly intriguing. It's the mystery of who husband # 2 actually is that you sort of wait for . Neither husband # 2 nor his wife are in thier marriage for the reasons you would expect & that sets the stage for allowing us to see what looks perfect to be challenged.
Husband # 2's hair style was cringy & distractingly unappealing. The reasons at the end for why the leads do what they do, PLUS the time skip makes the happy ending rather blah. Too much serious relationship melodrama weighed this down when more action & fun spy stuff should have been added.
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Jang Keun-suk & OST are great, story is dated & ending is "meh"
I've watched this 2 times & I liked it enough to buy it but end was very typical for K-dramas, but for me, not enough romance & concrete resolution as I would have liked. Music is great . Real reason to watch ? Jang Keun-suk ! His, facial expression are captivating. This was one of the first K-dramas I watched & what drew me into the genre. On second viewing I was disappointed that it wasn't as wonderful. Lead guy is really harsh (even though why he's like that is well explained) Lead girl is over the top clumsy & it grated on my nerves as I don't enjoy that kind of comedy in large doses. The sadness of the second lead (guy)pursuing & breaking & rebreaking & rebreaking his heart over lead girl was not great. The only consolation the viewer has is that he's available for the viewer to love without competition ! The music was good . Ending is SO typical for this genre & left me flat. Still, this series holds a special place in my heart because it was a first love when I was first introduced to K-dramas & really it's a classic, but I will wait another 5 years before watching.Was this review helpful to you?
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Unsatisfying ,Heavy melodrama , light on the romance with a "meh" ending
I like both leads, so though I was reluctant to watch this (because it was 50 episodes) I started & ended up slogging through it. Despite the cheerful perky intro, this is NOT light & fluffy. This is a heavy family drama & that where the focus of the story is, NOT on any romance. The romances in are weighted down with obstacles & misunderstandings which drain the romances from being fun. It seemed like there were 2 episodes that gave warm fuzzies for the main couple & not even whole episodes ! This was a painful series with SO much crying & SO many characters that you wanted to slap. I frequently found myself mentally swearing at the MANY female antagonists . To be fair, I loathe family dramas & this had at least 5 families going full drama all at once. I did not like most of the side characters & though this has a good theme & things are resolved for most characters with the focus on repentance & forgiveness, it's too emotionally heavy for me & I found it more annoying & painful than I like my entertainment-which I want to be escapism- not a reminder of how awful family can be. IU did a very good job here & Jo Jung-suk play the same character type as he did in Hospital playlist and Oh my Ghostess character's personality but there isn't enough of screen time for them & they are not enough to save this from being drudgery to watch (even though by Ep. 35 I was fast forwarding through all the grandmother/foster mother scenes.) Overall-depressing & the main couple get, like 1 kiss the whole series & no wedding.Was this review helpful to you?
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Slow, bogged down with filler & lacking balance. Romance falls flat
this has a Slooooooow pace with a slow burn romance between 2 good looking but boring people .There is alot of filler -the story could have been finished in 10-12 episodes .As it is you feel pretty lethargy by the end. Speaking of the end; a contrived amount of people get coupled up, but there's no good soaring sense of happiness for them as it's presented blandly. The end spends alot of time with voice overs & sounds like one big long advertisement for mental health pitch,(I expected to see a suicide hotline # all throughout the series !). The creepy twin brothers story is depressing & there's WAY too much emphasis on it. The romance falls flat & there's no balance between the romance & suspense (the boringness of daily stuff was too predominant). The only thing interesting was how 4 characters met as children.Was this review helpful to you?
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Bad storyline & Leads have zero chemistry
spoiler rant:having started an affair with another man, a woman marries a long time friend she doesn't love, leaves him & aborts thier baby. That same guy is betrayed by selfish coworkers & looses his job & status because of his love & chef rivals. He decides he is in love with new woman because a fortune cookie tells him so. Problem is that a somewhat reformed gangster is also in love with the same woman. That woman's fiancé left her at the alter because her father is taken to jail. I dropped it 1/2 way through because it just doesn't work between leads.No chemistry, & you are rooting for the female lead to get together with the gangster. I can only imagine how it will end. the leads start out sympathetically but soon show themselves to be rather stupid, naïve & gluttons for punishment. Then it drags on with the mother interfering out of snobbery.Lastly the one guy you like (& who is worthy of the idiot girl he loves) sacrifices himself so that the 2 leads can have what they want.
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A mess
humorous, but I never could understand why he broke up with his girl friend to begin with, the reason they gave seemed lame. Some of the humor was "off color". a gay car, woman getting larger chest, & in the beginning where a guy runs around in his cartoon briefs is not something I wanted to see.I was almost into the happy ending only to find that it really wasn't, it was just dumb.The guy finally gets the girl, but even though they could have just said :"oh well we're in a wedding venue, let's just switch grooms" they don't so basically even though the guy says he loves the girl & can't live without her (and they've been dating , how many years ?) it doesn't occur to him to propose & marry her ? If he was so desperate/lovesick as he said he was he should have married her on the spot.Was this review helpful to you?
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Leads are great, but there's a long time skip at end making an unimpressive happy ending
the cast is great. It's only the leads that really get you through 40 episodes when it should have been done in 32 max. You can easily just quit at Ep 38 [time stamp 31:39] if you want to end on a romantic high note with a full warm fuzzy tank. To continue....be prepared for an immediate 5 year time skip. Ep 40 will end happily but the happiness is much more muted. The leads are great in pretty much anything that they are in & this is not a stretch for either of them. I was surprised that the Female lead did things normally reserved for the male lead- like killing people. She has righteous reasons to do so, but it is in contrast to the Male lead who is more forgiving {though he Totally sanctions the killings !} I felt like this is one of the most equal couples in a drama because they respect each other & they work well together in all areas . The sets were amazing. The romance is a sweet slow burn & misunderstandings are kept in proportion & dealt with quickly without the usual lame break up make up silliness that many drama couples go through. The length ruined this from being completely great. well, that & the Male lead having his hair too often in a tight knot instead around his face, as it should be !Was this review helpful to you?
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juvenile & idiotic. constant Aegyo, saccharine romance with a glut of American music
16 episodes does not seem like all that long a series, but it felt like there was way too much dull filler so really this should have been a 10 or 12 episode series. First off, the main girl is NOT feminine like the description implies. She does have her girly moments, but for the most part she's in sweats or ugly shapeless clothes & is stuffing her face with food & acting like she has the brains of a mule that's been kicked in the head. The main guy was interesting UNTIL he suddenly turned from cool hunk into a constant Aegyo maniac who instantly became obsessed with the main girl. Why ? simply because he had fond memories of her when she was very very young. He goes so far as to treat her almost as if she were that same child, when it's obvious she's grown up. I didn't find their relationship really worked the way it was written. The filler I mentioned has to do with the weight lifters as friends and the lead guy's stalker ex-girl friend. The weight lifting friends were especially boring I made me really want to fast forward through them. The side story of a girl character having a crush on an older guy & he's oblivious to the point of absurdity makes you wonder if all the characters have mental issues! As for the main romance , it was too cutesy for me & the guy, though handsome, really had no reason to instantly completely change his personality & become smitten with the lead girl. The word idiotic comes to mind as a description for the series. Sometimes you can just suspend disbelief & enjoy the fantasy, ( as in Love O2O,) but here, it's all so very juvenile you wonder if they had a good idea & just had a 3rd grader write the plotline for each episode.rewatch value :none
music: the OST had way too much American music, it was very distracting & didn't work(& my first language is English).
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slight romance. Sloppy, & somewhat opened ended ending
This was was a more violent, suspenseful thriller than I expected. I would have given it a perfect score but they killed off a character I really liked. There is only a small bit of romance. the ending is slightly surprising and though it ends with most storylines tided up, it is a bit sloppy and little open ended.**spoiler** it felt like a plot hole right at the end for the little girl's situation. The "newly minted" main couple are living the lives they want, thought it's unclear what the Female lead is actually doing for a job, and no mention of who is running the company ! with the main couple no longer living with the little girl, the little girl has no one but the house keeper , who she never seemed that close to so it's sad.
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Lots of underwear. no happy ending. It's all about the product & the job
AKA:Atlier PG for racy subject matter (bras), it's plot lines are as sappy as a Disney sitcom.great series did not have a "happy" ending that I would have preferred (& would have given it a perfect score if it did).It was at times a somewhat unsatisfying drama. Does not promise happy relationships & does not deliver them, though neither is it all about the drama in relationships, but rather it's all about the product & the jobWas this review helpful to you?
Bland happy ending
It was pretty good until the middle of episode 10 & then once we got the main couple where we wanted them, they were going to throw multi tropes in to shake things up. After reading other reviews it seems like this is the exact place to stop for the best experience because from the middle of ep 10 to the end of ep 16 there isn't alot worth enduring through. I skipped to the end & was vindicated as I saw that not only was there a 1 year time skip (in which the main couple have NO interaction at all) to the very bland happy-ish ending where all you get is a smile & a small hug.so when I watch again I will stop in the middle of ep 10Was this review helpful to you?
Somber with hint of romance. Leads lack chemistry. Female lead miscast
Series had an Unexpected prevailing somber tone with only a bare hint of romance . I expected to be wowed with what they did with makeup, but The makeup transformations were really unimpressively lack luster. Though there is a happy ending for the main couple; to call it a slow burn would be generous. Sadly, the leads have no chemistry. Joo Sang Wook does a really good job. Female lead Kim Bo Ra is miscast, & either her character is poorly written or she's poorly directed. Supporting cast does well, except for Hong Seok Cheon who is an irritating caricature of a type of man . I did not pick up on the age gap between the leads for awhile as it didn't seem relevant. It wasn't a problem because there is Nothing romantic going on. The female lead frequently has a blank look on her face & she comes across like she is a middle schooler with her expressions. It's really hard to accept her as a part of a romance with such a charismatic male lead. Joo Sang Wook really does all the work because she might as well be a hand puppet for all she is able to emote .I kept waiting for her to show another more adult side but it never came. The one tentative kiss lacks warm fuzzies or any heat. It's just Joo Sang Wook making his own chemistry all by himself & really by that time, you feel that he is so much more mature than she is that even His character is like :"nah this is just weird "! I've seen Kim Bo Ra in "Her private life" & did not warm up to her as a supporting actress. I really don't think that she's up to being a main, especially when paired with a much better, seasoned actor.Was this review helpful to you?
lame but watchable, but no end, so Disappointing
This was really disappointing because it does not end ! It's obviously meant to have more episodes but they are not available (?) Over all it was a pretty lame ho-hum story ,yet very watchable- IF the story was complete!! As it is, it leaves you hanging.5 episodes (on amazon) all about 13-15 minutes each
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Wanted to like it because of the cast, but the story is depressing
Episodes 1-6 have some light heart warming moments but episodes 7-16 are increasingly traumatic. The cast is excellent., so I really tried to like this. but The tragic stories , though impactful, equal too much heavy drama & so is too depressing for me . Also, the ending is not nailed down enough to give me a real sense of conclusion satisfactionWas this review helpful to you?
