Brogana Sunfrog

Disappointing & miscast. Even Doh Kyung Soo's visuals can't save it

Initially, even though it has Doh Kyung Soo in it, I was not interested, because another reviewer said : " the final scene hints at Happily Ever After but falls short of satisfying with the final scene leaving you wanting more + There were a couple of unresolved plot arcs and character threads"
I relented to watching when I couldn't find anything that seemed better. After all, it Does have Doh Kyung Soo in it !
As of ep 5, D.O. had yet to impress me with anything other than the action sequences . His stoicism- (yeah, he's got amnesia), but still, it lasts too long & his dead pan expression does not improve upon by being so frequent. And here lies the main problem; this is not the right drama for D.O. Also, the female lead feels miscast & her character written badly. Between the 2 of them, I did not like nor was I interested in either one of them. For some reason, the romance between them was uninteresting as well. The second male lead meshed better as an actor & as a character with the female lead & her character. A big problem being that Kim Seon HO oozes charisma & emotes well, while, D.O. 's talents & charm are better suited to a different part than what he played here.
I wanted to love it, but I felt it was too much dependent on & geared toward long close of ups of D.O's lovely face while he was dead pan/stoic .

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Dropped at episode 6 because female lead is dead weight to the drama

I got to episode 6 & was totally done with the female lead. her "problem" is not her biggest handicap, her personality & insecurity is. I cannot stand a female lead who pushes men away because they are afraid. Especially when the male lead has given them no reason. Add to that it's an older woman younger man with the ridiculous trope of the man being attracted to a grumpy women. They must be brain damaged or had an abusive mother if they think a combative brash talking woman is "cute" & having a hard shell means she's soft on the inside. Male lead will be dealing with this abrasive insecure woman his whole life & has no one but himself to blame.

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So far a winner with classic drama vibes

This really gives off classic /retro drama vibes in all the best ways. I Have seen 8 episodes so far & am hoping that the rest of this drama does it justice as so far it's really checking most of the boxes of what I consider a great drama.
That said, I'm not into "ghosty/horror" themes, so my rating will fall short of perfect for that reason.
Initially, reminds me a bit of The Master's sun & 2011 drama Spellbound, but it's better than either. (so far)
It's refreshing that they have the leads be more equal, more partners-having each other's back. She saves him he saves her, she fights off bad guys & so does he. Finally a drama where the romantic leads show team work. !
Depending on your personal taste, some might find the male lead to be less attractive/pretty than the second male lead...but that is yet another mark in this drama's favor as the male lead has many charms & doesn't need to rely just on his looks.
It's unusual to have 2 good likeable lead characters!!!
I'm so happy that they let the male lead be good at things instead of being just a character that stands back & let's the female lead take control & be the hero every single time!

fingers crossed for the rest of the drama!

***************Spoilers*****

That a guy is killed by a very small clay pot, was ridiculous. the female lead's cousin is scary thin

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Zany, delightful drama -Ep. 9-12 are heavier. 1year time skip till happy ending

The Good:
This is a zany, delightful drama where issues are (for the most part) quickly resolved . [Ep.1-9]
The male lead serves up some seriously swoon worthy, mesmerizing kisses. The best I've ever seen in a drama or movie. Also the tenderness he emoted throughout the drama was off the charts.
The not so Good:
I'm not overly fond of the female lead's visuals, but I overlooked it as the drama progressed.
I got as far as Ep.9 and was feeling it was a 10/10 drama but then things got complicated & it became heavy, with all of the main characters having issues at the same time.
The relationships are all "unbalanced" in what each person of each couple contributes to the relationship. It's yet another drama where the man is the caretaker, the one with life skills (cooking, cleaning) & the one making the sacrifices & Compromises . For the most part, the women are demanding & selfish & rather emotionally uninvested (compared to the men).
The dog was SO, so ugly & sounded sick when it barked

The ending :
WAS happy, BUT it was modern (1 year time skip to prove that the woman doesn't "Need" the man, he's just the cherry on top of the sundae of her life .)

****Spoilers of things that made me like it less*****

1) Female leads attitude to male lead just doesn't seem all that invested.
2) the leads sleep together & yet she still isn't all the broken up about leaving him. & afterwards :
3) Male lead is doing his best not to cling to her too hard as she is leaving & he's trying to deal with that but she gets all "handsy" with him & suggests they " hit the sack", without any thought of how much harder it will be for him when she leaves. It felt both cruel & also weirdly like she was offering him "consolation".
4) the female lead takes the dog with her when she goes away ! She could have left him the dog at least since she had her family to emotionally support her.
5)The end felt like a modern mess to me- male lead has to conceed to Her decision if he wants her (let her go without strings attached & wait for her to want him) Thankfully, he knew that the best way to get a woman to come to you is to provoke her to anger-
What is with the female lead !? The male lead is a CEO & can afford to marry & start a family without her needing to work-it's not like her job pays extremely well ! But she's sending him mixed signals with & treating him as if he's a poor guy & not worth making compromises for. So even at the end he is waiting to see what SHE will decide about changing her life in anyway to be with him. (Where his company is located is non negotiable ).


So as wonderful as this was for the most part, it fell short of perfect because they insisted on making
6) The females in the drama rule : their preferences, thier aspirations are the only ones that matter. While the men are thinking "we" the women are thinking: "me" .
7) it was stupid to make the smartest kid (nephew)suddenly the 2nd smartest as he did well before without really trying, so it made no sense. If he fell behind it was because he was distressed/distracted by his girlfriend being mad & his heart wasn't in studying, but again, they had made a point of it being known that he got straight A's without even trying hard ,but all the females here have to be superior to the men, so.....

Yes I will rewatch this, but the feminist taint really makes me want to find a way to edit the ending so the female lead is at least willing to compromise reasonably

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Familiar faces ,engrossing story unexpected villains, out of body experience

I'm not a fan of the format of this drama as it jumps around from the present to the past & back again throughout the whole drama. (2018,2019,2020). It made the flow of the story a choppy ride, [even if it cleverly keeps you from solving the mystery prematurely], still, it was disorienting . There were too many familiar faces that just didn't mesh well with the genre. [Jo Han Chul, Kim Young Ok, Um Hyo Sup, Sung Dong Il]
However , Oh Jung Se's acting swung from being basically wallpaper to full on oscar nomination. Emotions run really high in most episodes, with rangers in emergency mode launching themselves onto the mountain in thier obsession to save people. The Town at the base of the mountain is full of rebellious, secretive people with a disdain for rules. It was hard to care about them as they blatantly thought they are a law unto themselves & even in tragedy rail loudly against the rangers while refusing to take responsibility for thier own actions.
Female lead is prickly & lacks charm. Male lead has a special relationship with the mountain. They both have emotional scars. They form a bond, but keep your expectations in check because though there is a slight romance in this drama, it's not with the leads [& it's heart rending.]
I was both relieved & annoyed at the ending. I felt it was contrived & forced. But really, since the drama puts the viewer through so much action, suspense & alot of death- I'd say they did right to pander to our need for a happy conclusion so we could end with a sigh of relief [& a spectacular view].

The cinematography was stunning, the scenery captivating ,the weather whimsical & often deadly.

I had this drama in DVD form sitting on my shelf for 2 years as I was pretty sure it was going to be too dark, too depressing & too unsatisfying . I'm glad I finally gave it a try as it exceeded my expectations & was good entertainment.
Final note: I rarely mention the music, unless it's noteworthy & it is worth giving credit here as the OST had a good variety & Kim Seok Jin's song "Yours" was well placed, giving it a charm it doesn't have without a context.
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I deducted points for:
1)Actors who are over used-& didn't feel right for the drama. gave wrong vibes
2)Towns people were loudly annoying & dimwitted deviants
3)Time waffling-the back & forth made it hard to track the story properly
4) Unpleasant female lead
5) Mountain is a deathtrap !

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Watch if you need a meaningless violence "fix"-twisted, dark & a bunch of people die

OK : don't watch it unless you need a meaningless violence "fix". Incoherent "slasher" movie waste has you scratching your head. Really it's just got a alot of people being killed & As for who the monster is ....you decide because there are alot of super evil people stuffed in this plotline and not one of them ends up without blood on their hands by the time it's over! This is an unsatisfying story, with a cast of characters you could care less about, [except, well, there is that grade school girl & she's a kid, so we don't want to see her die, right ?]

There's no way to explain further with without spoilers


**************Heavy-Explanation/Spoilers**********

The female lead is mentally challenged & feels wronged by alot of stuff because she doesn't have the capability to actually understand (Autistic maybe ?) So she's like a 4 year old. But the overarching storyline pretty much revolves around a younger & an older brother. Apparently the younger brother has no qualms about killing, which he demonstrates as a 5(?) year old by "offing" his abusive "monster" of a father (relationship accuracy unclear) This younger brother will grow up to live reclusively in the woods, killing people (for hire?) then burning them & using the ashes to make urns (that he sells?) His estranged older brother contacts him & asks him to retrieve a cell phone from a young woman who is blackmailing his & her boss (boss hit her & she recorded it). Younger brother confronts woman & uses too much force & oops, she's dead. while pillaging the house, he runs into & kidnaps woman's elementary age sister (it is unclear if she knows where cell phone is). Back at the pottery barn, younger brother tells girl :runaway, I'll start chasing you when I finish this wine bottle & BTW-if you tell anyone about this, I will kill them too. Little girl runs into 2 orphan sisters & does NOT tell them anything-they take her home. next day all 3 are walking in the fog & are attacked by Younger brother (but, like hey??!! she told them nothing) he kills oldest (normal) sister but younger mentally challenged sister hits him over the head with a rock. She runs to get help but.....
OK, now the plot runs into problems because people are able to get places, locate others & survive things that is just inexplicable , impossible & unacceptably dumb [in the context of the real life setting that has no new (special) cell tech.]
Monster? they are ALL monsters

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Sad, Snail paced, montage bloated but satisfying conclusion

Well, I went from "not interested" to completed & have mixed feelings about my viewing experience. This is NOT my kind of genere. I watched Mystic Pop up bar & Oh My Ghost, & both topics were out of my comfort zone , but they won me over. This drama was VERY slow paced. It was beautiful they way that the dead were remembered & respected. At the same time, the stories were also heartbreakingly sad with some parts graphically disturbing. ( I mean the subject IS death, so what were we expecting !?)
The montages of the way the people died were mind numbingly SLOW.
The series has a satisfying conclusion except they give the impression that there is a budding romance between the autistic man & his long time friend which was nonsensical. I only watched it because it was free but overall it was not that enjoyable

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rating is skewed. Slow paced takes patience to enjoy. Dated definition of "manly"

This was one of the first K-dramas I ever watched and at the time the genre was unique to me & I said: "I love it, it's sweet & clean" ! Some years later I say: it's different than most the things I now gravitate towards & I'm not sure I have the patience to enjoy it again. It's slow paced with alot of employment union content. The minor character stuff takes up a bit of screen time and was uninteresting to me.
Male lead is very old school definition of "manly" (visually unpolished & bulky compared to Male leads in dramas today. He throws his weight around & is un refined. The kiss at the end is not very romantic & is not actually something you want to watch. If you want all your warm fuzzies intact I say :Stop watching after
airport kiss, because the rest is filler & will leave you with less of a euphoric high.

The female lead looked like she had lip injections.

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Tediously over long with too many resuscitations & escapes

the kisses & Dylan Wang were swoon worthy but this drama is tediously over long. HOW many times should a character die & miraculously return to life ? Few enough so that we care!
Also; People are escaping so often or being set free from prison in the fairy realm that prison seems more like a joke. The series would have been much better if it had 10 less episodes. The ending was anti climatic, brief & suspiciously unexplained( too much like a dream than reality. Sadly, By the time the drama ended I had lost all affection for the characters. It at least should have ended in Ep 32 with The male lead in his dream state ! Too little warmth & fun & too much filler & situation repeats.

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Serious issues were dealt with in such a way that I was engaged not traumatized.

Initially I didn't think that I would like this as it seemed like a melodrama with & family issues & heavy emotional trauma is not interesting to me.
[I don't EVER want to ugly cry over my entertainment ].
So I was shocked at how unexpectedly likeable this drama was !
The serious issues were dealt with in such a way that I was engaged but not traumatized.
It didn't quite hit the 10/10 for me because;

1) I kept wondering : WHY does the male lead like the female lead ?
All I could come up with was that his mother was not extremely warm to him, so he may have interpreted coldness & being treated a certain way as love?

2) There was a bit too much bickering before the happy ending [though the way they ended it soothed it over.]

They made some bold choices with the OST.I didn't' particularly like the style of music (or the fact that it was all (?) in English) , but it added a quirkiness that went well with the theme. Really, though, it's a Korean drama so it should have had more Korean music-but perhaps that's just because English is my 1st language & so it doesn't have the same charm for me.

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Great Ensemble. Great Cast. Some couples relationships are only resolved in season 2

Very SLOW burn romances. Medical drama balanced out with the light hearted relationship between the 5 doctors. All episodes end with a song that they perform together as a band & sometimes with a flashback to when they were all in college/training together. I don't normally watch any kind of medical drama but this was not too heavy on the hospital trauma side . The end left it open for the sequel & teased at a mystery one of the doctor's might have. It was hard to not get a conclusion to all the couple's stories though. I really liked all the characters as an ensemble & might rewatch this-depending on how well season 2 finishes things off.

Note: I did NOT like Season 2 as much, yes the relationships are "tidied up" but. It was weird & unsatisfying . If you need relationship resolution then I suggest you just fast forward to the end of season 2 !

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Shocking living conditions give way to bonding & an unexpected hero

well "bizarre" is right but it was Kian, not the B&B that was bizarre! From bad hygiene to using his shorts (that he was wearing) as a sort of kangaroo pouch to carry odd things [like an eating bowl ] we get to see him realize that the fun house (s) he imagined are in reality impractical & a pain to navigate, much less live in. He's not actually that funny, yet he laughs off each of his many misstep, while the poor guests plaster on smiles because they are on camera. For his age (40?) he came off childish & not in a cute way. Things get better as the episodes go on, but this is a specific kind of humor that you either enjoy or loath. Ji Ye Eun spends the majority of the show laughing to mask her discomfort & it gets old REAL fast. Her shrieks that are a prelude to a laugh are grating & she does it over & over & over & over again. Thankfully by the last few episodes she's too fatigued to do more than emit a weak chuckle. Netflix (seemingly) chose the guests & they did a decent job, except when they added a chubby guest who must have felt humiliated to find himself needing alot of assistance with climbing a rock wall as well as a fireman's pole. Kian & Ji Ye Eun don't actually have the personalities to pull off a show like this on thier own. What with the bathroom cleaning getting way too much screen time [& supposedly being comedic ???] and people gagging in a smoke filled rooms due to lack of kitchen venting (???? why) this show could have tanked if not for the unexpected blindingly capable Kim Seok Jin. He's rarely shown a mature side (except infrequently in BTS's In the Soop" series) & even though he's the eldest of his group, he's not even the leader of BTS. Seeing him step up & become the "adult" one was not something I anticipated. He really gives it his all here & works hard to give the guests good food & a good time. He's also the one who insists that Kian not cut corners for the sake of comfort, but stay with his original rules for the B&B [as he knows a good bit about what people are interested in watching {from experience!} ] sadly, You get the feeling that this might be a dreadful nightmare for him as he gets a bit of military de ja vu - 24/7 no privacy [even in his sleep] Cooking, cleaning & doing a whole lot of back breaking physical activity . The last few episodes have him rather haggard & clearly pushing himself to the finish line . Really, he is the glue that holds this show together & why the show works. He endearingly underplays his celebrity status & tries hard to make the people around him comfortable. Cooking, cleaning, serving, & putting up with Kian & Ji Ye Eun would test anyone's patience & he comes out looking like a hero .

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