Brogana Sunfrog

Male lead shines in this modern Snow White/Maid Marion mash up of a plot

I took off points from a perfect score because of 3 things:
1) Prosecutor's obsession with female lead felt creepy.
2) Female lead promises multiple times to stay safe by staying put & she doesn't, which puts her in danger (this trope MUST die!)
3) Female Lead's best friend's storyline was jarring, 1 dimensional & detracted from main story. What she has with her guy is not a relationship & not romantic !
Now for the positive:
All those car accident, kidnapping & torture tropes; where the music sets you up to be scared? Well here you get the scary music, but those tropes don't happen. No One dies & relationships that matter are mended by the end, (AND you get your warm fuzzies!). Issues are resolved quickly, (though I am getting sick of the clueless male & female serenely navigating the world with a superior air trope). At least it wasn't heavy handed here. Leads are great in this. I wasn't really sold on thier chemistry, but the male lead sells it, so I let it slide. A very enjoyable Rom Com. The female lead was a kind of Snow White/maid Marion mash up living with her menagerie of merry men dwarves , but also get's her "prince"/hero!

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Unexpectedly serious tone doesn't weigh it down. but also enjoyable & smile inducing

Park Eun Bin's perkiness & smile are infectious. Many times she believably radiates joy, which adds a great deal to the appeal of this drama. Considering that she did not train as an idol, It's impossible to be unimpressed by her singing. If you saw her in Extraordinary Attorney Woo, you will feel some similarity in the characters, but she was probably cast in this drama because of her ability to portray innocent yet scrappy. I had some annoyance at how there seemed to be storyline gaps, but the answers were doled out in little bits here & there as the drama progressed. It was unexpected & sad to see Kim Joo Heon & Lee Seung Joon as antagonists. The series has a happy ending in ep.11 but continues on with another episode , over coming the "hitch" in the happiness to give us a fully satisfying ending, with enough time to actually feel completely engulfed in warm fuzzies. The series was a lot more serious than I expected, yet the somber themes did not weigh it down. overall, I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable & smile inducing it was.

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Seo In Guk shines. Leads bicker.Good premise. unbalanced humor with suspense/horror

18 Episodes is an interesting length for a series. The male lead ,Seo In Guk,shines ( in a role that is not that different from ones he has played before). I really had a hard time looking at the female lead Oh Yeon Seo, as she looked like she had lip injections that had not gone well ( it was distracting from her performance) (if you look at older pictures of her she looks very nice & normal !). The romance was a hard sell for me as I don't find an abundance of bickering & physical abuse romantic. Plus, they didn't give a good reason for why the male lead liked the female lead. Overly goofy acting & helped alleviate some of the tension from the suspense & horror of the often too graphic murders , but the balance of extreme humor & extreme grisly stuff did not work for me. All in all, though, Seo In Guk & head cop Jung Man Shik (who have been in dramas together before) really made this great. I was surprised at the very clever reveal of who the head bad guy turned out to be. this is very rewatchable because the premise is very good & well executed and the male lead really sells it.

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Light on the tropes, but alot of crying, Some romance. Good Character growth

I watched it & I bought the dvds (which is rare for me.) Awkward, unimpressive start that was heavy on the drama.
I was pleasantly surprised that the story had the characters showing depth, introspection & evolvement. There was just enough romance ( & a happy ending) & I was glad to see that the side characters didn't create extremely uncomfortable love triangles (or leave you conflicted about them not being chosen by the leads.) There also was not a load of K-drama tropes. Nor did they throw an endless pile of set backs to keep the story going. A few times I felt boredom setting in but the story mostly progressed at a good rate & I really liked the resolution they gave the characters. The soundtrack did not stand out. The acting was decent. The actor's chemistry was OK. You will want a few boxes of tissues nearby....when the guys cried it was more convincing than when the girls cried. (and there is alot of crying !)
the soundtrack really could have been better.
the ending was too abrupt.

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Underwhelming Bro-mance/Family dynamics centric story with alot of crying

I'll just admit it; there are popular actors & actresses that inexplicably I just don't like. Park Bo Gum is one such actor. With that in mind; this series was a boring waste of time for me. It was a great showcase for Park Bo-gum to try out being a villain, a historical prince, a runway model & the boy next door acting abilities. This is a Bro-mance/Family dynamics centric story, with a bland romance & a half hearted loved triangle. All 3 main leads had endless in-family fighting, which led to those characters crying. ALOT. This was an unambitious laid back series, free of most K-drama tropes, almost. Then you are confronted with my most hated trope : the break up and the multi year time lapse before the ending. After putting up with a plodding plot & constant family stress, you get an ending with the 2 leads teasing each other as they walk towards the horizon, which actually only leaves you with the hope that they will get back together. Wow. Underwhelming & not worth the investment.

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Handsome men. Overstuffed convoluted plot that deserves a better ending

Overstuffed convoluted plot & overly long series-would be much better with 10 less episodes. Cast boasts alot of handsome males & a very perky attractive female lead (who seems a bit limited in expressiveness), but then again her character is written a bit flat & narrowly business focused. Ding Yu Xi plays a very similar character as he had in many other dramas & if you're not tired of seeing him cast that way, then settle in & enjoy. The romance makes little to no sense except from the point of view that the male lead's character has a bad judge of character when it comes to women & is married to 2 harpies making anyone less like a harpy more attractive ! Romances of secondary characters start out interesting but their stories end up unsatisfyingly bland or abrupt . Male lead's character is both very hardy ( survives 3 stabbings & yet somehow is also extremely fragile ( suffers nightmares, phobias, fevers, weakness when it comes to physical labor. ) On the other hand, the female lead is stronger mentally & physically.

Spoiler:
there is a 1 year time skip at end (which "steamed my clams")
During which male lead pines away, (not knowing if she is dead-while female lead does not even let him know she's alive as pragmatically decides to keep her distance, even after she meets up with him again.) The trope of singularly job/career/ focused female leads and male leads who are the more emotionally invested is getting extremely tiresome.

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Unpleasant Female lead & love story doesn't work

This bite size drama series was just the right length, but the way the female lead was written made me dislike her. Her attitude of; " I'm pretty & entitled & give me, give me " made me not care. Likewise, it was hard to feel much sympathy for the male lead as really, he fell in love with her 8 years prior & hasn't she changed since then (I mean you HOPE so!)? it kind of boiled down to a comfortable, we know each other better than anyone else thing & I can't say that it felt like either of them was in love. Male lead was too easy going & puts up with everything because he's afraid to make waves that float him away from his crush ? Ultimately this romance did not work for me. Plus-there is a time skip...AGH! !! {oh & At first I tried to watch on Disney+ and it was dubbed which totally ruins it. I did figure out, though, that I can change the language setting on Disney + so yay for that !. }

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Satisfying romance with nightmare scary side story

my rating is a bit high considering that the series has a a huge spectrum that swings from silliness to violence.
Thugs act like the 3 stooges in so many scenes that it got on my nerves. Then you have a serial kidnapper on the loose & he is nightmare scary. End is happy & romance is satisfying. You know you've got the right guy when it's the one who appreciates & loves you as a whole person, fully accepting your quirks & talent.(AND isn't intimidated by either), letting you be herself. I will rewatch, but not the very end as family life they depict is so silly it dampens the romantic happy ending they already served up.

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Badly written flaky female lead

24 episodes is too long for this series & the male lead is not extremely appealing (is rather bland in indistinct). I am a fan of female lead & she is always fun to watch, however, her character is unstable & frequently changes her mind. So, one minute she is declaring her steadfast love and the next she is ready to throw in the towel. They try to keep this mostly light hearted with frequent banter and teasing, but though the silly is fun, the female lead is just too inconsistent in her character and it's honestly hard to get invested. Happy ending is a bit odd if you consider that main couple are married in the "dream" past, so if they were to be together in the present, (where they hardly even k now each other)that would mean... ?

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A bit the heavy on the drama, but satisfying romance with Happy ending

I liked that although there were tropes in this series, they were really done well. I'm not a fan of flashbacks, but the way they were done & used here won me over. Poor Lee Jong-suk did SO much crying, which was a bit much for me but I was impressed that he had the acting ability to pull it off well. I liked that the suspense and the heavy drama parts were quickly resolved for the most part. I liked that the resolution for the love triangle was so amicable and that the guy who didn't win the girl's heart was just as good a guy as the other guy, but there was not conflict of interests for the viewer. Leads were good but did not have over the top chemistry (blame it on the way the female lead was written I think) satisfying romance with Happy ending.The premise of the dreams being central & not just limited to one person & the specifics behind that plot devise was really well done. The lack of irritating parents in this series was a relief ! I will definitely rewatch. I prefer romantic dramas & even though there was plenty of satisfying romance so I gave this 1/2 star less for being a bit heavier :so some days I took a break from it as I needed something fluffier at the end of a long day

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pleasant & slow paced turned into tedious & bland

Slow paced, easy going , low drama series that would have been better as a 16 episode drama . Issues get resolved quickly & I found myself smiling foolishly without realizing it. However, every time the female lead bared her teeth in her rabbity grimace of a smile, I wanted to look away. It was not endearing. I had hoped that it was affected and simply good acting, so the smile would evolve into a more mature lovely smile as the character aged; but, no it remained .There were some tedious episodes that I had no patience for. A hole episode about a sick grandmother. Touching, but boring. Episodes of college life with everyone fawning over leads, hoping to lure them away from each other were uninteresting for the most part.Life after college was not interesting either and they inserted a time skip of a year or more. I was wondering what the rating warning about sexual violence was about and it shows up around episode 22 , but it is a boss hitting on a female employee, which was creepy but not graphic. The second leads were very cute. The feel of the second half of the series was a bit bland, that it felt like they were rehashing things, replicating similar moments, just stretching the series out with mundane things that it was over without any wahoo. the proposal was bland & sedate, the wedding was a short montage , then there was there life after marriage. yawn. Cute is only cute for so long when it's in a fish bowl & the fish just go round & round !OST is something I don't usually rave about, but this soundtrack was spot on, it really matched well & I was impressed, especially with the Funky 60's beach boys-ish steel guitar song by Attic performance Paige Summer's 2021 . the first 1/2 of the drama has you feeling like you're dreamily floating down a lazy river on a sunny day, the second half looses the sweet buzz and is like standing in line at the fair, waiting for something to happen

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this series is SO good, BUT Intimate scenes were more red flag than romantic

First let me say that I love this series (AND it has a happy ending) BUT I had to put my review on hold for a couple of months while I cooled off from being angry at how they began to ruin the romance at the end of Episode 14 & proceeded to strip away all the "warm fuzzies" I had for the couple. I am baffled; Is there a cultural or generational thing that I'm missing or were the writers just frustrated males locked in a room too long & they wrote that frustration into the male lead, causing him to be super aggressive & uncontrolled during what should be a romantic consensual scene. The lead female character obviously felt the same because she acts like she's putting herself on the alter to sacrifice herself (like something she's Doing for him, or rather letting him Do to her.) Appalling & unromantic Episode 16 is totally necessary.
I liked this series enough to buy the dvds but am putting a note it the case for next time I watch this

Spoilers:
for a satisfying romance version I should end where the male lead goes to Paris & I should skip ahead & pick up after the kiss (when he proposes)definitely stop at ep 15 time stamp 49:55 when she gets in the taxi & drives away. Pick up at Ep 15 times stamp 50:21

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story rehashing & People don't stay dead! Too many plot twists & turns.

All actors did a great job & I Would have rated it higher if it :
had ended at the end of Episode 12
, hadn't been so intense with more heart palpitating action than I anticipated &
didn't haave so many twists & turns that kept the storyline hard to keep track more often than not. The plot device that was both fun, yet also infuriating was that the characters could change the plot and the storyline retroactively. I was more than ready to be done by the end of episode 12....and if & when I rewatch this, I will stop at there as it's a happy enough ending place, because what follows, is clever, but overstuffed & unpleasantly gut wrenching. They cram in a dizzying amount of twists that really seemed unnecessary. Here's why stopping at episode 12 would have been a good option for me;How many times do the main characters have to end up in jail (doesn't once sound enough ? AND doesn't the amount of time there seem like it should be relatively short ? Apparently the writers though otherwise.How many times must characters die only to be revived ? Female lead's dad (the comic creator) is not really a good guy, but what happens to him & who decides what happens to him would have been better left not being so front & center. They created an impossible plot point.Bad guys who don't stay dead are a tired trope.Second villain's reason for wanting the male lead nihilated is weak at best.Rewrites that have the storyline ending the web series (the comic in the drama) ending it it's past (? yeah, what?)Episodes 1-12 have already given us quite a bit of gruesome violence as well as forced separation of the main couple. Episodes 13-16 just makes for a long drawn out messy (albeit happy) ending. Apparently, things can't end until the villain(s) are gone.The last episodes resulted in just being exhausting , but at least things are explained & some people may like being flung around plot wise yet again.

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