Brogana Sunfrog

Cute & lighthearted series

Cute & lighthearted series wastes precious minutes on the band & the evil female singing, but over all was really nice.
Unfortunate digestive joke in the beginning had me cringing as my culture does not find any humor in anything poop related. Tropes, but they are on the fluffy side such as people having intersected lives in their past that they didn't realize. Satisfying ending without any expression of affection .
On first viewing I gave it 7/10
it could have been better but it was short & sweet at least & not long & drawn out painfully putting us through the wringer

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lacking balance, relationship break, Disappointing end

My initial take was that the male lead was not that interesting so I was in no rush to watch this. Having watched it, I'm still on the fence about him !This series doesn't have a good balance of tension, violence & warm fuzzies. (simply too much cruelty & violence). One of the biggest plot points: the female lead having a "big" secret from her past, is never resolved ! All we are told is that she was bullied in highschool because of something her father did. Also, It was inconceivable that a character would rather have one month of normal & resign themselves to death than live in a lesser capacity but keep the relationship they are willing to die for. I never did figure out what happened to the fathers (are they dead or ?). The leads' relationship took a break with a "gap" year ( I HATE this trope !!!) And, WHO doesn't communicate in any way for a WHOLE year [even if they are away getting treatment ????]. Secondary couple was a complete nonstarter. A bit too much filler content towards the end and ridiculous circumstances where a guy is mostly dead BUT he manages to fight a whole bunch of guys AND lift a car, AND walk home before collapsing. In the end, though the couple are reunited there is No kiss, no glad faces, just thier backs. SO bland!

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Minimal drama. Smile inducing

I had this on my "not interested" list, but I wanted something light & fluffy & this was free , AND I saw that it had a happy ending, so I figured I'd try it. It took me along while to warm up to the female lead's character. She was SO cringy. I wasn't all that captured by the male lead's visuals either. But by the 4th episode I was getting numb to those negatives. By the 5th episode the male lead's acting impressed me. There was very minimal drama & a very short separation period of the leads before the resolution of the story. I was surprised to find that having had no expectations of really liking this, that by the end I really had done alot of smiling throughout the drama-which is just what I wanted. I would actually watch this again sometime.

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Martyrdom masked as Self sacrifice. Frenetic pace but boring surgeries

Needed something different after a 30 ep. Chinese Historical drama- & figured that I would just watch the 1st episode. I'm not a fan of medical dramas (though did love Ghost Dr. & Hospital playlist-just not the surgery bits. Also slogged through & Dr. Romantic-which had a much more endearing & charismatic lead Dr than this drama does).
I rated this lower because :
1)it was fast paced but frenetic & not exhilarating.
2)The lead Dr. was not given enough time for character development
3) the closeups of surgery was boring (no need for most of it as it just makes things draggy-but then , this is not a fav genre.

The trauma team's dedication is touching, but them being heroes (pretty much against thier will!) did not resonate with me. Self sacrifice is fine, but not when it feels like a death wish martyrdom thing as they live a zombie like life disregarding their own basic needs . I think I've gotten to the certain age where self abuse isn't as noble so all I can think about is : "ah, you haven't eaten or slept today ?!") Also it's hard to ignore the issues of healthcare reality in S. Korean this past year, so it's really unfair to any real hospital trauma personnel to say these characters are heroes, I mean, yes, but they set the bar of care at a fairytale level! O.K. it is JUST a drama, but again the pace they go at is unsustainable for even one week if that & it is a group of people who have no life, just service.
The tension of the medical missions was less stressful for me than the welfare of the main characters! The surgery scenes were standard. Lots of blood gushing, spurting-but to me just boring. Have the doctors comes up with great work arounds, but really the implementation can be left to the imagination! The cast "gelled" a little too quickly , forming thier little rag tag rebel unit, but it was a nice short drama series with an ending that wasn't traumatic. From the trailer I was really expecting this to be about the male lead coming in, not finding the hospital environment hospitable, grabbing the best ER personnel , going rogue & setting up his own trauma center....why does my expectation sound better than the actual drama !!?
Good cast, but tired of seeing Kim Won-hae in yet another bad guy, role with him having tantrums. The trope of angry out of control, yelling screaming big boss needs to be retired. (or is this a reality in South Korea ?)
In the end: entertaining but nothing stellar .

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Frustratingly slow

Male Lead is plainly smitten right away, but is frustratingly clueless about declaring himself. Again the thing that is the major problem is the very old trope of lack of communication.
I'm going to blame the director for having Cha Eun Woo do most of his emoting with his eyes & clenched fists. You accept it because, well, it's
Cha Eun Woo ! Unfortunately, it quickly gets frustrating to watch. His character is written so broken & emotionally withdrawn & yet we never get a good explanation besides his mother leaving. It really needed to be plainly shown that his father's being emotionally distant/selfish/demanding/uncaring is the cause. It was annoying that Alot of his actions & attractions are simply inexplicable. The series stylist did an unflattering job with Im Soo Hyang. Her look was flat & not as attractive as she really is so it was hard to see her as the super pretty. She also was not given much in the way of direction or something as she too often came across dim witted & dull. The premise was interesting & there were alot of good point about appearance, but the series was also heavy on being preachy about beauty standards & attitudes towards females. I was not fond of the OST. I wanted to like this, but it was a bit of a waste of time because of the pace & the flat characters. would not watch again, even for Cha Eun Woo

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Starts out Quirky & evolves into convoluted confusion I did not find likeable

So despite all the negative things I will say about this drama, I did find it entertaining until 3/4 way through episode 6-where it stopped being novel & cute & interesting. here's why:
The female lead is not only needy, but can't restrain herself from constantly doing cringy, obsessive things. She won't accept rejection but then sabotages herself when she finally gets positive reactions to her efforts . The guys are supposedly attracted to her sunny disposition, but "sunny" does not really showing up all that often.
The male lead's default face is "bemused" & the rest of the time his expressions seem out of sync with what's going on.
By the middle of episode 6 I got annoyed & disgusted with the story line as the lead's feelings for each other get sabotaged by themselves .

Up to this point we have a guy who likes his calm well ordered life and keeps trying to keep the looney chaos bringer out by communicating clearly that he does not want her in his life.
The writers want us to see this as a "screwball comedy" as they give us a female lead who fluctuates between selfish demanding persistent to damsel in distress "cuckoo for cocoa puffs" debby downer.
So despite all the negative things I will say about this drama, I did find it entertaining until 3/4 way through episode 6-where it stopped being novel & cute & interesting. here's why:

The male lead's default face is "bemused" & the rest of the time his expressions seem out of sync with what's going on.
By the middle of episode 6 I got annoyed & disgusted with the story line as the lead's feelings for each other get sabotaged by themselves (?) It seems the explanation for why this happened & keeps happening is convoluted & confusing.
So into the middle of Episode 7, things even out, (which didn't make sense ) but then suddenly we are given yet another detour ,So frustrating ! Really a whole lot of drama zig zags around spastically
with build up to what could be meaningful moments that just get ice water dumped on them. My interest is strained it's just not satisfying .Whatever charm kept me watching has has worn off. I know there is a happy ending, but there is so much about the plot & a good many characters that I don't like, that I don't think it's worth it.


The plot jerking me around is super annoying.....
SO I do the thing I feel driven to; skim through the next episode trying to find an indication that this feeling of discontent won't last, & then I find myself skimming through the next two episodes because what little I've seen is even less appealing & disappointing.
so spoilers as to why I'm dropping this, & hacking my once rating of 6/10 to a 3/10
Female lead is schizophrenic- due to some trauma she had as a child-which might be interesting, but she's playing around with the male lead & second male lead's hearts & they are rightly confused. It's not all that amusing. Her kissing two men does not "sell" you on her sincerity for one man in the end.(I mean ,if her subconscious prefers another guy, or she simply likes being promiscuous, then how much do we trust what she thinks are true feelings ?).
That both male lead & 2nd male lead find her fascinating is inconceivable, it certainly didn't convince me & it's sad & pathetic watching them care about her.(anyone who ends up with her will be miserable & that's on them!)
Female lead's manager has some heart fluttering moments with his girlfriend, but she's yet another woman not worth the time, but at least HE knows how to deal with things (grab & kiss solves things every time !)
It doesn't seem fair that the second male lead gets strung along only to open his heart to being rejected. It also feels sad knowing that the male lead will end up choosing a girl that will be a pain in the butt for as long as they are together...are we supposed to be happy for them ? These are bad romances & not worth the time

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Delightful

This is not a drama to rush through.It's a nice little drama that is best appreciated by not binging. Though I found it delightful, I also found it unmemorable, but not in a bad way ! It's something I will re watch & so am glad it's that way, because having something that's a reliable lovely thing to revisit is actually a great thing!
I normally skip episode intros, but this one has a different one for each episode - showing you how a different piece of chocolate /confection is made every time. I liked that they portrayed people in love yet it didn't mean that thier "issues" disappear & they become instantly healed.
Pleasant without too much melodrama.
I especially like the cross over element as the female lead is Korean & that factors into the story
There is a fun cameo at the end by Song Joong-ki & Kentaro Sakaguchi for no particular reason

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not my kind of genre : juvenile humor- watch the awkward insecure girl & laugh

It makes me sad to not like this & i want to support Korean content on Netflix, but this made me want to quit only 10 minutes in. My problem is that this is not my kind of drama. High school is a hard pass for me. The angst, the awkwardness, the whole mentality, the fact that you can't really have a satisfying romance with a satisfying conclusion because; it's high school ! I tried to like this, but it got me cringing at the humor & when the female lead starts to pursue her crush, you know she's going to make a fool of herself & we are supposed to laugh. Again, this kind of humor is a hard pass for me. I've got other dramas I will enjoy better

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Male lead smolders ,but only 4 out of 16 Episodes were good

I really wanted to like this The [premise was good, the actors were attractive, had good chemistry & did a good job]. BUT; episodes 1-10 left me more irritated than interested.
I put it on hold for 5 months before I went back to finish it Here's why:
1)The screaming mother who hit everyone.
2)Sindy the stalker fan
3) The BFF who was cold & uncaring about her long suffering husband but swooned over her idol singer.
4) Secondary characters that mooned over the lead characters & wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
5) Bickering. fan obsession.

The plot got ridiculous & I just didn't like any of the characters.
Then comes episode 10 and the tone completely changed to one of an abundance of
cutesy romance & romantic drama -with way too much sentimentality & much too much kissing (so that it felt like viewer Voyeurism!)
By the time the end of episode 14 came along I felt like it was the perfect ending as it gave a sense of completion tidying up most things (& had somehow pretty much erased my irritation from the first 10 episodes!) But, no, Episode 15 is just sad. It's about resolution of some plot points but it was totally unnecessary. It was like it was on a mission to make sure that EVERY plot point was completely tied up perfectly. And while the drama does avoid most drama tropes, the fact that everyone got thier happy ending seemed really forced.
The one plot point that they completely ignored was Ryan's adoptive parents- it would have been great to have known something about them (are they dead ?) I was so sure I'd love this but even though the male lead is smoldering & does a great job acting in this, I just won't re watch it because out of
16 Episodes, only 4 were good & that's not enough for me.

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Mismatched leads=Relationship drama, depressing just pass

The first episode was hard to get through because of the depressing medical/surgery/ inter-hospital interactions.
I know that was the point in order to set up what followed but it was tedious & it didn't encourage me to want to watch more (because it made me depressed !).
There was so much I wanted to just rant about, but I will try to keep my objections clinical
1) Leads flirt too much too often, too soon + became a couple too quickly .
2) Thier high school rivalry was not a great building block for romance.
3) without asking why or recommending counseling, a Doctor says: "ah, you are depressed- here some meds" !
4) The leads do SO much drinking WHILE on depression meds !
5) Women hitting men. [Mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, grandmothers, aunts]
6) The female lead became a black hole of neediness and nothing the male lead could not please her
8) What the female lead thinks is an ideal date proves they are incompatible
9) Female lead doesn't want to "own up" & be honest and so puts the blame of being humiliated (really? did he ? nah) on the [rightfully] clueless male lead.

The male lead did well & up until Ep 8 the female lead seemed to be doing a fine balancing act between annoying & warm hearted.
But As I came to the end of Ep.8 I regretted continuing this drama. I felt like it could have ended nicely on ep 7.

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A disappointment all around with a happy ending as bland as cold dry toast.

I had high hopes for this, but it was a colossal let down. It had
1)Disappointing romance
2) disappointing end
3) gruesome violence
4) poor choice of characters to be the Villain,
5) barest hint of romance
6) 8 month time skip

Some dramas are slow to get into so I pushed through the beginning where there is SO much swearing -by everyone
I did not find the butt touching (an ongoing joke) funny-especially with it needing extended contact or more "vigorous" touching.
Too much time was spent on interpreting what dogs feel.
Humor didn't work for me; Male lead physically tossing the female over his shoulder onto the ground twice was not funny to me & certainly did not make him boyfriend material . I've seen the male lead in other things, but here he is not on his game or directed poorly because here he is totally 1 dimensional.
A mind numbing amount of neighborhood old people scenes .
The writers set themselves up to present us with a perfect "gotcha" by having the male lead "win" & get what he wanted while giving the female lead what SHE wanted -[neither of which was each other !] But, no, they dropped the ball . The leads did have chemistry, but it was not romantic and it made no sense that the female would fall at all for the male lead. (he also seemed equally confused that he was supposed to be attracted to her !!) Male lead never got likeable and was laser focused on his job. The tiny bit of character & emotional growth he achieved was not enough to make him romance material. They did a clunky job of forcing the leads into being a couple at the end. The premise for getting the second male lead out of the way was so dumb???The over used lack of communication trope !!!
The viewer is dragged through the mystery of which of the many suspects was the real villain while female lead skipped around as if there was no killer on the lose. Honestly, it was poor writing to choose the villain they did. He had absolutely no real reason, so they Should have made the villain be the Female lead's ex brother in law-who ACTUALLY could easily have had plausible reasons to kill all of the people that died. They drag out the capturing of the villain, and then the toss in an 8 month time skip, in which time the female lead has apparently gotten over her dead crush and is ready to move forward with the one person who is most responsible for his death. No kisses between the female lead and anyone at all in the series and the happy ending served up is bland as cold dry toast.

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Great performances, but :too much family drama & spiciness void of romance

Jung So-min & Lee Min Ki are VERY good as the main couple. Just watching them together is a treat, but what goes on around them frustratingly detracts from any good feelings I developed over the storyline.
There are SO many negatives.
It's A romance , BUT with an incredibly jaded view of marriage: an outdated, unnecessary thing -a conclusion derived from the fact that [ridiculously] ALL the character's parents are in bad marriages ). Which makes the ending completely juxtaposing & baffling.
Too much family drama ,patriarchal fathers, submissive mothers pressuring thier children to get married is the "engine" that supposedly drives their children's dismissal of marriage .
A cavalier attitude towards sex is presented as an enlightened, modern sensibility-(said literally Every generation!) Side female characters pursue sex like a game of cat and mouse while they dismiss romance. Too many- open discussions about sex. Too many scenes of people jumping into bed with each other.
The character's touted generational superior worldview did not actually seem to lead to happiness and thier lives seemed devoid of anything meaningful, making them unlikeable sad people.
I Do like a story with strong women, but don't find it comedic relief for women treating decent men as inferior in a way that's toxic.


The bits that ruin the drama: [Spoilers]


1) girl walks in on her younger brother having sex. (AGH ! NO !!!)
2) BFF#1 whines like a baby & continually coldly bosses around her boyfriend of 7 years
3) BFF #2 carries around a condom in her purse,(just in case) wears no bra & bosses around the guy who likes her.
4) Male lead lived with a girl & got her pregnant 12 years before this story takes place. This IS integral to the plot & it's resolution And explains why he is the way he is - making the choices he makes.... but for me : it's a Nope !

Positives:
ALL the young people & couples grow alot but it's only shown at the very end.

All the younger generational characters decide that marriage is stupid, BUT all the couples get married!!!

I liked the OST but they did repeat one song way to much.

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Plot revolves are suicide & reincarnation> Good Main character chemistry

Family & historical/period dramas are not something I ever watch, so I passed on this series for a few months, but eventually the good reviews & the promise of a happy ending got me curious enough to give this series a try. The first episode almost made me quit because it dealt with suicide & reincarnation which put me off. The whole plot hinges on these 2 things so in order to watch this I had to treat them simply as fantasy elements. The stories of the individuals that were being "helped" in every episode were unpleasantly heart wrenching & unbearably tragic. The over arching story was also extremely sad. What sold it for me & kept me going was not only the acting, but the the chemistry between the 3 main characters. Yook Sung-jae's character was particularly compelling, (like a stray lost puppy). I was satisfied to get an old fashioned happy ending for all 3 main characters. So, although loathed many elements of this series, I really found the family element & the premise of odd people finding their match, & redemption enough to give this a high rating. I typically purchase a series if I rate it highly, but this series is not one that I will watch again, just too much tragedy & heavy drama

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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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messed up story with plot holes.

Set your expectations low. This is light on the drama with no draggy plot resolutions or too much intensity. Happy endings for most characters (that deserve it) & righteous justice for those who don't. There's enough kissing & warm fuzzies to keep romance junkies content. I gave this the same score as Love in Contract, My Demon, Immortal Goddess, Radio Romance & Trot Lovers, but I would rewatch this & Trot Lovers over the others.
Here's the parts of the drama that downgraded it:
Time skip : 1 year at the end. I hate time skips. I don't care if there's a good reason plot wise, I just hate them-they ruin the continuity and made the happy ending stutter instead of soar.
Male lead's brother changes hair color (& make up) so he goes from scary looking evil guy to normal attractive nice guy. It was unnecessarily blatant & just plain weird .

Spoilers*
no talk of replacing the pacemaker ? no other options except eminent death ? sick guy needs to limit his physical exertion, but then (much later) suddenly, it's not an issue as he fights bad guys & gets vigorous in the bedroom (speaking of which- knowing she was going back in time never to return- did no one consider she might get stuck in the past , but pregnant?)
But more importantly:
how many times do we have to see the female lead traumatized, by repeatedly dealing with the death of the male lead ??? The "happy" resolution of the lead couple felt sloppy as in the last few episodes they kind of ruin the lead's romance as they revisit the difficult love triangle (with 2 of the sides of that triangle being the same person, yet not). My affection for the female lead was on a see saw as she started with one version of her husband then got romantic with another version of him, went back to the original version, started to like him but then went back to version B again. The worst part being : that version A's love was rejected & he had to die twice. This made me want to swear as the whole triangle was an untenable plot device .
My solution would have been to simply have had the male lead go back with her & live in the past ( after his past self had passed or become one with his past self!!)
I require very little reality in my fictional dramas, but there were too many "what" ??/ huh"? moments for me in this drama to rate it higher.

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