Brogana Sunfrog

Decent drama with happy endings for all, but marred by music & 3 bad actors

reviewers said: " If you’re looking for romance then look elsewhere."
BUT, I was watching the Korean drama : "Potato Lab" & was ready to bail, so decided to try this & while it WAS better than the Potato lab, [& much more watchable] it didn't completely win me over.
First off:
this is a SLOW burn romance that is so slight you might miss it if you blink for the first 3/4 of the drama, & yet there are romantic undercurrents as well as a happy ending for most all the mains & thier BFFs.

I can't emphasize enough that the Music that's sung in English [& there is ALOT of it] is overused and TERRIBLE !
Plus they show people lip-syncing & their mouths are out of sync with the words! [it's laughably obvious that the voice is not the person you see on the screen !]
The actress who plays the Female villain Elise supposedly speaks many languages but her mouth is almost always out of sync with the words! [I don't even think it's the same language].
The character Blu put on weight as the series progressed & his acting was a C+ at best.
Villain Boris also failed to impress.
Basically the acting of all 3 of them really detracted from the quality of the drama.

This also got reduced points for tired tropes like :
1) Noble sacrifice [that's actually NOT noble but just an indication of inability to trust.]
2) Obsessive , selfish[won't take No for an answer ] love that says :" I will hurt you (physically) if it means that it will make you stay near me & then I will risk your life because I think more of myself than I do you.
3) I will make major life decisions for you/us & am stupid enough to think it's noble & you will thank me later.
4) Ridiculously resolved serious issues-[just go with it, it's a miracle !]

It must be mentioned that after the happy ending, there is a montage of cast & crew members lip-syncing s to a song as they [literally everyone] dances nonsensically around . {happy to be done much ?!]

not horrible, but too much irritating stuff to rate it higher or make it a rewatch.
one last comment: seeing the male lead's jaw go unattractively slack as he tries to emote being stunned, distraught or overwhelmed got old really fast as it was repeated ad nauseum.

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Once again time skips magically fix everything, though the ending still falls short of satisfying

Bland & easy going beginning ramps up into something cute & then deflates into a flat waste of time. I'm reminding myself that it's fiction, but still;
1) male lead doesn't seem to wash (?) much if at all (?) his lack of self care & lack of self esteem is not endearing. At the end they show a clip of the female lead seeing the male lead panic as he discovers he is wearing mismatched socks & THAT singular moment is cupid's arrow hitting the mark (??!!)
2) As for the Male lead's root of affection- there is NO reason (or even process of him) for him to 'fall in love' with female lead - he is only attracted to her superficial qualities as he has no actual interaction with her in the year he is crushing on her
3) They never show male lead putting the perfume on after the initial spritz, thus indicating that he didn't continue using it . & I'm not 100%, sure, but I thought they showed the perfume bottle mostly full & him throwing it away, so , unless he didn't wash at all after the initial spritz (for like, weeks) or the stuff doesn't wash off....then as one scene shows: her affection for him is NOT based on the perfume
4) Female lead confronts male lead & seems reasonable & asks for his side of the story, only to storm off in anger without letting him explain.
5) ending is bad; after parting ways, a year goes by & in that time the male lead has discovered hygiene, and confidence (how??) Female lead is now in a happy place with her mother & sister & when Male & female lead meet, they smile &we are supposed to imagine the rest.

Wow ! whatever happened to them during that year, it was a game changer...time skips are the magical answer & cure all for relationships

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Left me nonplussed. Somber topics &

While there are some definite make you smile moments , this drama just didn't inspire me to care about it to a high degree. Little things combined to dampen my enthusiasm.
1) the female lead was insipid. her stature & very young look gave her a childish air.
2) the group being called Tea party , thier songs & choreo were cringy childish
3) people getting really upset with group members for dating, [& pretty much forcing them to stop,] then they themselves date with clear conscience !?
4) unclear resolution for the over arching problem.
5) made fans look creepy obsessive & objectifying, but never addressed that as the real problem
6) makes you feel like the idol life sucks -which was true but depressing
7) Suicide topic was a depressing plot device
8) yay ! for the way SHAX chose thier own path, but what exactly is that path ? This & how a male idol just left the business & went roaming about about- very unclear in the logistics
9) only the male lead & Hwi Young were really interesting & Hwi Young's part wasn't that well fleshed out
10) Kim Min Seo's part was too strong a personality, she [& her great singing voice] over shadowed the female lead

the last episode was basically all a music showcase for all the music groups that had been introduced. It showed off thier talent, but it bored me.

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Mindless fluffiness that invites total escapism

I have no idea why I like this so much. perhaps it's the mindless fluffiness that invites total escapism when your brain just wants to over load on sugar ?
Upon 1st viewing , though I liked it, he the lead girl's character is VERY immature
( as if she were 12 ).
Some time later I watched the 2004 version of this and then immediately rewatched this & this is a MUCH nicer version for alot of reasons, most of which were to do with the innocence of the characters. The 2004 version's characters were not innocent enough & too much of the dialogue & storyline dealt with sex . This version has maybe 3 uncomfortable instances that I wish they had not included but were dealt with so that it wasn't overdone. I would have liked to see more of why the male lead fell in love & the reason behind his dedication. The ending is tidy & happy.

***spoilers**
Male romantic lead is given a questionably sexy magazine by another guy. Male lead sees tiny girl naked. Female lead transforms from tiny to big & ends up naked on top of guy (who is under a sheet). only her shoulders are shown on screen.

it's implied that they will end up together (married)

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I love it, I hate it-somebody slap the writers !

I loved this drama but what starts out as a delightful screwball comedy turns into a maudlin , painfully drawn out drama that drags you along & has you wanting to slap whoever wrote episodes 30-35.

*** Spoilers***


They didn't even put any effort into the supporting character's romance so it never goes anywhere.
I mean Roy Choi is a delight, but if I watch again I will stop at episode 29 and pick up at mark 33:59 in Episode 35, before they totally ruin Roy's character [ & have him become a spineless moron .]
The end is happy, but only just, [ in the last 25-20 min]
And the wedding is dulled somewhat by the fact that they thought it would be funny to keep interrupting the kiss and you want to slap them because they never do kiss & you have just gone & had your fun, heart warming rom-com destroyed by the 5 episodes preceding the end so you've gone through the wringer & want to see a happy ending kiss !

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SO much fighting , cruelty, beatings & blood.

I was not expecting this drama to be as engaging & interesting as it was because it's very violent with alot of military & political drama. [not topics of interest to me]. Excessive amount of fighting , cruelty, beatings & blood. ( Would have given a higher score if there was less of that). The leads do a great job & are very appealing. What they are up against is insurmountable so you have to suspend disbelief. Though there is no "romance" per say, the main characters have a definite connection & though there are no sparks or warm fuzzies, there is a happy ending for main couple with a satisfying kiss at the end [ for those of us who like tidy relationship conclusions]. I thought there were too many bad guys & that it seemed like it was - again-, the older generation who were the worst offenders (like it's always up to the younger generation to fix things !)

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Exhausting relentless pacing.Red herrings everywhere.Violence screentime is Excessive

Let me start with this :
there is NO Romance.
There is a bit of creepy shamanism presented as being possessed.
The pace of this drama is pretty relentless, which I found exhausting. The sheer number of times there is violence on the screen seemed excessive. "Red Herrings" abound with a string of suspects with the final reveal like a rabbit out of a hat trick. Inexplicably, but thankfully no beloved characters die & there is a tidy ending (except for a few characters that you are left wondering about-see spoilers if curious). Female lead is unbelievably dull and boring. Side characters are endearing.
This was a drama that benefits from fast forwarding through the many tedious flashbacks of killing & torture. I didn't want the male lead to die, BUT they kept saying he was dying yet he kept bouncing back with no explanation.

**********Spoilers & Complaints***********

?Does the person the Eraser die at the end ? I felt like they left that hanging.
Does the Male lead now have 2 abilities? (did he always have 2?) & we are never told where the abilities came from.
?What happened to the Ex-mayor's pregnant wife ?
It would have been nice to see the male lead in a slight romantic relationship, like with someone who only has good memories or someone he can't read at all !
I was kind of rooting for the male lead to actually lose his ability!
The way they kept suspecting the wrong person over & over & over again made them seem incompetent .

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Interesting story but female lead doesn't "sell" it. Surprising villain reveal

Who the villain is, was a startling but sad surprise.
Lee Hye Ri isn't very expressive & her character is very hard to like as she's shallow & selfish. Male lead's character isn't all that great either, though at least he has a great back story that explains him.
The romance was lacking though there is a happy {wedding-less] ending for main couple.
Some plot devices were really really distasteful & unnecessary (bedsides making no sense so they seemed forced)
such as:

**** Spoilers***

Her first "ghost" was a child-when her boss later literally says about another child's funeral, that it's too soon for her to be in charge of a child so soon in her job experience , so ? That she is in charge of her father's body preparation !? NO NO NO ! they use that just so she can have closure, but honestly it was weird & wrong!

Male lead was with his ex for 10 (?) years -how can we not empathize with her ?

I did really like how all the people that she was in charge of [ ghosts] were related to a certain event, but I found it odd & confusing that the event had nothing to do with her, but instead had everything to do with her boyfriend.
[OK, that's forcing & taking intertwined-ness & destiny tropes a bit far !]

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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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Light drama with just the right amount of romance, mystery , suspense & action

This was a light drama with just the right amount of romance, mystery , suspense & action, (for a light drama).I really liked how the theme of steadfast friendship was expanded throughout the drama & how they showed that social responsibility makes everyone's life better. I was disappointed with how they switch character attractions, but it was satisfying how things are worked out so you see that
1) no one is leading anyone on , and
2) real love that will last is shown as knowing & respecting the other person as a whole & being sacrificial, forgiving, steadfast & deeply caring .

The plot was good for the kind of drama this is & the ending (& then the 5 years later ending ) was satisfying, if not incredibly romantic. My one complaint is that they didn't they let Lee Hyun Woo keep his blonde hair through out the series !

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Buddy movie-Fun action, a little comedy & a good bit of intrigue-BUT....

On my third viewing of this I found the female lead, Kim Min Jung to be really unappealing in visuals as well as her character 's personality (grated on my nerves). So I lowered my rating . This is A buddy movie, but it doesn't feel like a true bromance . With a wiff of romance The 3 main characters are great & their relationship with each other transcends romance. Fun action, a little comedy & a good bit of intrigue. I watched this twice in the same year.
Rating also reflects Points deducted because the politics got a little tedious . Additionally, I wasn't overly thrilled with how the ending was a choppy mess that was too open ended. Also, the "happy" ending wasn't as traditionally happy as would have been satisfying. Will I watch it again ? NO, probably not. I think one viewing is where the most enjoyment is....two at the very most. After that, the negatives float to the surface too often

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unexpected charm, but has some gaping flaws. Bland ending

This has a certain amount of unexpected charm. The male lead's anger is mostly used for comedy but he goes berserk a few times & it is not pretty to watch. The female lead's paranoia seem a bit unfounded until near the end when you see why she's that way. I warmed up to the leads but the story lost me when the lead female kept pushing the guy away too many times. An incident made it hard to really like the lead guy I found the last 3 episodes a bit tedious & could not figure out where or why the lead female leaves for some time before returning. A very bland happy ending.

**Spoilers******

Female lead's trauma is a result of being beaten.
which makes the fact that the Male lead he accidently punches female lead problematical

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