Brogana Sunfrog

Insipid self sacrificing female is not worthy of a story

Choi Si-won is adorable as usual, but I found the self sacrificing maiden to be insipid. It is presented as noble to help instigate trickery & deception to achieve marriage of your rival to your heart's desire ? Helping someone else deceive the object of affection just shows me that her affection must not run that deep as human Love is self serving and tenacious . Female lead is aggravatingly wishy washy-yes she will wait for him & even sleep with him, but when pressed by her mistress, she will also marry another (without telling HIM she slept with another guy!) AND she will take the place of her frenemy to spare that girl from being 'taken' by a guy whose taken a fancy to her. How is the female lead any kind of paragon for anything !?

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No lead romance but Alot of yelling. Unclear synopsis.

This is a hard drama to review. While it is somewhat diverting, it doesn't have characters that you really invest interest in. I don't like humor that yells at you & this has alot of yelling. There is NO romance for the leads, though there is a slight hint that there could be, but nothing ever develops in ANY way.
The rapid dialogue makes it hard to really grasp everything that's going on [especially if you need to read the subtitles]. The stories of the clients were more interesting than the main cast. Near the end, the big reveal was completely confusing (Business terms ? bad subtitles ? unclear cultural references? ) Either way, it needed a clear synopsis from one of the characters & that never happened. For the most part, I enjoyed this & the actors were all attractive & did a great job, but it would have been better if they had less yelling & they had even slightly developed a tiny bit of romance between the Female lead & the 2nd Male lead. I was hoping & waiting for them to reveal that the Male lead just pretended to be "over the top" but that never happened.

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This genre does not interest me, but I needed a fluff drama break & figured this would be easy to turn off [so I wouldn't stay up too late]. The first episode was odd & I had a hard time following what was going on . I pushed through Episodes 2 & 3 & then had a better idea of what was going on .I was intrigued. It ended up being unexpectedly interesting.
I give it only an 8 out of 10 because:
1) the creepy perp guy lurking around the kid was just too creepy.
2) one of the female leads was just too messy & course mannered, so unappealing.
3) it was hard to follow as literally everyone has a part in the web of evil
4) they could have given a tid bit of romance as 2 leads seem very easy around each other & you can draw your own conclusions about the looks they give each other, but they just didn't fill in any of the blanks to take the story there
5) Dry. alot of deadpan expressions from too many characters

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a similar but much lesser version of 2009 You're Beautiful &dancing is not that good

A forgettable drama with familiar themes. If you're a classical musician but can't stay focused on the classics why not disguise yourself and auditions for K-pop boy band that your uncle represents? I'd say : isn't there a way to do this without the need to gender bend ?!
Because of the theme/premise, it's disappointing that the music & dancing are not actually all that good. It doesn't help that the guys are all rather uninteresting & don't have distinct personalities or looks, so keeping track of who is whom is a challenge . It has the usual generic melodrama & ends ok ,but not on as satisfying a note as I'd like.
This seemed very similar to but a much lesser version of 2009 drama "You're Beautiful"

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Ep 11-2 min before the end are dismal, depressing & over flowing with sadness

I originally thought not to watch this ,so put it off for some time. I should have gone with my initial decision. Even though it is about tragedy it was doing a good job of not being maudlin. It was interesting how tragedy & loss were viewed from multiple viewpoints. I thought the scenes of the trauma of being trapped were done tastefully & not too upsetting [since we know who made it out alive]. The story was going well & there is no hard pull from the second male lead as it is clear he is not right for the female protagonist. Sadly, the story started to go downhill. From Ep.11. on they throw drama tropes of the worst kind at you. Death of a beloved character, a probably fatal disease for a main character, a revelation that breaks up the main couple first from his choice, then from hers. It was all so unnecessarily depressing, especially in light of the fact the story was already filled to the brim with sadness. What happens until the last 2 minutes is dismal, depressing. It destroys of any good feelings you built up until then. I had thought that I was pleasantly surprised & inclined to want to rewatch this UNTIL Ep 11.
OK, yes, I will concede that there is a happy ending for the main couple, but it's a miracle trope that is pulled off at the very last minute.
Another issue I had is that the female lead seemed to be enduring her costar's kisses instead of enjoying them. It created odd chemistry because she always looked too apprehensive & cold to being kissed.

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Oddly balanced romantic drama that won me over against my will

The drama starts with a suicide & it was so shocking that I almost quit at the first episode. The whole series revolves around who they were & why they committed suicide. Every character that was connected to that person had secrets & a piece of the puzzle, but none of them knew the whole picture. Still, the beginning was horrifying, tragic & a strange juxtaposition to the humorous & romantic parts that followed.
Despite all that, this series won me over [against my will!]. And I don't say that lightly as there was a good bit that I didn't like , so the drama had to be overall good enough to make me over come, not only the somber & startling beginning , but:

1) The fact that I was not overly fond of the female lead. Yet, by the end I had accepted her & saw that her peculiar charms were necessary in order to be able to handle the plot.

2) Some of the other characters were selfish & very flawed.

3) The story didn't address the male lead's character's issues 100% , so you have to over look some of the holes that should have been filled in regarding him.

In the end; sub plots are resolved & there's a happy ending

in conclusion : This was an oddly balanced romantic drama, done well enough that I was surprised at how much I liked it


The OST could have used 1 or 2 more songs to cycle through as the ones presented were good but got on my nerves by the end due to over use.

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Relatively free from heavy K-drama tropes, but Tissue up, there's a good deal of crying

A light drama series.
There is alot of emotion & a good bit of crying as the main characters work through a long series of misunderstandings, but the would be heavy drama parts were resolved rather quickly & really this is relatively free from heavy K-drama tropes. I thought it was well cast & the side characters weren't annoying. The last 3 or 4 episodes were unnecessary & sadly caused the series to "wind down" & end blandly [instead of on a euphoric high.] Pretty much everyone's story/relationship is resolved. I feel that too often the writers try too hard to make sure that they impose a good dose of reality onto the story at the end. Still, I will watch it again (but I might end it with an earlier episode!)
Music: was good & songs not were not repeated enough to make them annoying.

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Felt like a one sided romance with plot device rehashing

As with alot of K-Dramas, J-Dramas & C-Dramas, the male lead is a reincarnation of Pride & Prejudice's Fitzwilliam Darcy; the epitome of Tsundere - cold, aloof & emotionally unexpressive. This was an O.K. series but I wouldn't watch it again. Zhao Lu Si's character never seemed to really be that into the romance & again & again you see the male lead being the invested on and doing the "work" in the relationship. Even in the end it felt like he was more committed & more serious & more romantic , so it kinda felt alot like it was a one sided romance .I felt like they dragged this series on a bit too long & repeated things that they had already done.

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Not romantic and over all kinda bland . Obtuse,Hard to follow plot

This felt like it was a 2015, not 2020 production.The staging the camera angles, the times without any background music. The plot was very obtuse and the flashbacks just weird & hard to watch they were so blurry, making it was really hard to follow. Also, the subtitles were sometimes off (like using the word "faith" instead of the word "fate"- pretty significant difference !)

For a series about love - it was incredibly bland and I didn't find it romantic. The main couple never kissed, but you aren't really hungry to see it since they have such poor chemistry.
The end made watching this a waste of time- did they not listen to Mr. Destiny who pretty much said :"if you stay together you will keep getting physically hurt"-which seemed to imply that the kind of hurt would escalate & death was definitely an option in the "hurt" category .


oh, & by the way:The girl lead has blond hair throughout-NOT the black seen in the cover art.

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Bad balance of sweet & annoying . Bad role for Jung ll-Woo

I SO much wanted to see Jung Il-woo in a lead romantic role, but this series did not deliver the satisfaction I was looking for. Just as Revolutionary Love ruined Choi Si-won for me (as I was also looking forward to seeing Him in a lead romantic role), this series has Jung Il-woo making more unattractive facial expressions than I thought possible while also being a jerk without an excuse for being one. This series might have still been able to limp along & deserve at least another star if it hadn't been for Lee Si-eon's constant & gratingly over the top comedy. there just didn't seem to be a good balance between the sweet & the annoying. I give myself points for seeing this through till the end, but though the end is mild & "happy" , I felt like the series was a waste of my time.

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Male leads do not disappoint, But Age gap too wide.last 5 episodes are tedious & serious

I watched this in 2024. I really wanted to see this because both Seo In Guk & Lee Soo Hyuk were in it . (I Have to say: they do not seem to have aged !) Both male leads do not disappoint, [nor do they stray far from how they are generally typecast]. my problem with this drama is that I had to keep lowering the bar for my ethics & comfort zone. The10 year age gap between the leads is really unacceptable . Jo Han Chul is incredibly irritating with too much screen time. Thankfully, Kim Won Hae is reigned in a good bit so at least he is not as irritating as Jo Han Chul. One episode is all hockey. There's too much family melodrama. What really sunk my happiness boat was the last 5 episodes. Things got tedious & serious. A death, rehashing things [that had been resolved previously.] Female lead keeping secrets after a big scene where she declares total honesty. Tired Tropes of supposed noble sacrifice that were totally just insecurity & fear of rejection. There is a happy ending but it was rushed-which was meant to be comedic, but failed so they added on a 3 year time skip into the future that should have come 4 episodes sooner. I wanted to love this & I'd like to think that with a good editing down to 11 episodes that this could be great, but over all, in the end, the female lead being so much older and the male lead being 18 during the bulk of the plot- yeah, just doesn't work

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Pay no attention to the drama poster -it's Melancholy & All the females have jagged edges

Melancholy & hard to warm up to. Female Characters all have jagged edges to them
See the Smiling couple on the Movie Ad ? They don't do that for 98% of the movie.
The actress actually does not have a black short haircut, but has long reddish brown hair throughout.
The theme is heartbreak from lost loves & how hard it is to move on. Sounds unenticing ? Well, it gets deep about why are we obsessed with things. Male lead can't remember that his girlfriend is dead but instead thinks that she left him. He meets another girl in a library. The ending is sort of happy but what comes before it is all heavy stuff.

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