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A fun watch. The female lead could be frustrating at times (I agreed with everything her romantic rival said on the dorm rooftop) and some of the plotlines seemed implausible (e.g., the cause of the leads’ estrangement) but the strength of the female characters’ friendships and the way the drama depicted their maturation make up for that. I have to say, however, that the male characters suffered by comparison, often coming off as rigid, weak, or clueless. I think that Duncan Lai did a very good job -- you could see a real difference between his idealistic college student versus his rather cold 10-years-older businessman. I like the ending, which (slight spoiler) did not end with all of the women married off, even though the drama showed the women running all over the place in wedding dresses in the opening and closing credits for every episode! Was this review helpful to you?
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This was a lovely and nostalgic look back at coming of age in the 80's in a close knit neighborhood among friends and families who truly cared for and looked out for each other. Did such neighborhoods really exist? I don't know anybody who grew up like that but it's nice to imagine that some people did. I think that one key to enjoying this drama is not to get hung up over the romance involving Deok Sun. The drama is much more than that. Many of the best scenes were the ones with the three moms but the dads were great as well. Great acting by the ensemble cast. Was this review helpful to you?
There were a couple of irritating characters, such as the sister. The romance between the main leads was okay but my favorite scenes were the ones between Song Sang Chuan and his stepfather.
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Liked: The scenes of Shanghai; the music; the acting by Victoria Song, Wang Yaoqing, and Yang Zhiying; the characters Ye Luming and Wu Yei Min; the friendships between He Fanxing and her buddies and between He Fanxing and Ye Luming; and the way the drama handled the issues with the father. Bonus point: Lots of cute dogs.Did not like: Any of the romances. The age gap in the two primary romances was exacerbated by the immaturity of the younger half of each couple. Relationships between teacher and student always make me uncomfortable but the one here was made worse by how naive and childlike the student was contrasted against a teacher who was depicted as something of a rake. As for the main couple, I found Yuan Song irritating and selfish. It bothered me, for example, when he pursued He Fanxing then “teased” her about sexual harrassment (that's not funny and is pretty passive aggressive); tried to out her without consulting her first (I’d be ticked off if someone had done that to me, too); and most of all, the way he made her grovel at the end. All of the other relationships (including the parents’) were also problematic in one way or another.
I look forward to the inevitable sequel: Find Yourselves Divorce Lawyers.
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Chen Feiyu's acting is pretty amazing in this and the costumes and sets are beautiful but I just can't get past the way Ning Que treated Sang Sang. I really really wanted her to kick him to the curb. I mean, to get rid of him completely and go her own independent way, instead of doing her half-assed running away and then coming back to serve him. Ugh. You deserve better, Sang Sang! It's too bad. I liked Ning Que's character otherwise. And I liked Sang Sang character, too. But together, nope.
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Not bad. Heartless City is pretty violent but there is also some unintentional hilarity. I always wonder, for example, why much of the fighting in these crime dramas is done with sticks and knives. I would have thought that a crime organization capable of running a major drug ring and co-opting any number of people in the police and prosecutor’s office could manage to acquire a few guns. Instead, their shiny batons and Brooks Brothers suits made the “thugs” look like, well, like conductors in search of an orchestra. That, plus their tendency to wait their turn politely before attacking one by one make them insufficiently terrifying. It’s no wonder that they seldom managed to assassinate the person that the drug kingpin of the moment had selected, despite the fact that the intended victim would be wandering all over town. That aside, Heartless City is a fun stylish noir guilty pleasure.Although Lee Jae Yoon probably is the designated hunk in this drama (but Dude, seriously, you should go up a size in T-Shirts, at least around the office!), I declare Jung Kyung Ho the winner of the Hottest Guy contest here.
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First, for an anti-bullying drama that pretends to deplore physical violence, the apparent resolution to all of the physical violence is physical violence on an epic scale. That message is abhorrent, besides being completely unrealistic. After beating the crap out of each other, the guys just go home, take showers, wash their clothes, maybe blow dry their hair, and the violence stops? Plus I want to see the middle-aged sequel, where all of them developt CTE. (By the way, did anyone else think it was cute when everybody showed up with color coordinated umbrellas? Because nobody wants to get their hair or clothes wet before an epic fight in the mud.)There were other things. For example, women are depicted as pretty useless accessories (the psychiatrist, the giggling arm candy, and the mother, whose specialty was delivering one liners then walking out of the room). That’s unsurprising in a drama that lives out a young boy’s revenge fantasy but it’s still irritating.
Oh wait. Answering violence with violence, viewing women as useless accessories. That view actually reflects much of the leadership in the world right now.
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I loved the chaos, the unpredictability, the distinctive characters, the over-the-top not always logical scenes (e.g., everything having to do with the deserted island), and especially the acting. I like the fact that the writer did not oversentimentalize the topics of family, friendships, love, and death, as many Korean drama writers tend to do. I think that this is my favorite Korean drama of 2024. Was this review helpful to you?
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This is a very entertaining Chinese period drama about a lot of very beautiful people with anger management issues. The general treatment of women is pretty dreadful, although I assume it is more or less historically accurate. I love the strong and fierce heroine. Some people may not. When anybody, no matter how powerful, lies, cheats, and manipulates others to hurt her or those she loved, she, um, lies, cheats and manipulates to thwart them or exact revenge. There are two parallel love stories, both involving her. I liked the way one of them developed and was resolved. The other, well, let’s just say that repeatedly threatening to kill you is an interesting courtship technique. The costumes and sets are breathtaking and the music was well done.I did have issues with a couple of things. In a drama full of great villains, the two biggest villains were too over the top for me. The only thing Consort Gao lacked was a mustache to twirl while hissing, “Curses, foiled again!,” and I got very very tired of the other major villain’s narrow-eyed plotting look, until he started overdoing the pop-eyed crazy look. I also thought that the way the teflon heroine keeps sliding free of consequences (even when others are on to her) sometimes stretches credulity. But I neverthless found myself cheering her on every time she won and had an adversary dragged away to be caned or executed. Because good people are shoved aside or die forlorn deaths in this drama, it's much better to be bad instead.
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It’s a bad sign when I’m laughing at the wrong things, like the leading lady running duck-footed in her nightie through the streets of Barcelona demented Wee Willie Winkie-style, past a score of oblivious Spaniards. And WHERE do they find all of those non-Korean actors? Is there a special bad acting school for foreigners that rents actors out for free? Ji Chang Wook’s character is a shade too similar to his role in the Healer to make me think that I’m watching something new and interesting. I might continue to watch if there were a chance that Mr. Healer 2.0 character and Evil Witch might end up falling for each other, which would at least be fun to see. But I assume that he and Wee Willie Winkie are destined for each other. My primary beef with most Korean dramas is that the romance is too conventional and predictable and I’m afraid that this drama will follow the same trajectory. I wonder whether better actors could have redeemed the show. But then I remember inane scenes such as Dancing With Ramen and realize that there is no excuse for this drama. Was this review helpful to you?
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I like the fact that this atypical drama took on the superpower genre and turned it into something original and unexpected. Rather than following the usual “with great powers come great responsibilities” rule, the family had little interest in saving the world. Instead, they tried to use their superpowers to live an ordinary life, even as ordinary life kept getting in the way of their superpowers. The counterpoint to the family was another atypical family of scammers, simultaneously despicable and endearing. The music in the drama was also unusual and, I thought, wonderful. I found The Atypical Family’s ultimate message of love and sacrifice to be much more compelling than that of the other Korean superpower drama, "Moving," which ended in the usual apocalyptic superpower battle between good and evil. Was this review helpful to you?
