This review may contain spoilers
Leaving a bad taste, in a less poetic sense
When I firsted started watching this drama I didn't really have any high hopes of what to come, and I wasn't wrong. This kdrama instead of telling a refreshing story about the victims of suicide, it felt more as if I was watching those highschool stop suicide PSAs. The main three reasons that got me to this thought was from the overall storytelling, character motives, and actions that these characters partake in.
STORYLINE:
The main gist of the story is our main character Choi joon-woong after encountering two grim reapers koo Ryeon and Lim Ryung Gu, joon-woong trying to stop a suicide, he ends up in a coma, which causes him to become half human and half spirit, which leads our main character joon-woong to join the grim reapers in their work of helping individuals with suicide and the prevention of those suicides. The storyline itself is mostly feels repetitive, the same things happen just in different situations, first our main characters will go out to help a suffering individual, second they will be stuck on how to help them, third they will only have a few minutes let till the person goes through with their suicide, last the main characters will somehow find a way to talk them out of it and cure their depression completely; and the last sequence is what I have with this kdrama, it diminishes the real feelings of these depressed characters and the storylines creates that after one talk with someone who suffered for so long can just "get over their depression with a few minutes of words of encouragement, which doesn't bring any actual satisfaction to the storylines that just have been created, they build up these storylines of these characters just to complete it in one or two episodes from not even major actions in the character life but a motivational speech given by the main characters that hold no substance to the suffering individuals life outside from that one scene. The plot of the show doesn't draw actual realistic conclusions but idealized version of a conclusion that doesn't give the characters any way out of the miserable situation that they are in. An example that comes to mind is the first and second episode, this episode is meant to build the story and how it will progress through out the season. We see the first victim and the build up to how she got where she is. but instead of seeing a story about how she was properly helped our main character just give her a speech and tells her she really doesn't want to die; and it works somehow, all the years of psychological torture that was brought upon this victim from her bully just goes away. the PTSD and the depression just vanished. seen by the decreasing of the percentage of her likelyness to commit suicide, the only Good thing that is given to the victim is that her bully is found out to be a bad person. It doesn't satisfy the actual story that was just built up and the bullying shown to have caused the victim her issues felt less important and more of something that could just be cured from a simple laugh and a wanting to live.
CHARACTER MOTIVES:
The second issue that arise is the motives of the characters not only in the suicidal individuals but our main character himself. We are first introduced to our main character as a guy looking for a job and struggling to fit into the job market, and when he ends up in the coma, his motive are shown from him wanting to wake up and be with his family once more, but after those few scenes, we barely get a glimpse of these motives that where once introduced, our main character feels more like a side character in his own story. Koo Ryoan our female lead feels more intriguing then our actual main character. Joon-woong is supposed to be in his late 20s but acts like a child most of the time, never expressing his motives, but rather whining and complaining about situations rather then trying to figure them out. The only character motive that is fully brought to the front are Koo Ryeon and park jung gil(escort grim reaper) while the writers of this story fleshed these two out, I geuse they forgot to flesh other characters out as well in the process. Back to the suicidal individuals, as soon as a new character is brought into the for-front of the story to be saved they are given these back stories that serve a purpose to their motives on why they don't want to live, and those back stories work but after those back stories we don't actually see the perspectives of these individuals, nor rather how these motives have affected their relationships throughout the story, the kdrama mentions often how the suicides of other affects the living to but we don't see these suicide characters lives, their wanting, nor motive from a deeper sense, ever is very surface level, nothing is deeper then it seems, episode 3 prove that point when looking at the best friend of joon-woong who is planning on killing himself, rather from see a his perspective from a deeper lense or why his motive for killing himself have gotten this deep we see a back in time episode focusing on one event of the characters live rather then the affects that the coma has done to the best friend nor why this is his last straw at life. The main struggle the best friend faced when wanting to get into school and dealing with his sudden loss of his best friend is cleared from eating fried chicken, and that wouldn't be a problem if the story didn't add the decreasing of the likelyness to dies because that fried chicken didn't solve his problems nor did it should a conclusion in the motives on why the Best friend wanted to kill himself. That episode didn't even draw back to joon-woong own character development nor showed a growth in the main characters motives to wake up.
CHARACTER ACTIONS:
lastly one of the major issues I had with this kdrama was the development of character rather the lack there of. Joon-woong at the end of each job never grew as a person nor had any change in his ideas, he felt constant, he would learn something one episode but the next episode do something the contradicted what growth he had. One major that comes to mind when looking at development, and not only development but all three ideas mentioned in the story, is Sin Ye Na, who was the suicidal individuals suffering with an eating disorder in episodes 7-8 when where first introduced to her she seems happy and content untill the story starts to focus on her and what she truly is going through, her motives and actions come to the for-front of the story but when it comes time to actually deal with it...we see scenes of her feelings and those scenes escalates to her attempt which ends with our main character she barely knows doing the exact thing she hated which was judge her on her appearance, and then he does another speech he's been doing through out the entire story that convinces this victim that she should love her self. Even saying this annoys me . The fact stands that the story tries to run with this and shows how the character is struggling but from on person telling her she's just good the way she is it stops her eating disorder immediately. No progress is made. Nothing was actually addressed we learn about her having an eating disorder and it's fixed right after. The story builds it up to be this extremely prevalent thing in the suicidal individuals life that she can't stop and it has been engraved in her since highschool but as soon as we are learned about it, the author wrap the story up. It frustrating to see this because this story is supposed to be this inspiring story about mental health and the trials and tribulations that someone has to get to take their lives and how that can be prevented, but it doesn't do that is uses these mental illness rather the the main focus, a backdrop on a dramatize story to get the audience entertained. As this drama tries to spread a message about the mental health, it bring old stereotypes into pace , such as mental health could be stoped if people really tried hard enough, this drama felt like a cop out. It didn't bring in thing into conversation , it sometimes made these characters look like they didn't want out of their situations rather then people who where stuck in their situations. This drama could have worked but it didn't they add these big ideas but never went anywhere with them nor did they try to address to actually issues that mental health had.
This drama on its own is the kind of drama you have to close your brain and watch, the acting wasn't the best, I don't know if it wasn't from directing but the actors themselves but it just didn't feel like anything in the story was actually being taken seriously....well at the end of the day the kdramas out and these are just my opinions.
(Sorry for grammar mistake and run on sentences, I just be writing stuff as soon as they come to mind )
STORYLINE:
The main gist of the story is our main character Choi joon-woong after encountering two grim reapers koo Ryeon and Lim Ryung Gu, joon-woong trying to stop a suicide, he ends up in a coma, which causes him to become half human and half spirit, which leads our main character joon-woong to join the grim reapers in their work of helping individuals with suicide and the prevention of those suicides. The storyline itself is mostly feels repetitive, the same things happen just in different situations, first our main characters will go out to help a suffering individual, second they will be stuck on how to help them, third they will only have a few minutes let till the person goes through with their suicide, last the main characters will somehow find a way to talk them out of it and cure their depression completely; and the last sequence is what I have with this kdrama, it diminishes the real feelings of these depressed characters and the storylines creates that after one talk with someone who suffered for so long can just "get over their depression with a few minutes of words of encouragement, which doesn't bring any actual satisfaction to the storylines that just have been created, they build up these storylines of these characters just to complete it in one or two episodes from not even major actions in the character life but a motivational speech given by the main characters that hold no substance to the suffering individuals life outside from that one scene. The plot of the show doesn't draw actual realistic conclusions but idealized version of a conclusion that doesn't give the characters any way out of the miserable situation that they are in. An example that comes to mind is the first and second episode, this episode is meant to build the story and how it will progress through out the season. We see the first victim and the build up to how she got where she is. but instead of seeing a story about how she was properly helped our main character just give her a speech and tells her she really doesn't want to die; and it works somehow, all the years of psychological torture that was brought upon this victim from her bully just goes away. the PTSD and the depression just vanished. seen by the decreasing of the percentage of her likelyness to commit suicide, the only Good thing that is given to the victim is that her bully is found out to be a bad person. It doesn't satisfy the actual story that was just built up and the bullying shown to have caused the victim her issues felt less important and more of something that could just be cured from a simple laugh and a wanting to live.
CHARACTER MOTIVES:
The second issue that arise is the motives of the characters not only in the suicidal individuals but our main character himself. We are first introduced to our main character as a guy looking for a job and struggling to fit into the job market, and when he ends up in the coma, his motive are shown from him wanting to wake up and be with his family once more, but after those few scenes, we barely get a glimpse of these motives that where once introduced, our main character feels more like a side character in his own story. Koo Ryoan our female lead feels more intriguing then our actual main character. Joon-woong is supposed to be in his late 20s but acts like a child most of the time, never expressing his motives, but rather whining and complaining about situations rather then trying to figure them out. The only character motive that is fully brought to the front are Koo Ryeon and park jung gil(escort grim reaper) while the writers of this story fleshed these two out, I geuse they forgot to flesh other characters out as well in the process. Back to the suicidal individuals, as soon as a new character is brought into the for-front of the story to be saved they are given these back stories that serve a purpose to their motives on why they don't want to live, and those back stories work but after those back stories we don't actually see the perspectives of these individuals, nor rather how these motives have affected their relationships throughout the story, the kdrama mentions often how the suicides of other affects the living to but we don't see these suicide characters lives, their wanting, nor motive from a deeper sense, ever is very surface level, nothing is deeper then it seems, episode 3 prove that point when looking at the best friend of joon-woong who is planning on killing himself, rather from see a his perspective from a deeper lense or why his motive for killing himself have gotten this deep we see a back in time episode focusing on one event of the characters live rather then the affects that the coma has done to the best friend nor why this is his last straw at life. The main struggle the best friend faced when wanting to get into school and dealing with his sudden loss of his best friend is cleared from eating fried chicken, and that wouldn't be a problem if the story didn't add the decreasing of the likelyness to dies because that fried chicken didn't solve his problems nor did it should a conclusion in the motives on why the Best friend wanted to kill himself. That episode didn't even draw back to joon-woong own character development nor showed a growth in the main characters motives to wake up.
CHARACTER ACTIONS:
lastly one of the major issues I had with this kdrama was the development of character rather the lack there of. Joon-woong at the end of each job never grew as a person nor had any change in his ideas, he felt constant, he would learn something one episode but the next episode do something the contradicted what growth he had. One major that comes to mind when looking at development, and not only development but all three ideas mentioned in the story, is Sin Ye Na, who was the suicidal individuals suffering with an eating disorder in episodes 7-8 when where first introduced to her she seems happy and content untill the story starts to focus on her and what she truly is going through, her motives and actions come to the for-front of the story but when it comes time to actually deal with it...we see scenes of her feelings and those scenes escalates to her attempt which ends with our main character she barely knows doing the exact thing she hated which was judge her on her appearance, and then he does another speech he's been doing through out the entire story that convinces this victim that she should love her self. Even saying this annoys me . The fact stands that the story tries to run with this and shows how the character is struggling but from on person telling her she's just good the way she is it stops her eating disorder immediately. No progress is made. Nothing was actually addressed we learn about her having an eating disorder and it's fixed right after. The story builds it up to be this extremely prevalent thing in the suicidal individuals life that she can't stop and it has been engraved in her since highschool but as soon as we are learned about it, the author wrap the story up. It frustrating to see this because this story is supposed to be this inspiring story about mental health and the trials and tribulations that someone has to get to take their lives and how that can be prevented, but it doesn't do that is uses these mental illness rather the the main focus, a backdrop on a dramatize story to get the audience entertained. As this drama tries to spread a message about the mental health, it bring old stereotypes into pace , such as mental health could be stoped if people really tried hard enough, this drama felt like a cop out. It didn't bring in thing into conversation , it sometimes made these characters look like they didn't want out of their situations rather then people who where stuck in their situations. This drama could have worked but it didn't they add these big ideas but never went anywhere with them nor did they try to address to actually issues that mental health had.
This drama on its own is the kind of drama you have to close your brain and watch, the acting wasn't the best, I don't know if it wasn't from directing but the actors themselves but it just didn't feel like anything in the story was actually being taken seriously....well at the end of the day the kdramas out and these are just my opinions.
(Sorry for grammar mistake and run on sentences, I just be writing stuff as soon as they come to mind )
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