Dabosil

He never said it, or called her 'eomma', but she knew about his identity as her son (and at least he knew that he was a dangerous-ish person, you'll find that out later)-and he obviously knew she was his mother.
So they never got to properly recognize each other, and each bore their own guilt and for Vincenzo, his anger.

:O
Oh wow, I loved the music score, though!

Innovative Article! I can already see Deng Lun's facial expressions-as soon as you mentioned Ron Weasley, I thought, that's completely on point. I'm not very familiar with Lin Yi, so I can't comment about Harry Potter, but though I absolutely love Dilraba, I don't think she really feels like Hermione-she tends to give out really cool girl vibes because of her intense visuals. The others go pretty well, but I think Snape would be more fitting for someone older. Also, I didn't realize this, but Xing Zhao Lin and Yang Yang do look a bit similar, thanks for that. Anyways, fun scroll.

Just gotta say that Jade Lovers is probably not going to come out in a million years and be shelved for a lifetime due to the lead's controversy.
I'm excited for 'Why Women Love' too! I liked Jin Chen in 'Dear Missy' and Wang Ziyi in 'We Are Not Alone'. Also, the visuals are killer.
I'm also looking forward to Zhang Yuxi getting more lead dynamic roles. I understand why netizens were annoyed because Cheng Yi and Zhang Yuxi are from the same company and the company keeps pairing their actors together, which doesn't make fresh pairings, but hopefully, their chemistry works. Cheng Yi's acting is pretty good too.

I love your articles!
Anyways, I have watched most of the dramas you have watched and generally agree with you. I recently detoured out of romance for a while, but I don't know if it applies to you, but you seem to like romance and romance is a sub-genre here. However, I see that Lawless Lawyer is your 5th favourite K-Drama and many people who like that generally like Vincenzo too.
I think you should give it a shot.
The thing is, Vincenzo isn't special, I just like it (and many people, but many don't like it too). It just relieves you and makes you feel excited and thrilled, and I really liked the character relationships and setup. I would say go in without prejudices? it's a little overrated for its own taste but it's a fun ride.
I'm a little hesitant to completely recommend it because I didn't get into it at first, but now I love it, so if that's a helpful indicator, then well, hope it helps.

Okay, so I love it, but there are a few things that obviously apply as prerequisites (and biases):
1. I'm looking for a TV Show with a cool male lead and it hopped my way at the right time
2. It holds sentimental value because even though I didn't like the comedy it lifted my spirits in sadder times
3. Well, actually there was literally nothing else holding me at that point, so I just continued watching
So yeah, it's 1 hour 20 mins ish average per episode (actually, I didn't notice that at first though), but I had to get to the end of the 2nd episode to feel intrigued. Afterwards, I naturally hooked myself in at the end of episode 3. The drama has a slow start and I couldn't establish reasons to care about characters at first until they clearly outlined motivations which took a while.

So why did I like it?
I think it's a matter of perspective. I also know why people don't like it. I think I would have also disliked it, but I think that many dialogues are meaningful and I really like evil themes because I got sick of seeing the whole angelic fighting the bad with justice idea (And really, I think the drama just uses its plot to kind of act asa light blanket over a rant about the justice system, so I didn't put that into focus) I also kind of already categorized it in its own logic so it didn't jump out to me. Also, I liked the unconventional set ups.

In short, I loved the themes but I didn't want to read some essay talking about it, and having visual imagery and cool scenes hooked me in. It's not life-changing or very deep, it's fun, pure fun. You can take it as that or spend some time thinking about it. And if you hate it, I mean, I like watching bad things for fun too, so yeah.
But that's also based on your habits.

But based on what you said, you might be bored for like over 2 hours. So how you use your time is your thing.

I liked it a lot. But seeing what you said, which is valid, I mean, each to their own.

Actually though, I don't think it's a game changer. It became successful, but it doesn't have some really cool thing that completely set it apart from other dramas or changed the formula. It's just more popular.
E.g. DOTS motivated more Korean Dramas to become pre-filmed, and not aligning production time with the airing schedule.

I just realized 'Law School' was on the list of dramas ending this week. Perfect time to get back into the drama, binge, and get over a previous drama!

Actually, it is listed as a dark comedy*. That is the main genre.
Yes, weak in places. Still, I think most of it is social commentary presented in form of a plot (doesn't hold up sometimes). I didn't get the logic either at first, but I think it's kind of just camped out on it's own logic, so I didn't really feel frustrated and I think it's a caricatured representation for how people see Vincenzo (how attractive he is, how much charisma he holds despite his obvious evil). 'course I could have just been looking too deeply into it. But I agree that I did not feel much thrill towards the end, just nervousness. And I didn't like the comedy much.

Hm. I don't like his death either because he could have been killed off in a smarter, cleaner way, but I think his death was a symbolic end, so that Babel wouldn't have the chance to be rebuilt (since it has to be utterly destroyed), and because Han-Seo can't cope with his actions and his sacrifice is a hero moment of redemption.
But his death was definitely shot kind of logically loophole'd.

Aww, well, hope it changes.
Vincenzo is overrated too, but it's still a gem.
If you ever watch it, just ease into it and you can either take the perspective of having light fun or thinking deep about the concepts.
It's kinda everywhere, so I get where you're coming from.
I haven't watched DOTS, but I would still recommend Vincenzo.

I agree that Vincenzo's success is unprecedented and somewhat unexpected, but I don't think the reasons were clearly highlighted. I remember watching the first episode feeling like I knew the reception could tip its balance either way at any point. The drama is not one I think most people would call perfect at 100%. In fact, I'm not even really sure why it's addictive for most or why it was such a huge success, but I think that no matter what the introductory Italian themes were a lot more welcome to western viewers, especially as the main title is 'Vincenzo' (it's always getting into the first episode of a drama that is the hardest and to be honest, Vincenzo's first episode is not its top).I was always interested in why it is a huge success, and to be honest, I can't explain it even if I love it, but I don't think it's really because of how the drama was presented-like you said, it did have a K-Drama format. Either way, this appealed to more audiences. I think that the main genres might be factored in as it's not heavy romance (unlike usual mainstream popular K-Dramas, I mean the really popular ones). There's also the title, and yeah, a mysterious male lead, and of course, SJK already brought in a lot of star power originally and his fans had been excited for his comeback-I don't think the drama wouldn't have done so well without at least the initial push of SJK's popularity.

That's all I can conclude with for now.

I was surprised to see this article since as you've said, it's mostly an underrated gem type. I loved Young Blood and I liked Su Xiaotong there, but I couldn't get into this one. General reviews from netizens also seem to point to the fact that the script logic works, is quite interesting, and the characters actually do work and have pretty good chemistry, but the acting is quite wooden (which is a bigger problem for my viewing experience). To be honest, maybe I'm just not feeling it right now. But thanks for the article!

I agree, in interviews SJK mostly talked about how comedy was the challenge in Vincenzo and he was surprised being given a comedy script initially. Though he also mentioned he would like to take on even darker roles and I think it'd be a good role here if it's more focused on revenge. Would love to see him in even more unconvential, dynamic roles though. Either way, great to see him getting offers.

Off-topic, but I shrugged over your comment initially, but then I randomly thought about it again after an hour during dinner and started laughing so hard. Loved the comment.

I would say so. But it depends. because most people loved it from 4 onwards after the reveal. But since you didn't (as you think it gets repetitive by ep 5), I can't say. But OTC and KDY definitely had great performances going forward.
The show's main focus is definitely on corruption, so I guess you shouldn't expect anything different. The Italian set-up is mostly just a foreground for the ML and I mean, there are more mafia references going onward but the main point is about evil, not exactly the Mafia.
I think it gets better.

Hmm...I mean honestly I can't say. because I can see it from a bunch of perspectives and all of them aren't completely wrong or right either.
So I saw someone on Twitter say, 'I thought it was an action-packed drama with some slice of life here and there, but it ended up being a slice of life drama trying to much to have cool moments'
^ Sometimes, I did feel that.
TFP as in the Fiery Priest? It's written by the same scriptwriter.
Here's what you can expect: A lot of slapstick comedy, a slow start, the focus on corruption, evil, revenge, and a lot of troubles in the middle that once one ends pops out another (they don't go ring in ring, they just start and end and then we get a final finale).
I guess your issue really isn't about the comedy, but the action. There's definitely a lot more action in the last few episodes, I would say 15 onwards.
I think you could say it's some action here and there, but I haven't watched the Fiery Priest. However, you can see in the comments that most people who liked the Fiery Priest liked Vincenzo. The more usual sentiment is that Chief Kim was better.
I can't judge, though. Hope it helped a little?

Well, I've heard that people liked 'Chief Kim' the most.
I think this one is Mr. Park Jae-Bum's most commercial piece of work.

Oh. I don't think he was supposed to have character development other than being less guilt-ridden, accepting his evil persona as someone who cleans up worse trash, but he's not supposed to have a redemption arc.

I read somewhere that I should watch two to three episodes at a time for this drama because I’ll end up thinking about it a lot, and it’s true-over the last week I keep thinking about the dialogue and characters over the first two episodes, it hits hard.