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Song Ha yoon and LeeYi kyung both do an incredible job playing their roles as Soomin and Min hwan. You know one is a great actor when you hate the character they play with passion. Never felt any pity for them ....like EVER.
I wanted them gone in a sense that I wanted Jiwon to succeed in her revenge plan but at the same time wanted them to stay cuz watching them was entertaining.
There are some interesting side characters and I wished we saw more of them as I think their stories were a bit rushed such as Yang Joo ran, Mr Lee, Eun ho and Yeon hee. all in all these are the strong points that made this watch enjoyable for me but now let me talk about small issues that kept me from giving it a 10. These might sound a bit childish but I couldn't ignore them while watching.
1. Yura . I understand the point of her characters existence and her roll in the "fate" aspect of the story but god she's hard to watch . I was not enjoying the chaotic evilness she brought to the story at all. we already had strong antagonists. competing with them cant be easy but Yura is in no way an interesting character at all. she's a cliche of all stuck up, rich brats from kdramas ever. the actress doesn't help the situation eighter. She is pretty awkward on screen. Also the addition of this character gave it a Makjang feeling ( search the term if you don't know the meaning) but everything became extreme all of sudden.
2. Music. OSTs are something I normally don't pay attention to. Here they use some bts songs to reveal a plot twist ( trying to not give out spoilers ) but the way they went about it was ..... something. Cuz why they decided to play spring day and dynamite SO LOUDLY?? them talking about it was enough. Im an Army so of course I was giggling and kicking my feet but that was just weird.
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This review may contain spoilers
I binged this in 3 days and if I was to give an overall score only based of my enjoyment while watching then It would be a 9.5/10 but there are some glaring issues ( or red flags maybe) in the story that effected my scoring here. Here is a list of all the goods and bads;THE BAD :
1. a very irresponsible portrayal of sexual assault. In an attempt to run from a loveless marriage Yi Ting drugs and tries to r*pe our male lead and she suffers no consequences. My jaw was on the floor. Shame on writers. This specific plot line is enough for me to not recommend watching this to anyone regardless of how much I loved the rest. There is so many things wrong with this I dont even know what to say... She was a very problematic character as whole. Pathetic ,pretentious and predatory. All the Ps. Viewer discretion is advised
2. Yi Meng, our female lead, is not nearly enough intentional in her decisions given the fact that she had read the script beforehand and knows all the important plot points. First few episodes were fine because she was just learning how this world functions and it was funny but as the story progressed she refused to learn to use the story mechanisms in her advantage. She is so dumb it hurts to watch. At some point a whole new character is added to the story that wasn't even in the original script but she still foolishly refuses to accept that she can try and change her ending insisting that iconic parts will happen regardless whereas Nan Heng, where he uses one of story mechanisms to change an iconic scene in the plot barely a few hours after learning it. Which takes me to my next problem,
3. Nan Heng overpowers Yi Meng in every way possible. He has great martial art skills, ,he is strong and quick thinker, knows politics really well but he is also sympathetic and very heroic. He get so much more done even without reading the script. All while the female lead who has all the cheat codes and prior knowledge is running around like a headless chicken. Oh did I mention that he has great photographic memory?
Funny thing is before Fl gets transported into the script, the drama makers were in a meeting discussing the production where our female lead side have to fight for her right. This scene shows us that we are going to watch a parody of sorts where all common repeated issues of c drama land will be made fun of . Someone in the meeting mentions the fact that the female leads in c dramas are always used as a tool to make the male lead shine . Later, our female lead is reading the script and she is raging at how bad it is because her role is a tragic doormat while all the glory goes to Nan Heng. Although I haven't watched enough C dramas to know the tropes, misogyny is universal and I can see what they're trying to critic. Then They actually go on and repeat the same mistake. All Yi Meng does is making Nan Heng shine.
THE GOOD:
1,Production
I have never seen a historical drama, kdrama or cdrama or anything else, with such a grand production. The set, the outfits. the camera work, the editing, the fighting choreographies etc., were all great. They had huge budget and it was obviously very well spent. Its a feast to the eyes.
2, Music
beautiful and well placed
3, Comedy
Most of time the comedy hashtag in genre section just means cringe but Here I actually busted out laughing which doesn't happen to me alot.
4, Angst and slow burn
It takes alot for the main lead to finally confess their feelings both to themselves and then to each other so when it finally happens its satisfying. After they get together there are many obstacles and set backs and I was surprised how well the angst suited the story when we started with such a light and fun mood. Kudos to both actors playing the main lead they cried and wailed.
5, Layered story telling.
this premise is not anything unique. There are countless dramas where the lead is thrown inside a fictional world and had to fight the plot/writer but for some reason A dream within a dream is a quite fresh story.
As I said before there is hilarious comedy and there is heart wrenching angst but also there is political intrigue, dysfunctional families, unique and powerful friend ships and philosophical themes. There was a few thought provoking ideas there and some memorable dialogues that made me pause and keep replaying it,
Also it has the best ending of dramas with this premise or any drama that I've seen. Very satisfying
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This review may contain spoilers
Its a bore
In short, the episodes are way too long, its filled to the brim with redundant tropes and its boring.In long, I'm sorely disappointed with this so before get into the bad stuff let me mention some positives;
1. The actors. I think they're easily the strongest point if LND.
2. There are parts that hits you in the feeling. Mostly the ones involving Seokryu and her family. The family dynamic was an interesting one as a whole.
Now this series might have some good points but those positive points can be seen in many other dramas which aren't this boring. So many things are thrown in the mix here which had little to no pay off. For example the plot with their exes. None of them add anything meaningful to the story so why are they there? Or the plot twist about Dan ho and his kid? Or Mo eum mother disagreeing with her relationship so passionately just to change her mind so easily. Or even her moving to north pole. None of them had any impact whatsoever so why were they included?
The episodes where so long you could feel them trying to stretch out the story thin to fill up the run time and it was annoying. The slow burn wasn't a satisfying one. It was painfully slow without the burn. I used the skip button a lot in later half of it.
The comedy bits are stale too honestly. Every woman was bickering and shouting over stupid misunderstandings that could've been resolved within minutes had they talked it out like normal people but all the parents here are (NOT) comically immature.
This could've been a more enjoyable watch if it was shorter and had less overused tropes.
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I saw this word on the internet a while ago and instantly thought of reply1988. I was born in 2000 and never lived in korea but watching this always makes me feel nostalgic. Simpler times, simpler problems, the sweet innocence of youth, joyful shared experiences, warm families and honest friendships. I've watched way too many kdramas in my life time to be considered healthy and I consider this one as my all time favorite for its insane re-watchability. the story telling is incredible and the actors do amazing job playing their characters. there is no filler character as they all add something to the story and it has great pacing
watched the other 2 of reply trilogies after this one and that was kind of a mistake. if you want to watch all of them I suggest to watch 1988 one the last as its the best one out of the three. reply1988 is the only one which take the "who could be the husband' mystery seriously and the actors are way better. I'm not gonna lie I was suffering with a huge 2nd lead syndrome first time around but made peace with it real quick.
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Kim Hye Yoon ( as Im Sol ) , Byun Woo Seok ( as Ryu Sung Jae ) and Song Geon Hee ( as Tae Sung ) have found themselves a new fan. I will be paying close attention to their projects from now on.
Kudos to writer Lee Shi Eun and all the people in production. Its just perfect.
The OSTs are beautiful too
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