As others have commented, this drama is a hard one to pin down. Some scenes were breathtakingly beautiful and powerful (when Shunji and Kang To were riding the bike through the field together and sobbing their hearts out as they grieved their loved ones, when Kang To finds out Gaksital is his brother, when Shun Ji finds out Kang To is Gaksital, and when Kang To reveals to Shun Ji that he killed his own brother without realizing it--these moments sold me on this drama.). The music is beautiful, and the time period and setting (minus the cheesy 30's sets and how over dramatic everything is) is unique and fascinating. I love the idea of a person playing two roles at once and trying to sell both convincingly.
But the plot goes in circles, especially later on in the drama. They could have done the dual roles of Kang To as a policeman and Gaksital so much better in terms of him disappearing and reappearing and how he manages to elude detection and the notice of his policemen peers while playing their mortal enemy, and I wanted to see Shun Ji and Kang To as friends longer before we see them wanting to rip each other apart (this was one of my main issues with My Country: A New Age as well; this and that the plot made no sense from start to finish). And the torture, gosh, so much torture! Seriously, enough with the revolving door of getting captured, tortured and released. That on repeat over and over.
This is why I really, REALLY want this redone. If someone kept the premise and all the really strong parts and improved the weak ones, this could be a fantastic and unique drama, especially with the improved production value of Kdramas now. Someone, please remake this!!!
I'm almost done with this drama (in Episode 15), and it's wonderful! I've found it compelling and interesting, well-paced with characters you care about and root for, and plenty of twists and turns. Kept me guessing the whole time who the killer was.
It has a very similar feel to Signal and Tunnel in terms of the tight writing and pacing (I think it was easier to follow than the two I just mentioned, as those at times got super twisty and confusing), but maybe more character driven, with a big emphasis on family (think Back To The Future, but without the comedy). It has romance but it doesn't distract from the main plot. I can see why people said the leads had no chemistry, but I think it's because the romance shows more as a deep admiration and companionship that grows between the leads as they work tirelessly to save people and improve everyone's future. That's why we see no lovey-dovey behavior in this; it would have immediately given the drama a different feel and tone, and shifted the emphasis from its main focus. There is another romance in this story that actually sometimes becomes more of a focus than the one between the main leads.
I think the part that made this story feel different than Tunnel and Signal and which gives the drama its unique flavor is that because the leads are not detectives and because of the family emphasis, they have a very different perspective than the main leads you normally find in mystery/thriller dramas and that causes them to go about investigating the case(s) differently (since they are trying to save people from their fates that they already know about AND find the killer all the while navigating deeply personal connections to people in the town of Woojeong; these dynamics made it difficult for the characters to see everyone around them objectively, which made for a fascinating setup for this drama).
My only gripe is the 80's downtown of Woojeong. It's painfully obvious it's a set. It looks like the lot used in The Bridal Mask that was supposed to look like the 30's and in this, it's meant to be the 80's. Another part looked like the neighborhood set used in Reply 1988 that somehow looked less like a set than here (do they think we can't tell the plants are all fake? C'mon, we're not that oblivious!). This aspect pulled me out of the story a bit more than I would have liked, but it's still well done in other ways!
I actually loved both the leads in their roles; 1987 Hee Seop (as a character and the actor himself) was a highlight for me, and I thought the actress who played 1987 Mi Sook did an excellent job making me shudder every time she was on screen cause of how psycho she was; just her expressions and the way she talked drove me nuts, and I think that was intentional. She reminded me of K from Inspector Koo (which I thought was terrible; there was way too much screen time for K in that as she was SO crazy and yet I felt like the drama kept trying to make us like her and empathize with her which I couldn't stand); if Mi Sook had as much screen time in this drama as K had in Inspector Koo, I would have bailed on this drama.Thankfully, that was not the case! In this drama Mi Sook is shown to be a person with a really tough life, but who still has no excuse for some of the awful things she chooses to do.
Love the BGM. This screenwriter writes consistently awesome stories and characters but somehow always manages to include a hokey premise (in her dramas that I love most). Once you get past the beginning of her dramas which introduce main leads who are aliens, mermaids or dropped in North Korea due to a tornado while paragliding, it's smooth sailing from there with well-crafted storytelling and endearing characters.
This story also has one of the coziest happy endings I've seen in a Kdrama. Vastly prefer it to the open ending of CLOY which was sweet but ultimately unsatisfying for me or My Love From The Star which was even weirder. They're all "happy" endings, but this one is the only satisfying ending (again, in my opinion).
In addition to the ones shared by others, two longer ones that are excellent are Rebel: Thief Who Stole The People…
Yes, Arthdal Chronicles is also quite good! Part 3 was actually my favorite, though it's more of a fantasy than historical drama/sageuk, and pretty violent/gory. It has fun world building and is well-acted. I can see why people compare it to Game Of Thrones (though AC is much cleaner, no sex or incest, being a Kdrama), and the CG is sometimes not the greatest. But a very ambitious drama nonetheless!
This drama sold me on Lee Jong Suk. He piqued my interest in Secret Garden even though he had a super tiny role, but in this he was so endearing and lovable! I proceeded to watch all of his other dramas because of his role in this one. He didn't disappoint.
I also thought the teachers were an awesome part of the story, and I loved how they interwove the students' stories with the teachers' stories. The way the problem students were dealt with was not very realistic, but I liked the focus on teachers in this drama that the other dramas dropped. 2015 had some focus on teachers, as well as 2021, but I don't even remember the teacher in 2017. This is also the only school drama where any "school" is shown to happen in the classroom. The rest of the dramas (except the woodworking focus in 2021) just have their stories happen AT school. Another way of putting this is that in the other School dramas besides 2013, school is just the setting, not the focus.
With all that said, this is definitely the best of the "School" dramas (ranked from best to worst: 2013, 2017, 2015 and 2021 (the writing for this one was very strange; nowhere near the level of quality you get in the other School dramas)), though I can't stand all the parent/principal/teacher politics in ANY of them (All the administrators in these school dramas are MESSED UP. I hope the school politics is exaggerated for the sake of dramatic effect and isn't remotely how schools function in Korea... I know some parents can be very tough to deal with and their portrayal here might not be that far off in some cases, but the way these schools' leadership functions is a joke.).
While the age gap is a little wide for me between the leads, I love that not only does this drama have a clear theme woven throughout the drama, it's also a beautiful, poignant theme. It highlights how love (not just romantic love, but selfless, unconditional love) can empower someone to do what is right, even when it's difficult to do so.
The two most powerful parts for me were when Hye Seong's mom, right before she dies, tells Hye Seong: "You know something? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If you live that way... everyone in this world will become blind. All those people who are rude to you because you're fortunate, it's just because they're jealous. So don't hate them, don't be mean to them, and feel sorry for them. Just promise me. You won't hate someone to the point that it'll ruin your life. Once a person is born into this world, this life is not even long enough to love each other, right?"
This theme is further developed at the end when Kwan Woo asks Do Yeon what the difference is between Soo Ha and Joon Gook. She says she doesn't know and he responds with, "Min Joon Gook had no one. No one who trusted him. No one who listened to him. No one who loved him. And he had no one to protect. But, if he'd had that one person, he might have lived differently. Like Park Soo Ha."
This drama highlights that two people with similarly horrible circumstances and good reason to hate and want revenge can turn out differently just through the presence of love in their lives. I think that's an insightful observation!
I didn't care for the somewhat ambiguous ending, but it was fun to see these actors/musicians while they were still up and coming. And Kim Soo Hyun totally holds his own with the dancers and singers (assuming the singing and such is actually done by him)!
I also just love the thoughtfulness of this screenwriter's dramas. She's my favorite!
Beautiful story! CLOY was my first drama and it drew me into the world of Korean Dramas/Asian entertainment and it's still one of my all-time favorites. I was not as into the second couple's story and sometimes the North Korean villager women were a little too much for me, but overall, wonderfully done.
does this drama have a heart fluttering romance like Weightlifting fairy kim Bok-joo...
I think the term for what you see in this drama is "slow burn." That said, I think the leads have great chemistry and their romance is enjoyable and satisfying to watch. Unlike Weightlifting Fairy, it's just not the main focus of the drama, nor does the progress of the romance happen quickly.
if anyone have any recommendation of drama just like this one,kdrama,cdrama,japanese drama anything please feel…
In addition to the ones shared by others, two longer ones that are excellent are Rebel: Thief Who Stole The People and Warrior Baek Dong Soo, with a big focus on friendship. Love In The Moonlight is a good, lighter one, along with Sungkyungkwan Scandal and Tale of Nokdu, all of which have cross-dressing. Moon Embracing The Sun is a classic with an excellent performance by Kim Soo Hyun. The Crowned Clown is great, too, but has a more somber tone (it has beautiful BGMs), though not as sad as Mr. Sunshine.
Whoever is dressing up the FL needs is not consistent. One moment she wears really nice clothes...nnext minute…
Korean fashion tends to be quite good and pushes global trends, so when I saw the dress and jeans I thought, "Oh please no, don't bring this back. No dresses over jeans again!" 😣 I thought this look was dead and buried for good.
In the episode with the creepy stalker dude, they kept making it seem like Do Ha was the stalker when he wasn't, which they made clear after he was caught mistakenly. What still confused me, though, is that in the convenience store, the guy Sol Hee sees there and mistakes for the stalker really seems to be Do Ha, since we see him with a mask a lot (they even showed close ups of his face), and from what I could tell, it was him (he even drops a coke, which we see Do Ha drink a lot, as he's chasing her). If that is Do Ha, though, why on earth did he chase her? All the other times he avoids her for fear of being recognized. I thought that part was so confusing.
I was actually shocked when I read that a lot of people found that scene unusual because that scene was so realistic.…
And Sol Hee, rather than thinking of how inappropriate that question was at that time, was just feeling insecure and frustrated about all his lies (rather than trying to understand the reason for them and wait for him to be ready to share what was behind them). It was an interesting scene because I think it's pretty easy to sympathize with both of them and where they're coming from. He didn't know how to talk about what was bothering him, and she was hurt by his deception and lashed out, pushing him even further away.
The ML is a little wooden at times, and I always want the leads to find out the cross-dressing lead's true identity quicker, since I think the deception once they begin to fall in love is so agonizing.
I've found it a little disappointing that Kdrama screenwriters rarely write FL's who are intellectual and bookish (poetic or philosophical), who can have deep conversations about profound topics (and not because it's their job (as a lawyer, for instance), but because they love to think deeply and are bright-eyed and curious) and who are invested in building a world that upholds justice and what is good/right. These types of female characters I encounter more frequently in western literature/movies/TV; think of Jo from Little Women (for a literary example) or Danielle from the Cinderella story retold in the movie Ever After, just to name a few imperfect examples off the top of my head.
But I found the closest version to this type of female character in a Kdrama in Kim Yun Hee (you have to get a few episodes in, though), and it was refreshing! I also loved the way Kim Yun Hee and Lee Seon Joon inspire, encourage and help each other to be the best versions of themselves throughout the entire drama. That interplay was lovely to watch, and it made me root for them.
But the plot goes in circles, especially later on in the drama. They could have done the dual roles of Kang To as a policeman and Gaksital so much better in terms of him disappearing and reappearing and how he manages to elude detection and the notice of his policemen peers while playing their mortal enemy, and I wanted to see Shun Ji and Kang To as friends longer before we see them wanting to rip each other apart (this was one of my main issues with My Country: A New Age as well; this and that the plot made no sense from start to finish). And the torture, gosh, so much torture! Seriously, enough with the revolving door of getting captured, tortured and released. That on repeat over and over.
This is why I really, REALLY want this redone. If someone kept the premise and all the really strong parts and improved the weak ones, this could be a fantastic and unique drama, especially with the improved production value of Kdramas now. Someone, please remake this!!!
It has a very similar feel to Signal and Tunnel in terms of the tight writing and pacing (I think it was easier to follow than the two I just mentioned, as those at times got super twisty and confusing), but maybe more character driven, with a big emphasis on family (think Back To The Future, but without the comedy). It has romance but it doesn't distract from the main plot. I can see why people said the leads had no chemistry, but I think it's because the romance shows more as a deep admiration and companionship that grows between the leads as they work tirelessly to save people and improve everyone's future. That's why we see no lovey-dovey behavior in this; it would have immediately given the drama a different feel and tone, and shifted the emphasis from its main focus. There is another romance in this story that actually sometimes becomes more of a focus than the one between the main leads.
I think the part that made this story feel different than Tunnel and Signal and which gives the drama its unique flavor is that because the leads are not detectives and because of the family emphasis, they have a very different perspective than the main leads you normally find in mystery/thriller dramas and that causes them to go about investigating the case(s) differently (since they are trying to save people from their fates that they already know about AND find the killer all the while navigating deeply personal connections to people in the town of Woojeong; these dynamics made it difficult for the characters to see everyone around them objectively, which made for a fascinating setup for this drama).
My only gripe is the 80's downtown of Woojeong. It's painfully obvious it's a set. It looks like the lot used in The Bridal Mask that was supposed to look like the 30's and in this, it's meant to be the 80's. Another part looked like the neighborhood set used in Reply 1988 that somehow looked less like a set than here (do they think we can't tell the plants are all fake? C'mon, we're not that oblivious!). This aspect pulled me out of the story a bit more than I would have liked, but it's still well done in other ways!
I actually loved both the leads in their roles; 1987 Hee Seop (as a character and the actor himself) was a highlight for me, and I thought the actress who played 1987 Mi Sook did an excellent job making me shudder every time she was on screen cause of how psycho she was; just her expressions and the way she talked drove me nuts, and I think that was intentional. She reminded me of K from Inspector Koo (which I thought was terrible; there was way too much screen time for K in that as she was SO crazy and yet I felt like the drama kept trying to make us like her and empathize with her which I couldn't stand); if Mi Sook had as much screen time in this drama as K had in Inspector Koo, I would have bailed on this drama.Thankfully, that was not the case! In this drama Mi Sook is shown to be a person with a really tough life, but who still has no excuse for some of the awful things she chooses to do.
This story also has one of the coziest happy endings I've seen in a Kdrama. Vastly prefer it to the open ending of CLOY which was sweet but ultimately unsatisfying for me or My Love From The Star which was even weirder. They're all "happy" endings, but this one is the only satisfying ending (again, in my opinion).
I also thought the teachers were an awesome part of the story, and I loved how they interwove the students' stories with the teachers' stories. The way the problem students were dealt with was not very realistic, but I liked the focus on teachers in this drama that the other dramas dropped. 2015 had some focus on teachers, as well as 2021, but I don't even remember the teacher in 2017. This is also the only school drama where any "school" is shown to happen in the classroom. The rest of the dramas (except the woodworking focus in 2021) just have their stories happen AT school. Another way of putting this is that in the other School dramas besides 2013, school is just the setting, not the focus.
With all that said, this is definitely the best of the "School" dramas (ranked from best to worst: 2013, 2017, 2015 and 2021 (the writing for this one was very strange; nowhere near the level of quality you get in the other School dramas)), though I can't stand all the parent/principal/teacher politics in ANY of them (All the administrators in these school dramas are MESSED UP. I hope the school politics is exaggerated for the sake of dramatic effect and isn't remotely how schools function in Korea... I know some parents can be very tough to deal with and their portrayal here might not be that far off in some cases, but the way these schools' leadership functions is a joke.).
The two most powerful parts for me were when Hye Seong's mom, right before she dies, tells Hye Seong: "You know something? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If you live that way... everyone in this world will become blind. All those people who are rude to you because you're fortunate, it's just because they're jealous. So don't hate them, don't be mean to them, and feel sorry for them. Just promise me. You won't hate someone to the point that it'll ruin your life. Once a person is born into this world, this life is not even long enough to love each other, right?"
This theme is further developed at the end when Kwan Woo asks Do Yeon what the difference is between Soo Ha and Joon Gook. She says she doesn't know and he responds with, "Min Joon Gook had no one. No one who trusted him. No one who listened to him. No one who loved him. And he had no one to protect. But, if he'd had that one person, he might have lived differently. Like Park Soo Ha."
This drama highlights that two people with similarly horrible circumstances and good reason to hate and want revenge can turn out differently just through the presence of love in their lives. I think that's an insightful observation!
I also just love the thoughtfulness of this screenwriter's dramas. She's my favorite!
I've found it a little disappointing that Kdrama screenwriters rarely write FL's who are intellectual and bookish (poetic or philosophical), who can have deep conversations about profound topics (and not because it's their job (as a lawyer, for instance), but because they love to think deeply and are bright-eyed and curious) and who are invested in building a world that upholds justice and what is good/right. These types of female characters I encounter more frequently in western literature/movies/TV; think of Jo from Little Women (for a literary example) or Danielle from the Cinderella story retold in the movie Ever After, just to name a few imperfect examples off the top of my head.
But I found the closest version to this type of female character in a Kdrama in Kim Yun Hee (you have to get a few episodes in, though), and it was refreshing! I also loved the way Kim Yun Hee and Lee Seon Joon inspire, encourage and help each other to be the best versions of themselves throughout the entire drama. That interplay was lovely to watch, and it made me root for them.