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Nothing can save a weak foundation
Have you ever watched one of those mini dramas and wished they were longer? This drama is proof why that'd be a bad idea.Even if I didn't bother to structure my thoughts in this review, it would have a lot more structure than what I just watched.
First things first: I don't think they had much budget for this and that's okay.
But the camera was so shaky at times, angles felt weird and cuts were pretty harsh. Moreover, the make-up and costumes were terribly bad at times. The setting doesn't make much sense either and locations weren't chosen well. The only acting that sticks out is that of ML. Putting him into this drama felt like putting a cherry on top of a collapsed cake.
From the trailer and the description, you expect to see a thrilling murder case drama, and if you've read other reviews you will realise that family drama will play a much bigger part than advertised. Let me add that it's not family drama, but business family drama, written by someone who memorised important business terminology and is now playing bs bingo with it without understanding a word of what they're saying. Or, to put it short: It's absolute gibberish most of the time.
The romance is nothing very noteworthy either, the development rather hasty with barely any chemistry for the most of it. And of course we don't get spared the typical Chinese romance clichés. What would we do if we had a love story without some good amount of stalking? This romance was the icing on a cake that was a failure from the beginning.
You can't save a cake that's lacking in its foundation: The storytelling. They made every mistake you could ever make. There is almost no foreshadowing, which would be desperately needed to maintain suspense until the point things finally start going down. The lack of music doesn't help much, either. We have way too many characters not characterised well, only reduced to their function as plot devices for the family drama without clear distinguishment. The pacing is off, with a lot of loose build-up lacking substance followed by a rushed climax.
They needed an omniscient narrator, explaining from an outside perspective what's happening, what the characters' motives are and what they are feeling (what did you even need filming for if the images on screen can't even portray that?). That narrator talks in a voice as if they were commenting a documentary. And they are explaining things that should be obvious, instead of filling the ocean-wide plotholes. Not to mention realism took a day off as well.
The grand finale, the one thing everyone waited for, is narrated again - by the narrator, newly introduced characters AND plain text on screen. Tell me you can't write a script for the life of you without telling me you can't.
If you somehow, despite all the very obvious flaws, manage to develop a liking for any of the characters, don't figure out the culprit from the beginning and actually find yourself rooting for everything to go down, the emotional payoff still will be pretty mild. Only way you could like this is if you're expecting to see a very long vertical drama, because that's about the quality it has.
PS: If anyone complains about giving "participation points" with a rating, show them this drama. If it spares me from having another narrator in my next drama, I'll gladly give a better rating simply for its absence.
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If only the puzzle pieces fit better...
I had to adjust my expectations a bit, because, as other reviews already mentioned, this isn't a murder mystery. In fact, there's not much mysterious about the plot as a whole. It's more of a family drama wrapped in pleasing aesthetics. But oh how pleasing those aesthetics were.The intros were cinema-worthy and almost all scenes showed a great attention to detail in filming. Without the great presentation, the plot probably would have fallen flat, but it was the atmosphere it created that made me want to keep watching. Also, while others found it to be too much, I loved the focus on the flowers and the way they used them as metaphors.
Although I correctly guessed the culprit(s) quite early on, the following episodes made me doubt my initial gut feeling, which is more than many other crime series manage to do. We have a couple of the typical tropes like people waiting patiently to be told the whole fascinating story or the police not doing a great job, but it's not shoved into our faces which makes it easier to overlook. The connections between actions and characters aren't overly complex and do not come without holes, but the overall ground base is there.
With how the story was told, I'm not sure they knew what they wanted the series to be. The first episodes were a bit confusing, leaving what exactly happened in the grey (and I had my fair share of confusion trying to figure out the characters but maybe that was just me), but by around the half of it, it all became clear and we could watch the characters find out themselves. I would have preferred had they decided for either way of storytelling, but I also got spoilered about the first part, so I might be biased.
Anyhow, I guess, the confusing type of storytelling would have fit better as the lack of screen time for clear characterisation of each character made the emotionality of many scenes fall a bit flat. I developed a liking for several of the "side" characters and would have loved to see more of them. While understanding this was never meant to be emotional, a tad more interest in the character's progression certainly would've kept me hooked even more.
That being said, if you are easily triggered by graphic depiction of traumatic events, you might want to pass on this one or skip certain scenes (more details in spoiler below).
In summary, the main selling points of this drama are its nice filming and the amount of curiosity/thirst for revenge it creates in the viewer - although I have to make clear this isn't about revenge. If you expect a masterminded crime mystery plot, you might want to pass on this one, but if you're all for dramatic family reveals and plottwists, you might want to give this a go.
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Potential alone isn't enough
Having read many reviews before, I knew what to expect, hence there is no disappointment that made me lower my rating. This series was what it was: mediocre. A nice watch if you knew what you were getting yourself into, but not outstanding in either way.I binged this for all the wrong reasons. I wouldn't say this series wasted its potential, but it never even tried reaching it. The acting was good, especially those glances between both mains that could carry a whole conversation without any spoken word. But it just wasn't enough when it came to the deeper aspects of the story - the part that actually had me hooked.
People complained about there being too much trauma, but I would have loved to see an actual plot with character development, overcoming past bad experiences and growing together as a couple. Just that this wasn't the case here.
Out of 10 episodes, 3 were what I'd call fillers entirely. While I don't mind episodes where nothing grave is happening, I feel it didn't help the storytelling to have that many, especially not with where they were placed. The rest could've had actual meaning to it if the resolution of the conflicts didn't always go conveniently smooth to a point where it was clearly unrealistic. Even all the trauma ended up being overcome in the course of an episode. All that buildup for nothing.
All side characters were plot devices entirely, they were either the bad guys creating plot events, ambiguous characters with few minutes screentime whose only purpose was to create angst when required or the nice and supportive ones that were all happy and understanding and did nothing but laugh and smile and create ten layers of fluff. It got dull after a while.
So if you want all happy and fluff, you'll hate certain parts of it, while if you're looking for actual issues to be overcome instead of the usual three apocalyptic horsemen of BL dramas, you will find the execution of that to be lacking.
Watching felt like eating an amazing chocolate cake, only that I would never get to finish the slice before it got taken away. I don't care if you give me chocolate or red velvet cake, I'm fine with either, but let me finish my damn slice. I'm tired of series trying to appeal to every taste and thus leaving them all dissatisifed.
One last thing on the uncut version: The "fanservice" scenes were mostly cringe in my eyes and didn't add anything to the story, hence you can save yourself from having to rinse your eyes and just watch the normal version.
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You can watch this - but you better not
It's a mini drama and probably pretty low-budget, too, so expectations were already low on my end. But it's also not my first mini drama. It's not even my first South Korean romance mini drama for teens.Hence, I think I can safely say this: I know how much better those can be.
The cinematography is very solid, so much that I positively noticed it from the beginning. That's about all the good things I have to say.
The plot was barely existent. Even with the short runtime, they could have either used screentime for more backstories or more actual plot. I'd even say they tried to include too much but had too little experience on how to actually convey these things. Message? None.
The acting left a lot to be desired, and FL's performance was very underwhelming, especially considering her character's supposed to be a natural talent at it.
The characters were all bad in their own ways. ML is a jerk, FL follows him like a puppy, 2nd ML turns from nice guy to doormat way too quickly, 2nd FL is egoistic to the fullest and the antagonist is almost too cliché.
If you wish to see an actual love triangle because you love the trope, I can't leave that silver lining of hope for you: it's barely a triangle (nor love).
I'm outright uncomfortable thinking that teenagers and juveniles watch this, thinking that's how love and relationships should be. Especially since the main leads have great chemistry together. Only watch this if you can safely confirm you know the difference between drama and reality.
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Only slightly below my expectations
I wanted something very short with an easy to grasp storyline and got exactly that. It all could've worked well had it not felt so off.Having people in their thirties play high schoolers just doesn't work for me. The last exciting bit out of nowhere could have even still somehow fit into the story if it hadn't been so obvious this was happening to some actually very grown men that surely would be mature enough to solve these issues differently than the high schoolers they were meant to embody.
Due to the lack of time, they were a bit "pushy" with each other from the start, and while I'm not only about slow burn romances and like daring flirting, too, I really had to get used to being thrown into it from literally the first second. Combined with the not overly great chemistry, it wasn't very convincing as a whole.
The acting was great though, and they were so good with conveying that weird feeling when a relationship is in-between and both sides are not yet sure where they're headed. I loved that tension and kind of cringey feeling they created.
I usually never notice bad make-up but here, it was so obvious it was distracting at times. Same for the music, that was mostly okay, but tended to be very annoying or misplaced. I really think the shortness of the episodes or even the general plot wasn't the issue here, it was the general casting and all these little details that didn't add up to get across the necessary atmosphere.
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Perfect to wind down
A lot of the important things have been said already and I can agree with a lot of the positiv as well as the negative feedback here or at least where it's coming from.The general discussion on what beauty truly means is displayed really well. There's a lot of character development even for the side characters and the drama isn't as exaggerated as in many other series. Overall, it seemed quite close to real life which made the story and characters highly relateable.
But the pacing is slow. So slow that I watched the series in 1.25-1.5x speed to keep me on track (which was perfectly doable, music and speech didn't sound sped up - I highly recommend doing this!). Facial expressions are also very held back, especially with both leads. Some people consider this bad acting, I thought it was simply a nice contrast to the highly emotional dramas I had watched before.
If you are looking for a more laid-back, less highly emotional yet touching drama, you might really like this. If you prefer strong emotions, intense drama and a faster pace, this drama might not be for you. If the pacing had been a tad faster, I would've given it a higher rating, but even for a K-Drama this was...slow.
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Clichés used well for light-hearted distraction
This drama was a great light-hearted show to watch as a short distraction from daily life and in that regard fulfilled its purpose very well. If that's what you're looking for, I can highly recommend watching.However, that also means there was barely any depth to it, so to enjoy it, one has to throw logic out the window. Don't expect any of the characters to actually work or know what they're talking about.
Furthermore, the drama is packed with classical tropes and clichés that I was fine with until the last couple episodes. Those last episodes felt a bit rushed and I didn't enjoy the sheer amount of additional clichés the series certainly could've done without. I really would've wished for the characters to start sticking to their decisions at least after half of the story. You could play "Asian Drama Cliché Bingo" with this series and definitely win a prize.
The comedic chemistry between the main leads was great. I usually skip those scenes in comedy dramas because the jokes rely too much on other character's discomfort for my taste, but this series actually made me laugh. The romantic chemistry on the other hand didn't come across to me and, again, the romantic relationship felt a bit rushed. Each of the main characters is adorable in their own way, but together... I just didn't feel it.
The child in the series is cute and made watching the show even more enjoyable, but is shown less and less as the story proceeds and focuses on the other characters. I wish they would've focused on all characters evenly instead of shifting the focus as the story progresses.
I've hence deducted points for the altogether immense amount of clichés used and the back and forth the characters create with their decisions for an otherwise well-made Romcom.
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Easy watch in-between to feel comfortable
The only reason I am writing this review is because I stopped watching this drama at a certain point where I felt it would become a lot worse. I was wrong. As foreseeable as the series is, I thought I could foresee the intense clichés and drama that was yet to come and as I was looking for something easy to watch, I put it on hold at that point.Hence here is my warning: If you want excitement and drama, look elsewhere, or it will really feel like "nothing" is happening. If, on the other hand, you want something low-level, keep watching. Anything that usually would have become a huge mainstay of a drama's plot was resolved in a calm and grown-up (yet no less emotional) manner. Also, the small "mystery" that spans through the whole series wasn't too exciting or unforeseeable, but it was still nice to follow as the characters found out step by step.
Apart from the portrayal for the love of books and writing that I found very down to earth yet inspring, I also loved the character development. It wasn't huge, but overall, it felt like all the characters got exactly the right amount of screentime to allow insights into their behaviour and their development - except for the daughter, who suddenly disappeared almost entirely. I just hate when characters get "forgotten" once they're not needed for the plot anymore.
The tropes used aren't new or innovational, but not overused either. There weren't any characters I disliked, although I didn't sympathise with all of them equally. The atmosphere they created together, on the other hand, was very accepting, inspiring and overall comforting to watch. The main couple's relationship was plausible and I liked them both together. It wasn't about being madly in love, but rather about feeling motivated and energised as much as grounded in a relationship, which I felt was another rather grown-up, less idealised approach on that matter.
All in all, this series made me laugh and cry and feel with the characters and I might rewatch certain episodes later just to feel comfortable. If that is what you're looking for, I highly recommend watching.
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