ItsAMe

I liked the FL and the ML and didn't care about the age gap. The only thing that bothered me was the age gap when both were young. They looked basically the same age, maybe 1-2 years apart. And 10 years later, FL is significantly older than ML?

Thanks for adding the spoiler tag. Not everybody watched or has completed Taxi Driver 2 yet. :)

I found him suspicious in TD2 but I did not recognise him in this drama (I'm watching way too many Kdramas), so I wasn't suspicious of him until he began acting openly hostile towards FL.

There are soooooo many dramas out there. Nobody can watch all of them. That's why I usually skim other people's opinions to see if a drama could be interesting for me. However, I take each opinion with a grain of salt, especially since there are many fans of certain actors on this website who like everything "their" actor does. One has to learn how to interpret opinions to filter out relevant information. Then opinions can help a lot finding interesting dramas.

"Comedy" is a genre. A genre does not say anything about the quality of the product, it just tells us what to expect (e.g. morons as (main) characters, stupid moments, exeggerations, and so on). This is not an opinion but a fact.

Maybe we misunderstood what you actually meant but most people understand "a comedy" as "something that belongs to the comedy genre" not as "something I'll definitely find funny".

If you had written someting like "I know this drama was supposed to be a comedy but I found it unfunny", HotMilkTea would not have written "But it is comedy". The message was not: "You are wrong, this drama is funny". The message was: "Didn't you know that this drama belongs to the comedy genre? Even the tag says so."

Indeed. I was surprised to learn that these type of fans exist in real life and that this drama did not exaggerate this aspect. Until then, I had always thought the crazy fans were mainly (female) school children. Boy, was I wrong.

I don't like the puritanian dramas nowadays. The characters in those drama feel so empty because there is only a limited number of traits everybody agrees are good. And those "good" characters have these limited traits and nothing more. People in real life have many flaws, though. They are not "good" 24/7. That's why I enjoyed this drama. ML had his flaws and FL didn't fall for him at first glance due of these flaws. The relationship grew because the characters discovered loveable traits.

What? Why? XD

I agree but my claim still stands. If you skim the comments, you'll notice that there are quite a few people who enjoyed the humour. Just because you and I cringed, does not mean that the drama is not comedy.

That's the age gap between the actors. Both are grown-ups.

For me, the problem was the age gap between the two main characters. The FL was supposed to be 16 or 17 years old (= a minor) while the ML looked closer to 40. I still don't understand why the writers had to make the FL a minor. It's not like this story would not have worked if she had been 22 or 25 yo.

To be honest, I found that Lee Dong Wok's character and the FL's best friend were the best characters in this drama, even though they didn't have much screentime and story. I didn't like Lee Dong Wok because he looks creepy and ugly (in my opinion) but I think he did a great job portraying the grim reaper in this drama. The Joseon part was very intriguing but, unfortunately, very short. After that, the ML just became the rich, hot 40yo man grooming a minor.

If you don't like this drama, drop it. You'll probably find one that you'll enjoy more. :)

Badly written comedy is still comedy.

Well, that was on purpose. I thought that was obvious. My goal was to correct what I felt was wrong, not to persuade you of liking this drama. Other people reading your comment, especially people who haven't watched many K-dramas yet, should not ignore this drama just because somebody falsely claimed that new dramas were better "nowadays".

I recently watched this drama and don't agree that it is lacking "nowadays". I watched quite a few newer dramas with unnecessary romance, NPC lead characters, basically no ideas left as of episode 12 or 13 to 16, bad fighting choreography, story all over the place, and a rushed ending. This isn't something exclusive to this drama let alone older dramas in general.

You don't have to like Cruel City but claiming that this drama was lacking "nowadays" sounds as if you don't know many newer dramas.

What do you define as feminist/anti-feminist? Mary Sue?

This drama wasn't anti-gay. The MLs did "gay" stuff on the couch together without any fear it could be mistaken for being gay gay. Their fear started when the rumours started. Remember those three Youtubers? Their only goal was to scandalise everything to cancel people. Later, FL stated that being gay was not a crime. You can assume that being gay was accepted by the lead characters but not by society. Otherwise, the media would not try to make a big deal out of ML still being single.

Also, it would be irrealistic to make being gay fine and not to cancel the ML immediately based on gay rumours just to cancel him later because of rumours about his girlfriend's dating history.

Homosexuality, especially male homosexuality, IS still a massive stigma in Korea and many other parts of the world. Western propaganda and Western cancel culture will not change that. If those societies decide to become (more) queer friendly, they will become more queer friendly. Also, let's not forget that Asians in Asia make Asian dramas for Asians in Asia. They tell the stories they want to watch (= sell). Asian dramas are not Hollywood stories just with Asian actors in it. The Western viewership is still very small compared to the non-Western viewership in general. We don't give them enough money to include our own ideas on morality and display "representation".

1. When ML is laughing, we see many crow's feet around his eyes. FL is an experienced lawyer, thus certainly not in her early 20s anymore. Choi Soo-jin is an aging actress in an industry favouring much younger people. I think you are right about the target audience. The love story is still relevant for younger people, though.

2. I agree with you. The "hate" in this "Love to hate you" drama was a bit short. After FL made a mistake, she decided to be nice to him. And then, they were already in love.

3. Yep, same as 2). It felt as if the authors felt they made a mistake which they wanted to sweep under the carpet.

I hoped there would be more "hate" such as teasing, pulling more tricks on each other, and so on, but all in all, I enjoyed this drama. The characters were sweet, and I liked the non-toxic ex-bf.

Well, yes, the authors obviously had interesting ideas for this character but rushed through them. The drama would not lack anything if Moon Sang-tae had just been severely disabled and mute.

Nevertheless, I think that the actor (Oh Jung-se) delievered an amazing performance. I enjoyed seeing how much effort he put into portraying this character. Without him, I probably would have been constantly annoyed by Moon Sang-tae.

Well, giving in to peer pressure is never a waste of time because the goal is to please other people. Ask yourself why you want to watch this drama: because of other people or because of entertainment? If you didn't enjoy the first episodes and if there isn't anything in this drama you are curious about, drop it. That's fine. There are tens of thousands of other dramas out there. Find one you enjoy more. :)

I completed episode 9 or something like that. I'm thinking about dropping the drama too. :/

I agree with everything you wrote about this drama. The transitions were fantastic at the beginning of this drama but then it'll become quite normal. In my personal opinion, the most interesting part about this drama is Moon Sang-tae because it's a unique role, and Oh Jung-se did a really great job portraying this character. The rest is more or less as you would probably expect it. I completed this drama because of Oh Jung-se and because of the cinematography and the visuals, not because of the story let alone the romance. (I'm not that into the "good guy falls in love with toxic bitch" trope.)

I hope this helped you a bit and didn't reveal too much. :)