JulySnow2

Oh yes it was, couldn't even finish the first ep, it smelled low quality crappy writing and drama right away 😅

I always say you have to add at least 2-3 stars to every sad/not fluffy butterflies drama (and usually 2-3 stars taken away if it's fluffy happy drama) on MDL because of the idiotic kdrama audience masses who are EXTREMELY ALLERGIC to sadness & keep giving bad scores to dramas not fluffly unicorns 😁🦄⭐happy go lucky.

This is just so-so, the female lead is really the best thing here, she's hilarious; but at same time the drama is kind of boring too, not eager to continue, only not dropping it yet because of FL character is one of the best I've ever seen in a drama; but I don't know, the plot is just dragging, it doesn't really deserve the hype....

Ep4.... Note to self: Don't ever go watch a movie you know nothing about, especially not on a date, it might turn out to be a porno movie lol

" The only redeeming thing would be is Joon Ho is still alive and didn't in fact perish in the sea and has been secretly hiding to take down the people behind the game and Gi Hoon joins him. Then that would be an entirely different genre of this drama. So who knows. "
>>>> Sounds like the plot for a possible season 2.
Maybe becuse it's Netflix who likes seasons, they're planning a season 2??? Especially considering the drama's success. Would be better than just leaving the ML doing that at the end...

Also I like the idea of the cop actually being alive, he's possibly the most interesting character, if they'd do a season 2 I want that cop back and fighting/exposing them.

Thanks for the info, adding it to my plan to watch list :)

LOL calling the most nice character in the show selfish 😅😅😅 .....you didn't watch very far did you? 😅😅

There is sex in this drama?? LMAO that IS out of place/unusul for a kdrama 😅

When the world is set up in such a hardcore sucking way that it's a more viable option for some people to get themselves kidnapped to play a deadly game set up by some unknown psycho than trying to survive the "old fashioned way"...... I LOVE the social commentary aspect to this, this is so much deeper and better than the usual shallow action style stories in this death game genre.
I also like how while it has plenty of gore and disturbing scenes, it's not HORROR genre, it's not scary to watch at all; can't after all make the viewer think and pick up its social commentray messages if they scare off the viewers from watching it lol.

Watched the first 2 eps, I like it so far, now continuing to binge....

Yes my first instinct when reading the title of this article was, "A kdrama remake of the classic novel?!"....but NO mention of it in the article?? hmm...

YES YES YES! We need more women-centered kdramas, and both Nam Ji Hyun & Kim Go Eun?!? HELL YESS!!! I hope they accept.
So curious who they'll cast as the 3rd sister.

Also as much as I normally like romance, I hope this one doesn't have any or very minimal only,
a good sister bond will be interesting enough to watch.
And that PD + Writer too whoo hoo!!

Thinking about it more, I think also GENDER also has to do with Squid Game's popularity and romance kdramas non-popularity: In general romance (&thus the more traditional kdramas) are geared towards and watched by female audiences, so half of the earth's population is already biased against.
I'm positive that if High-concept Kdramas like Squid Game had a loveline between main leads it would not do any worse, since the selling point isn't the romance but the concept, and high concepts are embraced more readily by both westerners and by men. Even Black Money Love is half thriller-romance so has an unusual high amount of male fans even male shippers despite extreme romance centricism lol.
Netflix is really is strategic in their choices, They love to reunite well-recived pairings in new projects and avoid adding most of the "traditional" type series from other countries; and they still haven't added the Black Money Love pairing's reunion project into Netflix, obviously it's because that show's original channel dared censor Turkish's IT couple's romance scenes even more than kdramas, even when 90% of its audience was from EU/Outside Turkey 🤦🏻‍♀️😅 (What on earth were they thinking?!?....I will never get over this unforgivable censor ship🤦🏻‍♀️)

.....they'll probably add it once they start to promote more of their new Turkish originals (some of which feature the BlackMoneyLove lead actors), a second backlash over the IT Couple's censorship brings great attention/promo to Turkish's shows LMAO 😅😅

But Anyway Yes hopefully Netflix (&likely will ! going by Netflix's history of being strategic) will do more unique/High concept kdramas (with or without romance) but selling point/focus on the concept from now on; I had to drop Love Alarm on ep 1 😅 Too silly and bad as hell writing.....Allthough it has a more unique concept than many kdramas, the selling point was romance.....Well, that one didn't do so well, and Netflix being strategic as I pointed out will more likely now after Squid Game's success focus on High Concept. I just hope after Netflix, that other streaming platforms would also follow.
I would especially love for them to introduce korean Makjang to international audiences through some kind of High-Concept style makjang and not the typical one.

This conversation is so interesting, indeed the ridiculous cuteness aegyo expectations and sex censorship are creating both social problems in korea but also making the western world put off from really embracing their dramas. So it's no wonder that now in Europe the first ever kdrama to be in top10 is not about platonic/childish/kstyle romance.

Not that Europe has anything against romance, it's just the awkarndess & unrealistic kstyle (&other asian countries') romance: If you look at other countries' (american or european)
romance series they do quite well, because they include actually kissing, proper make out sessions
and sex in varying degrees.
Even the most Popular Turkish Tv series Black Money Love which has literaly the most amount of romance (nonstop kissing hugging cuddling for 160+ eps lol)I've EVER seen in a series ever lol does well on Netflix and it's because (beside written extremely well and insane out of this world chemistry) they have actaul romance and not silly fishkissing platonic love lol.

The cultural differences in sex & romance are too large, the only way for Kdramas to sell well would be if they embraced proper romance, and if not some sex then at least heavy passionate make out sessions at least....Which isn't happening like EVER lol
.....or Through the other option: Sell by unique concept (aka. Squid Game style).
So nope, I don't think romance centric kdramas will ever reache the hights, even though their popularity is growing, but the immaturity of "romance" are too off-putting for most westerners.

Ep 1: Hey Let's introduce the coolest female lead!
Ep2: Hey let's ruin it all and make the female lead become all dumb because of the male lead, fun! 🤦🏻‍♀️

Combine this with how boring this is 🥱 ....too boring & dumbed down FL for ML, dropping bye

Been waiting foreeeeeever it feels like sigh.....

With such a large cast, hopefully they'll give us multiple secondary couples (How about pairing Yoo In Na with Jang Seung Jo & make them a messy evil scheming couple please lol 🙏) and no annoying clingy second leads and love triangles 🙏🙏.
The last 2 female leads can pair together as a lesbian couple or no lovelines for them, please don't make them into clingy 2nd female leads please 🙏


Drama gods pleeeeeeeaase lol

Omg Hate Lo Love and Bickering Couple, I love those tags, this sounds like it will be so much fun !

Well this is an interesting combo of genres, Psychological with Makjang, sounds interesting!

Seriously! It's the most OVERUSSED RIDICULOUS Trope!
They should BAN it from being included anymore or someth lol, so tired of it being forced on viewers in 90% of dramas ugh

Let's hope the writer of this one realizes that A it's NOT cute,just annoying and B Most people do not need a childhood connection to bond with their S.O. later on LOL

Jerry Yan, Jasper Liu and Wallace Hou <3. The rest on this list are kind of meh