Kannadin

Depends on how long you've been watching K dramas... But I sound like a broken record. We had exactly the same discussion on yet another of Lee Jae Wook upcoming drama here:

https://kisskh.at/776063-last-summer#comment-23486120

I gave a long answer to one of the comment that basically went into your direction. I really should let this subject go because I had already forgotten I had made that very same comment here 20 days ago, but that just goes to show how disappointed I've been with K dramas in the last few years.

Literally every K dramas from the early 2000s to later to late 2010s were 16 episodes, occasionally 20 up to 24 episodes

[ Apart from family or sageuk weekenders which were around 50 episodes even more ==> Example Giant ( https://kisskh.at/365-giant ), planned for 40 episodes, stretched to 60 episodes due to its success (average viewership above 30%) or Jumong ( https://kisskh.at/661-jumong )
planned for 50 episodes, stretched to 60 than to 81... more than 50% average viewership every weekend when it aired. I dropped both back then because you had to rely on fansubs and releases were S.L.O.W as fudge ]

The problem currently with 16 episodes series is not the length, it's the overall quality of the stories that is just going downhill.
When the story sucks, it's easier to hide how badly it's written when you shorten it. If your story has no substance, of course, it deserves no more than 12 episodes.

Every 16 episodes K dramas I've watched recently all went downhill/became repetitive along the way/were so simplistic they didn't deserve such length. Not to say there weren't bad dramas back then, but honestly 16 episodes felt like the right length. Not now.

Again Chinese have most series that go up to 40 episodes sometimes even more. If you convert considering a C drama episode is on average 45 minutes and a K drama episode 1h ( well obviously most are longer now but when I started to watch them 20 years ago, the norm was 55minutes to 1h with eventually the final being slightly longer with 1h15 mn)...

That means a classic 40 episodes C dramas is the equivalent of a 30 episodes K drama.

And yet it rarely feels like it's dragging. You might feel occasionally that they're taking their sweet time telling their stories, but it never feels like they're dragging things for the sake of dragging things.

I've expressed myself repeatedly on the subject on MDL. I could rant for hours about how much K dramas have changed and not in a good way.
I've been into K dramaland for over 20 years... Always felt that they were getting better years after years... But past Squid Game? My God, it quickly went to sh***. Every year, there's less and less bangers...

Each drama is even more expensive than the previous one, yet the stories are soulless without any substance. It's high time, they refocused on writing good stories, instead of capitalizing on old recipes and/or trying to imitate what Western media does. That's not what brought people to K dramas in the first place.

Not to say all is bad, but the change is here, permanent and as Deguchi Yvonne wrote, K dramas are losing their magic.

Lol well as you know... Drama is Life. Once you're fallen into that rabbit hole, you're cursed for life 🤣

Oh I'm definitely planning to watch it... It's just that I can't keep up with Chinese release schedule. There are so many C dramas coming out so fast that my pile of "To Be watched" C dramas is twice as long as the Korean pile which is already twice as long as the Thai Pile and the Japanese Pile combined.

This is a drama that I've put on my mental "To be Watched" List.
Man...
Chinese people are harsh! Not saying that blunders are normal given they literally can check everything in advance since everything is preproduced...

I mean... in early K dramas days, it was not uncommon that some episodes would be finished just a couple of hours BEFORE it even aired on TV so having messy editing would be completely understandble. See https://kisskh.at/4996-the-king-of-dramas to see what REAL "live editing" is made. Truly the stuff of nightmare.

So I guess Chinese directors really have no excuse but come on' there's always a couple of scenes which can be a little rough.

I LOVED the Legend of the Female General but my God the whole scene with the wolves was horrendous... And it was quite long unlike here, people complaining about scenes lasting a couple of seconds at most. Just blink and you've already missed the blunder in question.

Well I guess, such level of exigence is also why I think most of their big productions look terrific but it must be really hard for people working on said projects. Glad that's not my job.

Yeah well... Just like those who are defending their oppa in the comment section. If this member bothers you, just block them. I personally can't see most of the comments posted here because I've blocked quite a lot of this actor's fans who can't help throwing fits whenever a negative comment about their oppa is thrown.

And how do I know? Very simple. This comment section to me is full of people replying to... themselves. A sure sign that lots of comments are missing since I can't view them... which means lots of blocked overzealous annoying fans.

Still at it months later. Haven't gone on this actor's page nor drama related page for over 6 months at least and they're still there.
Everyone should just get a life.

Err Ok. Well I've seen this person asked the question twice they might genuinely not know. For the rest, I don't want to engage on talks regarding this actor's scandal. Let Korean justice deal with him. All the top reviews are very negative, yet the ratings are still pretty high which means most people liked this drama.

I don't mind people talking about the scandal on the actors' respective page, but here it's polluting the whole discussion. People want to know if the drama is good or not and that's it. Not engage in fan wars.

Very sad what is currently happening. I'm not optimistic for the course of K dramas in the next 2/3 years... This being said, people are gonna get tired at some point, and they'll lose their core audience. Hopefully we can go back to non rushed character driven stories when the Squid Game K drama hype dies down.

If not... Well, I still have a long list of unwatched K dramas waiting for me... And I can still rewatch dramas I loved.

There used to be a time when SK knew that you don't necessarily need fancy productions to produce good series. Also 16 episodes is nothing when the story's well written...

China is used to way longer series, and nobody's complaining about it. By restricting stories to 12 episodes, they're limiting the scope and complexities of stories they can tell, or setting people up for multiple seasons... which I'm sorry to say is one of the MANY reasons I fled from western shows.

Well... I like the main pair but I'm still gonna wait for all episodes to air. There's a 2025 K drama curse going on right now, not gonna risk my time unless I'm 100% sure it's worth it.

So err...
Are 16 episodes K drama officially dead?

Don't care for the comment section drama but just for your information, it just means that you've been blocked.

If the original author of the post has blocked you or anybody else who has answered under their post, any subsequent answer cannot be seen even if said member answered you and not the person they blocked.

Just go to notifications (bell than see past notifications) and instead of clicking on the notification, right click then "open in a private window", if you're curious you'll be able to see said answer.

If you're the one who's been blocked though, you won't be able to answer to the post or to anybody else who answers to you directly. If you still want to answer, you can still send a private message. Of course, this only works if you haven't been blocked by the person you want to answer to.

Yeah thank you. I asked because of one review that warned about the same thing. The ending has been explained above so I'll watch it at some point. Just not now. I honestly don't particularly want to watch something depressing at present no matter how happy the ending is so I'll see it in my own time.

Yeah I know Piquina explained it in details to me below.

Nah. Gotta watch shows when you are in the mood. Otherwise it doesn't matter how good it is, you won't be able to appreciate it. Also I like to do things at my own pace. I just wanted to know if I needed to add it to my Viki collection or not. Now that I know, I'll watch it when the mood strikes.

OK!!! Thank you very much! You've convinced me ^^ If they weren't romantically involved in the first place, nor harm done :D I usually don't care much about the second couple but you never know... BUUUUUUT since they weren't involved in the first place, no big deal 😃

Hmm... Sorry to bother you again but as a viewer... Did you care about the second couple?

Thank you for your answer ^^ Given your reply, it seems like a fairly good ending to me but the answer above is "Bittersweet"... Do you understand why this person said so? Some deaths perhaps? I usually avoid Sad endings, but I don't necessarily mind Bittersweet endings as long as it's more SWEET than BITTER.

Thank you for your answer... Could you please further explain why you consider it bittersweet? Because the comment below says it's a happy ending...

SPOILER REQUEST:

This was on my mental "To be watched list" but I just read a review explaining the drama is pretty heavy... Not in the mood for that at present, so I'm not planning on watching this any time soon...
BUT I do need to know if it's a Happy Ending.

Otherwise I won't bother, no matter how beautiful the drama is. If you've finished it could you please tell me if it's a Happy Ending, a Bittersweet one or a Sad one?

If it's one of the last two, could you please further detail? Thank you in advance!

Well.. I haven't watched as many drama as you with Arthur Chen.. I watched Lighter and Princess thought the drama was just meh... (of course got attacked by the fan mob)... But not necessarily due to the actors' fault.

Here, I have to say that like you, I found him pretty wooden... It didn't bother me at the start of the series, but the more the series went on and the story went downhill imho, the more I couldn't help but notice how wooden his performance was. I don't like to compare actors but yeah like the comment above mine, I can't help it because I've seen way better performances with the same setting of "being a cruel overlord who turns to goop for the woman he loves".

I think the main appeal for this drama is the main couple, if you can't get into their "chemistry" (imho they're overplaying it which is why I could never get into their romance), the whole drama, whilst not being terrible, just become pretty flat and flavorless.

Like Lighter and Princess, I'm gonna be part of the tiny majority who didn't like this drama... Or rather fell out of love with it after a third of its run. Only finished it for the sake of completion.

Waste of time... Still, Arthur Chen's got an upcoming drama with Dilraba... so yeah. Hopefully he's better in that one. From what I've read she's basically carrying the plot so hopefully there's less risk of being dissapointed.

This being said... He's not the sole reason this drama is not as good as people say it is (again personal opinion, feel free to respectfully think otherwise)...