1
This review may contain spoilers
A joy watching all 12 episodes - rare these days
First thing: I do NOT agree that this storyline has any real similarity to 'breaking bad'. Yes, there is someone with cancer, and yes somone else is starting to sell drugs out of desperation - but that's about all the similarity there is.
As for the story so far: a middle-class housewife with a teenage daughter and a office type husband finds herself in sudden misery as it turns out her husband has not only used up all money that was there, but also indepted the family without telling her. Not enough, she then finds out her husband has cancer, he has known it for at least a year and used all that money to pay his medical bills but things went wrong when he specualted with bitcoin and lost everthing.
Their house is soon up for auction and her daughter threates to leave school while all family and aquaintances are not willing or able to help out financially. Accidentally, a drug dealer on the run leaves a bag full of crystal meth at her house. She first doesn't know what the stuff is, but seeing the news she realises it's drugs, but does not want to make use of it.The woman is desperate and starts to work as cleaning lady in a hip night club. Out of desperation she tries to find the local drug dealer there to sell the crystal to him to get the money to save the house and her husband. It turns out the drug dealer in the club is her daughter's art teacher to both parties' surprise. They make a deal so she provides the drugs and he sells them to the club customers.
I watched the frist two episodes and wasn't bored at any time (rare meanwhile). I really liked (as often before) Kim Young Kwang in this role as he is able to switch from friendly arts teacher to precise and calculating drug dealer without a problem. He is also able to deliver the role of the drug dealer believably. (I am saying that because there were several dramas in the past two years with drug topics where otherwise good male actors just couldn't pull these roles off believably).
The preview for the thrid episode showed that there will be conflict between the FL and ML and that he even threatens to kill her. Again, I can't really see much similarities to 'breaking bad' - the storyline seems to unfold very differently as of yet.
Kim Young Kwang is totally carrying this drama, his acting is fabulous and it's even a joy to watch him losing his temper, - and comparing his acting here and in 'call it love' - I'd dare say he can play any role and I'll fully believe he is the respective character.
The story has a nice tempo, and I laughed so much at the end of episde 3 realising what stunt the FL has pulled 😆...not a boring second in this,
Several rather unexpected twists came up, and what the writers did is they kind of condesed all the tentacles drug dealings can have, how they might affect even more remote people who either do not want to be involved or don't even know they are involved.
So after the last episode aired today, I can say I enjoyed all these 12 episodes until the end. There was once again a really nasty plot twist in the very end, and the writers left an open ending to maybe follow up with a second seaon? We'll see...
My final vote for this is 9.0. While I enjoyed the whole show, the last episodes had some minor weaknesses. The baddy police guy? He would not have survived that long. The ML hit him full force with her car and he would at least have had a broken pelvis, broken legs a broken back if he would have survived that at all. It started getting unrealistic concerining this character when he walked out of the hospital after this car hit two days after this happened. No way on earth.
He didn't really have time to recover and in the final showdown later he is hurt and bruised all over, he limps, and he gets beaten in the face and head severely and - doesn't go down! The guy is 50+ and one hit like that to the head would send him unconscious. Instead he gets up over and over again like the terminator, he even gets deeply stabbed in the thigh tiwce or thrice and he STILL walks somewhere - nah, they really overdid it concerning this for the sake of creating a longlasting showdown scene. He would have been dead for ages at that point.
Also, in the same scenes the other police act like fools all the time, letting him get away over and over again. That being said, the rest of the show was so good, I can overlook this weakness (as it is one happening very often in K-dramas with lots of action scenes)
Several actors delivered really strong performances, Kim Young-kwang naturally, but also side characters like the daughter, the cancer-stricken father and the totally crazy druggy CEO were really good.
I have to admit I did not know Lee Young-ae before from any other roles, but once again it bothered me for the sake of the actual storyline ( a more low-income housewife and mother living the rather simple and humble life and helping out in a supermarket for small money out of necessity) that an actress has her face to frozen by b-tox etc, that she actully has no mimics left. It was so very obvious that it didn't fit the role actually -a woman with that life history would never have the means to steadily have such procedures done. And there were many scenes when she was either (trying) laughing, crying etc, and her face and features did not move at all. So, again, I don't even know her from anything else or earlier, but this often bothers me watching actresses playing roles in their end 40s or even 50s, and they simply have no mimics left which flaws their actually great performances otherwise. I really wish there wasn't so much pressure for actresses to go this far, I'm sure Lee Young-ae would look fantatsic and even better without all this. (and I know what I'm talking about, I'm 46 myself and I know about the inner pressure concering looks when they slowly start to fade)
Conclusion: I really enjoyed this drama, it's an interesting and probably quite current topic in many countries, including South Korea, and the writers did a good job writing an interesting storyline that kept me hooked for the full 12 episodes. I would definitely watch a second season if there was one to come and I seriously hope Mr. Lee Gyeong changed his final mind and instead decided to just curse his fucked up family to hell.
As for the story so far: a middle-class housewife with a teenage daughter and a office type husband finds herself in sudden misery as it turns out her husband has not only used up all money that was there, but also indepted the family without telling her. Not enough, she then finds out her husband has cancer, he has known it for at least a year and used all that money to pay his medical bills but things went wrong when he specualted with bitcoin and lost everthing.
Their house is soon up for auction and her daughter threates to leave school while all family and aquaintances are not willing or able to help out financially. Accidentally, a drug dealer on the run leaves a bag full of crystal meth at her house. She first doesn't know what the stuff is, but seeing the news she realises it's drugs, but does not want to make use of it.The woman is desperate and starts to work as cleaning lady in a hip night club. Out of desperation she tries to find the local drug dealer there to sell the crystal to him to get the money to save the house and her husband. It turns out the drug dealer in the club is her daughter's art teacher to both parties' surprise. They make a deal so she provides the drugs and he sells them to the club customers.
I watched the frist two episodes and wasn't bored at any time (rare meanwhile). I really liked (as often before) Kim Young Kwang in this role as he is able to switch from friendly arts teacher to precise and calculating drug dealer without a problem. He is also able to deliver the role of the drug dealer believably. (I am saying that because there were several dramas in the past two years with drug topics where otherwise good male actors just couldn't pull these roles off believably).
The preview for the thrid episode showed that there will be conflict between the FL and ML and that he even threatens to kill her. Again, I can't really see much similarities to 'breaking bad' - the storyline seems to unfold very differently as of yet.
Kim Young Kwang is totally carrying this drama, his acting is fabulous and it's even a joy to watch him losing his temper, - and comparing his acting here and in 'call it love' - I'd dare say he can play any role and I'll fully believe he is the respective character.
The story has a nice tempo, and I laughed so much at the end of episde 3 realising what stunt the FL has pulled 😆...not a boring second in this,
Several rather unexpected twists came up, and what the writers did is they kind of condesed all the tentacles drug dealings can have, how they might affect even more remote people who either do not want to be involved or don't even know they are involved.
So after the last episode aired today, I can say I enjoyed all these 12 episodes until the end. There was once again a really nasty plot twist in the very end, and the writers left an open ending to maybe follow up with a second seaon? We'll see...
My final vote for this is 9.0. While I enjoyed the whole show, the last episodes had some minor weaknesses. The baddy police guy? He would not have survived that long. The ML hit him full force with her car and he would at least have had a broken pelvis, broken legs a broken back if he would have survived that at all. It started getting unrealistic concerining this character when he walked out of the hospital after this car hit two days after this happened. No way on earth.
He didn't really have time to recover and in the final showdown later he is hurt and bruised all over, he limps, and he gets beaten in the face and head severely and - doesn't go down! The guy is 50+ and one hit like that to the head would send him unconscious. Instead he gets up over and over again like the terminator, he even gets deeply stabbed in the thigh tiwce or thrice and he STILL walks somewhere - nah, they really overdid it concerning this for the sake of creating a longlasting showdown scene. He would have been dead for ages at that point.
Also, in the same scenes the other police act like fools all the time, letting him get away over and over again. That being said, the rest of the show was so good, I can overlook this weakness (as it is one happening very often in K-dramas with lots of action scenes)
Several actors delivered really strong performances, Kim Young-kwang naturally, but also side characters like the daughter, the cancer-stricken father and the totally crazy druggy CEO were really good.
I have to admit I did not know Lee Young-ae before from any other roles, but once again it bothered me for the sake of the actual storyline ( a more low-income housewife and mother living the rather simple and humble life and helping out in a supermarket for small money out of necessity) that an actress has her face to frozen by b-tox etc, that she actully has no mimics left. It was so very obvious that it didn't fit the role actually -a woman with that life history would never have the means to steadily have such procedures done. And there were many scenes when she was either (trying) laughing, crying etc, and her face and features did not move at all. So, again, I don't even know her from anything else or earlier, but this often bothers me watching actresses playing roles in their end 40s or even 50s, and they simply have no mimics left which flaws their actually great performances otherwise. I really wish there wasn't so much pressure for actresses to go this far, I'm sure Lee Young-ae would look fantatsic and even better without all this. (and I know what I'm talking about, I'm 46 myself and I know about the inner pressure concering looks when they slowly start to fade)
Conclusion: I really enjoyed this drama, it's an interesting and probably quite current topic in many countries, including South Korea, and the writers did a good job writing an interesting storyline that kept me hooked for the full 12 episodes. I would definitely watch a second season if there was one to come and I seriously hope Mr. Lee Gyeong changed his final mind and instead decided to just curse his fucked up family to hell.
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