Namenamenamename

I actually thought that behaviour was fairly reasonable for parents worried about their kidnapped daughter. It wasn’t like the ML had an escape considering the cops were about to be revealed. Overall didn’t even matter since the kidnapper knew cops were already involved anyway

I mean, people want kids. I don’t see it too differently from cops or firefighters or active army or intelligence agents or anyone in a ‘dangerous’ line of work tbh. It’s definitely a fun trope/subgenre

Part of Kang’s ‘revenge’ is disrupting/destroying Munoh’s marriage. The subplot of his wife concurrently happening with the main plot (though not shown as it is not the point) is learning to liberate herself from her loveless marriage. But something similar happens to Munoh at the end. By Kang destroying Munoh, he also frees him. The Munoh we meet at the beginning has his hands shaking when he attempts to write. He is very stuck up and full of him of himself as a way to wall himself away from his insecurities. So Kang ends up challenging and having a positive effect on him. When he pushes him to steal the competition problems, he notes that it was actually quite thrilling. He runs through the school because of the adrenaline rush. He sleeps in the same bed as his wife for the first time in years. In the last episode, Munoh, who has been unable to write for decades, ferociously starts typing and finally produces something. A person who hasn’t been confident to do something about the crazy things he’s reading and believes to be true finally rushes to the house to do something. The overall goal that Kang achieved might have been to shatter the walls Munoh built and display his insecurities for all to see, but Munoh has been reborn, and in a way those insecurities can no longer hold him. I know the “to be continued” ending is kind of cringe, but it fits in the context of the show. I didn’t take it too literally to imply another season (honestly, I don’t think there is much else to tell). And I absolutely get why Munoh upon seeing Kang again would take him up on his proposition. The kid destroyed his life, but it was a transformative experience and he is writing again.

To me, it was just further emblematic of his character. There’s a scene, I think when Suhun crashes their post-movie dinner date, where Suhun mentions that Munoh would sit in the last row of class observing people. Munoh himself is a voyeur and lurks behind watching people. He kind of shelves it behind “seeking objective truth” as he explains to Kang, but he is never himself confident to actually make a move or do things which is why he lives vicariously through the writings. He spends most of the drama just hovering around, he has this scene where he stalks and tries to approach Eunjoo but ultimately backs off. There’s another scene where he approaches Seyun but is unable to say anything. He is a deeply insecure man who spends his time judging people because of his inability to do anything. It is not till the end when Kang finally pushes him that he finally does something. Also really interesting to me, for how much presence in the narrative Eunjoo has, Munoh does not actually meet her till the last episode. A woman he reveres and was never confident to approach, when he finally meets her it’s when he is breaking down and screaming like a mad man.

He also believes everything within the story because he wants to believe it’s true. I think he initially latched onto the story because Kang’s envy of Seyun mirrored his envy of Suhun. But even then he still had some push back until Kang revealed that Seyun’s dad was Suhun. It’s like learning someone you despise who has a very good reputation is actually secretly a horrible person and providing justification for your hatred of them, and Munoh’s character was perfect for Kang to take advantage of.

Basically. The student picks up on the professor’s insecurities surrounding his failed writing career compared to another successful author who also married his first love and writes an elaborate story shitting on the author. The scenes are a mix of depicting the student’s writing (where we the audience are left to wonder how much is real and how much is fabricated, at least till it’s revealed at the end) and the professor’s personal life where we witness his descent

Loser professor gets too engrossed in his student’s writings and ruins his life in the process

The atmosphere/vibe of this reminded me of The Trunk. I also liked that there was a bit more to bite into here, compared to that or The Art of Sarah that released earlier this year

It’s a very lighthearted easy watch. I liked it for what it was

Their initial meeting is not exactly friendly, but she does eventually decide to approach him with the goal of being involved in her daughter’s life and genuinely falls for him.
From what I remember there isn’t a clean/straight fake relationship to true feelings transition on her part, which I think was due to her very early on realizing he was a genuinely good person and her past trauma playing a role

Yes. I can go into more details if you’d like

I see many in the comments mentioning Flower of Evil, and I can see why, but reading the premise the first dramas that came to mind were actually Undercover (a very low watched and basically unknown drama) and Family: The Unbreakable Bond (a reunion drama between Jang Hyuk and Jang Nara that performed lower than expected). There are a few others that I also thought of that may be tangentially in the same vein, but I think these three here are the strongest in similarity based on the short premise blurb.

I wish more kdramas explored established marriage dynamics between leads (and not in a “my cheating husband” way). There’s been a few over the years since Flower of Evil, I think the most popular off the top of my head being Big Mouth, Queen of Tears and When the Phone Rings. With all the talk Ive heard about kdramas supposedly trying to spread marriage propaganda I’d have expected a bit more of these.

Romantic thrillers are one of my favorite subgenres/hybrid genres. It’s such a shame that kdramas as a whole seem to have a relative dearth of these, especially since so many people on this platform seem to fall strongly in either purely romcom vs thriller (no romance whatsoever/not needed) camps. I’m not familiar with the source material, but I hope this drama gives proper weight/depth to the marriage between the leads (if not it might as well be more like Healer and a few other dramas in that line. Their marriage has to add something to the dynamic). If it could be half as well written as Flower of Evil that would already be very solid.

I really appreciate the more personal scenes happening with the twins. Like the Chairman’s chair seemingly speaking to Jae Gyeong like the One Ring. Or the cognitive dissonance Jae Seong had over seeing his wife display clear signs of betrayal but still refusing to believe it. In another show I’d root for Eun Se to realize that maybe she does value her husband or at the very least feels guilty about deceiving him but this show has not shown a single sign of that, like her level of gaslighting is crazy.

In all, I like that even though the twins are clear villains, their characters still have enough depth and dimensions to them that they’re fairly complex. I find myself at times feeling sorry for them (mostly Jae Seong, as he’s being so aggressively outmaneuvered by so many people) or wishing I could root for them (in Jae Gyeong’s case because she’s so competent and efficient. Even Eun Se fits this too).

The uncanny counter, beyond evil, heroes next door, law school, itaewon class, lovestruck in the city, the wonderfools

The doctor has a bit more prominent role in the drama Connection, a pretty decent crime thriller headed by Jisung. 100% agree about him, even though his role is quite minimal here he hits comedic notes pretty well, his facial expressions and reactions are quite funny in a subdued way

Such a shame Kang Jae Gyeong is evil cuz I actually like her character

Really appreciate your perspective. Like many others, I’ve been comparing this show to similar shows dealing with school violence (Weak Hero, Study Group, even The Glory), and even stretching to others tangentially related like Vigilante and Juvenile Justice (the latter I haven’t watched but as far as I know deals with juvenile delinquents and has a main lead who states that she has some kind of bias, at least initially). And they’ve all raised very interesting thoughts to me about the nature of violence and retribution, both within and outside the law, especially Vigilante. But, real world controversies with the source material aside, this show immediately struck me as different from the others, in ways that I couldn’t really clearly spell out and I think your review really touched on several of those points. Like, as feel good as it is to see shameless bad guys get a taste of their own medicine, I found it hard to really get into when in the back of mind it’s a bunch of adults just beating the shit out of kids, no matter the framing of said kids. The fact that it’s done with the stamp of the government just made it worse that I at times wondered if I would have felt less bothered if it was some random adult or if they had taken the Vigilante approach and gave it a bit more morally grey lens. And many times it felt like the show was saying things would be better in schools if corporal punishment was legal. From what I understand, Korea banned it fairly recently and I’m now wondering why they banned it, and what the situation was like before and after. Because then again, I don’t live in Korea, I don’t truly know how bad the issue of school violence is for a show like this to be made other than the occasional headline I come across.

Maybe it’s due to the age gap (Namkoong Min isn’t old, but he’s 15 years older than Lee Seol), but it’s also possible that she was referring to experience (so perhaps the word she used in Korean was more respect related than age related). I looked at their filmographies and Namkoong Min has been in the industry a lot longer and has at least double the amount of projects she has.

It is interesting though, I actually clicked on the article because her name and face seemed familiar, and trying to remember what work I saw her in she actually has worked with Namkoong Min before, fairly recently too with Our Movie (I feel like I see articles here typically mention if actors have been in the same dramas before and are ‘reuniting’ so to say so I’m surprised to see it not mentioned at all here). I guess she means she wanted to be his direct acting partner and immediate co-lead.

Edit: Actually I just went to the source article and looked through, seems the word she used translated to “trustworthy” not senior so I think you’re right that it’s likely a mistranslation

I kept hoping for redemption for them, or at least for one of them to switch sides. Kids that just kept getting failed by adults around them and carried that trauma into adulthood when they had no one else. Unjeong was kinda lucky getting away from Ha Wundo. Would have been interesting if the show explored a little what life was like for the WunderKinder while he was in prison since grandma only helped the kids without abilities.

You’re not wrong, but all the constant hammering of his acting skills made me think he would be especially bad when he’s just mediocre and ok. Like there’s no reason for his acting to bring up so much discourse the way it does imo

Honestly don’t really care too much about why the grandma invested. I’m a little curious about Chaeni’s parents but again, same thing. You could go down the whole rabbit of more info, like who was the old guy? In all, I don’t think it matters too much, for me the show told the story it needed to tell it doesn’t need to explain every little thing.

The only thing I’m really concerned about was what happened to Juran at the end, whether she passed out or died. The way her character was depicted hard to believe if she survived she’d just slink into obscurity.