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Despite having a few couples, each one with their respective sup-plot, the romance shown is very little.
Lee Sang Woo & Han Ji Hye are set as the main couple, but they weren't the real OTP, they got the same screen-time as others, if I have to be honest their sub-plot wasn't even that interesting and I end up loving more other characters.
The main topic of the drama is the relationship between parents, children and siblings. An old man met his first love and the two decide to start a relationship. While the eldery couple is facing its own love/hate relationship, their respective children are having an hard time to get along with the idea about becoming a "new large family".
In particular the woman's son is strongly against this relationship and while he try hard to break them up, he also clashes and established an ill-fated relationship with his future step-brother. This two characters will delivery one of the best enemis/bromance ever seen in a drama.
In the meanwhile all the other siblings, all daughters, are dealing with their own problems, each sub-plot will add drama to the already complicated dynamic and the two eldery will end up suffering a lot while dating and trying to cope with their children needs.
Each sub-plot is filled with typical family drama clichés, but despite the classic elements, the writer was able to write a balanced plot, giving to all the characters enough screen-time to properly develop each story, some more interesting than other depending on you personal taste. Despite some dramatic moments the story is full comedy, in particular the trio twins VS step-brother will make you cry from laughing several times.
Even if everyone have his own story, from the beginning it is obvious that Kim Kwon's role is the most important one, his behavior is what create the major conflict for the eldery couple and the sibling, it is also the character more involved in the main plot-line and different sub-plot. It's the glue that holds the story of the two families together.
It is one of those character that you cheer for cause he truly deserve a "character" development and an happy ending.
Although this character will have a strong change, unfortunately the writer failed to provide him with the romance he deserved, forcing a love-line that we all know it will not work out, cause from ep. 1 it's clear that the girl's heart is already taken.
During the last 20 episodes the writer decided to do some "lazy" writing and came out with a few draggy and ripetitive sub-plot. Some of the characters face the exact same issues already seen in the first part of the drama, with the addition of two hated clichés related to birth secrets and memory problems.
Overall it was easy to overcome those "eyes roll" moments and enjoy the rest of the story.
I hope you will enjoy Kim Kwon's role and the twins as much as I did.
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The definition of lacking.
Even if I overlook the bad special effects I just can't find anything peculiar.The theme of arbitrary and despotic justice has already been dealt with in both Taxi Driver and The Devil's Judge. Among other things, both titles have very eccentric tones, and Hellbound also tries to replicate that vibe by adding neon influencers.
I didn’t like the casting pairing and the storytelling that focuses separately in characters certainly didn't help in the chemistry. Add in the weak supernatural genre, inserted for the sole purpose of generating the story, and the drop is done.
Overall "Hellbound" was presented as a very dark "supernatural" title, but in reality it is the usual story about human behavior in the face of the collapse of civil society, only instead of zombies there are black Michelin men.
To hide the weak storyline they threw in eccentric elements and splatter scenes (beatings and blood.)
The overall idea was good but it lacks on all aspects.
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When zombies are better than survivors
✅ Huge zombie apocalypse with great special make-up and zombie casting/acting;
✅ Different elements of the plot related to the virus outbreak, quarantine/military work;
✅ Action scenes, the parkour was a bit too much tho.
✅ The idea of "special" zombie even if it wasn't well developed into the plot, I guess they are keeping this card for the second season
❌ Too damn long & dragged;.
❌ They overused the school settings, with students hiding from one place to another without solid result;
❌ Picking teenage students as survivors was not the best idea to build interesting characters to root for;
❌ Main group of survivors is lame, and their school “drama” is boring to follow between zombies attacks;
❌ They added tons of elements from bullying to teenage giving birth, ecc... and didn't develop any of it in a proper way;
❌ Unbalanced: you have to wait hours to see what's happeing to other survivors or outside the school cause the drama focus a lot on the main group of leads, a group that is stuck in a loop of "more of the same events". Honestly they could have cut half of their scenes and develop the rest better;
Overall I hoped for their rescue each time but when someone fell I was like… ok, let’s move on kids. No chemistry at all.
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When the frog gets pissed!
A slow burn mystery in the first half and a thrilling train wreck in the second half.✅Brilliant direction BUT it's mandatory to not know anything about the plot to fully appreciate this type of storytelling and for the twist to work. (Obvioulsy MDL's synopsis is not helping in this regard. (DON'T READ THE SYNOPSIS and TAGS)
✅The overall vibe: anxiety, suspense, thrilling;
✅Acting: the cat/mouse game between Kim Yoon Seok and Go Min Si is totally nuts. She is in full psycho killer mode on.
✅Cinematography
✅OST
❌The plot works only cause characters, mainly the ML, act alone. If in the first part he has a reason to do so, reason that is also the big moral of the whole show, in the second part the script requires a "guilty pleasure" mind to not call out all the shitty moves he makes.
Overall my initial "what the hell am watching" vibe turned into a great thrilling ride. I had a lot of fun watching this.
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The mother is selfish and treat like shit all of her daughter in law, and when things doesn't go like she want she throws tantrums. Her three childern are even worse, they are all spoiled brat/mama boy. The father is the only one to have common sense but he is one against four.
The eldest son is useless, he try hard to to the right thing but always end up in trouble, at some point it became almost comical to see such a character, I felt sorry for the actor. Of course his wife is the perfect troublemaker and the two of them are the perfect pair when it came to create drama.
The second son suffers from an inferiority complex, desperately looking for his mother's attention while treating her wife like shit. While her wife is a saint, she is the only character I cared about and I felt sorry she had to put up with such a family.
The third son is very immature and of course he end up marrying an immature spoil brat girl, the perfect couple, their story is based on misunderstanding and their back and forth became soon boring and repetitive.
This drama is the classic example of lazy writing. After 20-30 episodes it becomes clear that the drama has nothing to tell, the characters don't improve and the story is stuck in a loop.
Even the characters were written in pairs of two, the writer wrote the male version and then he copied it for the female. The troublemaking son marries a troublemaker, the immature son marries an immature, and the son with the inferiority complex marries a woman who doesn't respect herself but bears everything.
Overall is really a bad makjang about a family who suffers every kind of trouble, there are better family drama out there to waste 70 hours on this one. I really felt sorry for the cast, what a waste of talent.
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The great performance of the cast brought on the screen all this deep emotions, portraying perfectly their roles and the story. I never been a fan of Shin Hye Sun but her performance was brilliant, also "L" for being a newbie did a really good job, specially considering that his rival on screen was Lee Dong Gun. The rest of the cast was also great considering the overall quality of the screenplay they had to perform.
I also never been a fan of ballet but I loved it in this drama, the theme of ballet has expressed perfectly the main theme, love can be beautiful and powerful but also hard to accomplish and sad.
The ending also fit perfectly with the message of the drama, truly love someone means being able to sacrifice ourself to those we love, but the sacrifice will be repaid. I am not a believer but I think it is an adequate ending also in religious terms, since the drama is about angels and deity's plan after all.
I can't say this is a perferct drama but it deserved to be watch, if you can overcome a few draggy moments it can gives you a beautiful love-story and tons of emotions. Besides the soundtrack is wonderful!
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Unfortunately this great start came soon to an abruptly end, the show change environment and explain in a rushed way what happened, at this point you ask your self “now what?”
I stick around to see where the plot line wanted to go but nothing major happened, they start adding sub-plots after sub-plots. There are so many that is hard to get attached to one of them, because the show switch constantly between them. Each sub plot is moving slowly making very little progress, I dropped this half way and I still can’t tell you what the drama is trying to tell us. It’s a romance? It’s a medical? It’s a legal?
The writer try to fit too many elements and this create an unbalanced story where one of the main lead is almost relegated to a supportive role because there is no time for him.
The various sub plots steal tons of screen time, therefore there is no space to develop any of the other character involved in the story, specially the other main lead. Definitely a huge mistake made by the writer.
Another problem is that, as always happens with kdrama, they forced the romance and they use it as a bait to grab the viewers, in fact many viewers are over hyped about it. I watched half drama and there isn’t actually a romance plot-line, there are sweet moments here and there but that’s it. The FL has a crush on the ML and follow him around like a puppy, this is the extension of the romance during this 16 episodes. Besides considering she is a trainee much more younger than him, I find the romance very forced whereas a doctor/trainee relationship where she respect her mentor without falling in love would have be more realistic. The FL is also one of those doctor that feels empathy and for this reason her character came out as one of those kdrama girl who cry a lot.
Nothing to tell about the acting that is superb like always when Ji Sung is involved, but unfortunately the plot is a mess.
Overall this drama has a great concept but it is obvious that the writer didn’t know how to fill the plot and end up adding too much stuff without being able to control it.
Dropped at ep 16 out of 32.
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Misleading premise
I really enjoyed the first part of the drama, for once in a while we have a caring ML who harbors a secret crush on the FL, while the FL is strong, has her own friendships and admires the ML from far away. This premise was good enough to make me think this would be a lovely fresh school romcom that would mature a bit once the college part step in.Unfortunately the drama wasn't able to deliver what promise and end up adding tons of typical silly clichés and draggy elements. Once reach the college the main leads are soon stuck in a friend zone loop where misunderstanding kept them to became a real couple for most of the drama. In the meanwhile we have to suffer tons of mean and repetitive tricks made by their antagonists, as also a futile love triangle.
In addition to this delusion the FL characterization was a mess, she was strong but she couldn't do anything without the ML's helping, once she fall for him she became a puppy lover, and her strong character was transform into a short/bad temper. Throwing away any possibility to mature a bit during college age.
the acting was at least enjoyable, at least most of them. Overall this is just another school romance were cute and silly counts more than a logical plot. But if you like romance, brace yourself cause nothing major will happens for many episodes.
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