This show is impossible to follow and only cares about friendship and drama
This drama made me so frustrated and I didn’t like it, but I still finished it within a week. So it must’ve done something right. Let’s start with the good, because there’s less of it.
The good
I really like the friendship and romance. Honestly, I have no notes on the romance, it’s really good. The group of friends making up the main cast are portrayed well and their love for each other is very clear. I also really like that they all have nicknames for each other, and while it’s never really clear what they mean, you can guess. The focus on family and brotherhood is really good, and they keep it going with people around Min-jun calling him “hyung” or him calling them “hyung”. It’s really nice and precious. The humor is also often on point, and made me laugh more than I probably realize. The ending was also done well, it wrapped up nicely and in line with the characters’ personalities. It was very quick, but that didn’t really matter. The characters were also well defined and consistent. They weren’t vague to be relatable, and had clear motivations in line with their personalities.
The bad
Okay, where to start? Let’s start with the biggest issue, but that also kind of saves the drama: the pacing. Not only does the editor shift often and quickly between different shots, but there’s also never a moment to relax or breathe. If the point of your storytelling is to keep the watcher on their toes or to hide something in plain sight, then this is a great choice, but if you specifically want your watchers to understand and plot along with the characters, then this is the opposite of what you want. This drama is political, if you want someone to be able to follow the politics, then you need to give them time. It’s really important for the viewer to understand and be immersed in the plot, and you can also use that to trick them properly. The only reason the pacing saves this drama is because without the pacing keeping you on your toes and making you want to know and understand, you would stop watching.
Another major issue is how a lot goes unexplained. There’s a lady they thought died two years ago, but Mr. Choi finds some CCTV footage of her in a store. Not once is it mentioned when this footage is from. It could be 12 years old for all we know. But they send it to a lot of people and every single person that watches it goes “oh, she is alive”. HOW THE F DID YOU KNOW? This is just one of many, many examples. One of the more important things they never explain (at least not well) is why Min-jun was looking for this lady in the first place. I don’t know, I have no idea. They never really explained it, so I don’t know why. She became important, but that’s not why he was looking for her, because he didn’t know that.
These two things combined makes this a horrible political drama, because you can’t follow or understand anything. Another thing they love to do, just to make it even harder to follow, is to just cut from someone in one scene saying they’ll do something, and cutting to them doing it immediately. We don’t know how, where, when or even why they’re doing it, because they didn’t tell us or we didn’t get enough time to digest it.
In this drama they also LOVE to be a step ahead of their opponents. The funny thing is that their opponents are also a step ahead of them again, because the opponents know that they are a step ahead so they act accordingly. And then they are step ahead again. And who wins? The opponents, because they knew that too, and is another step ahead once again. It’s so tiring and confusing. It’s just a trick to keep you guessing and on your toes, but without proper pacing it just doesn’t work, because I wasn’t guessing. I gave up a long time ago on keeping up. I’m not tricked, I’m just sick of flashbacks trying to explain why the opposition won, when it seemed like the heroes were in the lead. (This is just an example, I’m not saying the antagonists win in the end, it’s just to prove a point)
A last thing I wanted to complain about: the Chas. Chairman Cha and his daughter are so incompetent it’s ridiculous. They keep making mistakes and looking dumb because everyone else is a step ahead. They served almost no purpose. And I’m very sick of the female character who tries to keep up with the guys, thinks that she is as good/better, is predictable and therefore only used, and just not useful. It’s so unnecessary and just makes me mad. If this was a male character, then that’s fine, as long as it’s not a common thing. But it’s always a girl. And it is common. There’s two major female characters in this drama. Why is one in a romance and the other just a joke? Are those all the big roles they could think a woman could play? Even D.P. 2 had more and better female characters than this drama, and that’s about the mandatory military service for MEN.
(Also, I have never heard of a European style tie that is over the collar on one side and under on the other side. I liked the costume design on him, but seriously, they just made that up, right? I thought he just didn’t know his tie was crooked and was a messy and careless character, but no. It was on purpose)
If you’re going to watch this, know that you will only enjoy this if you prioritize drama and suspense over solving things yourself. The romance and friendship takes a backseat in this drama, but it’s the reason I finished. But know that the romance never really progresses beyond flirting.
The good
I really like the friendship and romance. Honestly, I have no notes on the romance, it’s really good. The group of friends making up the main cast are portrayed well and their love for each other is very clear. I also really like that they all have nicknames for each other, and while it’s never really clear what they mean, you can guess. The focus on family and brotherhood is really good, and they keep it going with people around Min-jun calling him “hyung” or him calling them “hyung”. It’s really nice and precious. The humor is also often on point, and made me laugh more than I probably realize. The ending was also done well, it wrapped up nicely and in line with the characters’ personalities. It was very quick, but that didn’t really matter. The characters were also well defined and consistent. They weren’t vague to be relatable, and had clear motivations in line with their personalities.
The bad
Okay, where to start? Let’s start with the biggest issue, but that also kind of saves the drama: the pacing. Not only does the editor shift often and quickly between different shots, but there’s also never a moment to relax or breathe. If the point of your storytelling is to keep the watcher on their toes or to hide something in plain sight, then this is a great choice, but if you specifically want your watchers to understand and plot along with the characters, then this is the opposite of what you want. This drama is political, if you want someone to be able to follow the politics, then you need to give them time. It’s really important for the viewer to understand and be immersed in the plot, and you can also use that to trick them properly. The only reason the pacing saves this drama is because without the pacing keeping you on your toes and making you want to know and understand, you would stop watching.
Another major issue is how a lot goes unexplained. There’s a lady they thought died two years ago, but Mr. Choi finds some CCTV footage of her in a store. Not once is it mentioned when this footage is from. It could be 12 years old for all we know. But they send it to a lot of people and every single person that watches it goes “oh, she is alive”. HOW THE F DID YOU KNOW? This is just one of many, many examples. One of the more important things they never explain (at least not well) is why Min-jun was looking for this lady in the first place. I don’t know, I have no idea. They never really explained it, so I don’t know why. She became important, but that’s not why he was looking for her, because he didn’t know that.
These two things combined makes this a horrible political drama, because you can’t follow or understand anything. Another thing they love to do, just to make it even harder to follow, is to just cut from someone in one scene saying they’ll do something, and cutting to them doing it immediately. We don’t know how, where, when or even why they’re doing it, because they didn’t tell us or we didn’t get enough time to digest it.
In this drama they also LOVE to be a step ahead of their opponents. The funny thing is that their opponents are also a step ahead of them again, because the opponents know that they are a step ahead so they act accordingly. And then they are step ahead again. And who wins? The opponents, because they knew that too, and is another step ahead once again. It’s so tiring and confusing. It’s just a trick to keep you guessing and on your toes, but without proper pacing it just doesn’t work, because I wasn’t guessing. I gave up a long time ago on keeping up. I’m not tricked, I’m just sick of flashbacks trying to explain why the opposition won, when it seemed like the heroes were in the lead. (This is just an example, I’m not saying the antagonists win in the end, it’s just to prove a point)
A last thing I wanted to complain about: the Chas. Chairman Cha and his daughter are so incompetent it’s ridiculous. They keep making mistakes and looking dumb because everyone else is a step ahead. They served almost no purpose. And I’m very sick of the female character who tries to keep up with the guys, thinks that she is as good/better, is predictable and therefore only used, and just not useful. It’s so unnecessary and just makes me mad. If this was a male character, then that’s fine, as long as it’s not a common thing. But it’s always a girl. And it is common. There’s two major female characters in this drama. Why is one in a romance and the other just a joke? Are those all the big roles they could think a woman could play? Even D.P. 2 had more and better female characters than this drama, and that’s about the mandatory military service for MEN.
(Also, I have never heard of a European style tie that is over the collar on one side and under on the other side. I liked the costume design on him, but seriously, they just made that up, right? I thought he just didn’t know his tie was crooked and was a messy and careless character, but no. It was on purpose)
If you’re going to watch this, know that you will only enjoy this if you prioritize drama and suspense over solving things yourself. The romance and friendship takes a backseat in this drama, but it’s the reason I finished. But know that the romance never really progresses beyond flirting.
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