Salatheel

Everything-in-one-pan sort of comfort food.

I was trying to work out why this one blew up and got the attention it did. And I don’t think I was the only one, I think the whole company were probably a little surprised too. So what I came up with was that they managed to find the perfect recipe for how to appeal to the maximum number of possible audiences - a producer’s dream. And how, imo, did they do it?

By cherry picking from all the genres and eliminating the potential bitterness before making a judicious blend of sweetness, with a twist of out-of-the-ordinary, that is just sufficient to stimulate almost everyone’s tastebuds. It has the ingredients of a melo without excessive wailing (well it does get a bit wet though, just note the title…); a romcom without cringeworthy comedy (mostly); a makjang without full-blown psychosis (just regular hysteria); a conspiracy without frustrating mystery (but a few too many conveniences), and a slice-of-life romance (plus free homilies) without the plodding reality.

It manages to be a very clever balance of light and dark. Nothing stands out as particularly noteworthy in itself, but put together it becomes great comfort food. Somewhat like all our beloved, over-rated national dishes that tempt the foreigner into disappointment because they expect Michelin stars and it turns out to be your grandma’s cooking.

Overall, it failed to really impress in the creatively inventive/awesome stakes but it delivered a solid script; credible good characters (aside from the ML being ex-special services, puleeeeease…he would have been breakfast); dastardly bad characters and some hearty performances, especially from the leads (and a personal favourite, the shameless rum flip, Grace, played by Kim Ju Ryoung). However it stumbled on the plot front probably because it had too many chickens on the rotisserie. It worked well until about episode eleven, but then the plot began to curdle in certain areas as the focus shifted more to the melo. By the last two episodes, it was shredded and went into makjang meltdown followed by a layer cake of all the genres piled on top.

So, to sum up, if you want the equivalent of a Jamie Oliver everything-in-one-pan sort of meal, you have found it. It’s finger-licking quality with good home grown meat and veggies plus a grating of cheese. Such a thing is hard to achieve so credit to those concerned. It’s the sort of comfort food you’re happy to come home to, but not up there for a gourmet night out or a revelatory culinary experience.

‘Nuff said. There’s already at least 6 pages of “reviews”, posted well before it finished airing!

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Gone with the Wind, My Dearest…

It’s worth noting that the genre tags on MDL are historical, romance, drama, melodrama and not comedy, because even though the start has all the hallmarks of a romcom, as it progresses it gets a great deal more serious. I didn’t find the transition in Episode 4 altogether convincing and that is probably because the contrast in tone and overall production style between the start and what was to come is so marked that I couldn’t reconcile them. By the end, the impression was that I had watched two different dramas. Yes I do get that the writer wanted a contrast between peace and war, but for me, the frivolous approach to the opening didn’t lay a credible foundation for what was to come.

There is now a well established practice of sugar-coating a 21C story with pretty costumes and sets borrowed from an earlier era and dumping all the inconvenient things like the contemporaneous social rules and attitudes. The opening three episodes of this production sit very squarely in that camp. The costumes and sets are far too rich, clean and bright for the period and the social interactions are so far from the 17C that they had to script a line about how this village had lax attitudes to contact between men and women.

The story then transitions into sweeping epic mode and does a very creditable job of fulfilling the demands of flawed characters, poisoned chalices and lesser of two evils choices. At heart it is a love story and the character development of the two lead characters is the thread that binds it all together. This first part focuses more on how war and difficulty transforms our heroine from petulant, manipulative teenager to a strong and capable woman. And I suspect that the second half will focus on the male protagonist whose character also needs to grow somewhat.

The plot surrounding this love story is the politics of the time, which is given a creditable depth with a side serving of weeping melo. My gripe, which is not overly huge, is that the love story and the politics were not quite enmeshed enough for me. As a result it felt a little fragmented. The male protagonist was half-heartedly twisted into the political plot, which was correct for his character, but not helpful for overall cohesion.

I did enjoy the range of characters which offered the actors a chance to get their teeth into them with varying degrees of success. Namkoong Min can be smooth, slippery and enticing anywhere, and I think that Ahn Yun Jin stepped up to the plate with the later episodes, but her performance was a little patchy in places. Perhaps because of the irreconcilable styles I mentioned earlier. Another notable performance for me was Choi Young Woo as the barbarian general.

The music was a mixed bag. I liked the opening sequence, the low camera angle, the muted tones and the silence followed by strains of music that had echoes of history in it. But we soon graduated to the hackneyed swelling strings and a full-on Kolly-Bollywood dance. In general, the music disappointed. The introduction to the unsurpassable singer (Ryang Eum) in the story just felt ordinary to me, although later instances were more convincing. There were however, some good OST ballads, mostly used for the ending credits.

Overall, it would be churlish to call this production average. What stops it from being exceptional is the uneven writing that created a somewhat bumpy ride. However, it was good enough for me to want to embark on part 2 when it arrives.

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A failed experiment

I’ve always really liked Ahn Pan Seok as a director and commented that he invariably found good writers to collaborate with. After this production, I’ve realised that good writers found an able but not inspired director to produce their work. Because this production has all the hallmarks of an Ahn Pan Seok piece, in that it is quiet, has a slow and steady pace, keeps itself close to life and involves lamentable music choices (aside from the credits song, which is probably the best thing about the whole production), but without the insightful, clever writing, it’s as dull as ditchwater.

What was this anonymous writer (can anyone provide a name for MDL) thinking would make a good story? There was a perfectly usable and interesting backstory to the ML, which was barely hinted at until late in the piece and then rushed through in the last two episodes. It had all the potential for a great thriller which in capable hands could have been a good watch. But instead, the writer chose to fill the first ten episodes with random case studies on how to negotiate mergers and acquisitions. Well, I suppose it lived up to its title, but in the process lost much of its dramatic interest. It watched like the sort of thing that an enthusiastic but unfortunate training manager might dish up as modules in an Art of Negotiation course.

As a public education exercise it worked very well, because it involved an abundance of explainy, unrealistic conversations between executives about finances, all expressed in layman’s terms. And I admit that learning about the topic did keep me interested and watching. But on the other hand it came complete with Chairman/CEOs of the company supposedly not understanding the importance of the stock market to their existence and what rumours could do to their share price. As well as Board Members surprised to hear for the first time that the company had racked up a debt of eleven trillion won. (1st episode so not a spoiler) If that was supposed to be trillion and not billion, you can’t get into that much bother in the few months between board meetings without someone noticing and if you did you’d be calling a board meeting well before that figure was reached. In the real world they would be dead in the water before the week was out. An M&A team of only four people? I don’t think so. And that wasn’t where the credibility gap ended, there were endless far too convenient and timely events to push the feeble plot along. Educational? Yes. Credible? Hell no!

To say it lacked tension is an understatement. It was tedious. You need to really understand the ins and outs of corporate finance and the implications of events to fully experience the wind-up. Maybe it’s because I don’t know enough to feel the heat, but I do know that what would have helped me is some emotional investment and there was precious little of that. There was no character development and the attempts to attach the viewer to the bland-on-bland characters were only partially successful. If you are not emotionally engaged then tension is so much more difficult to generate, as you only have cerebral anticipation to work with.

As for the performances, the actors did an average job with a very average script. Lee Ja Hoon tried hard with his tsundere character but for me the best performance was from Sung Dong Il as the Chairman.

Ahn Pan Seok has strayed from his usual genre—romantic interest slice of life—to experiment with a thriller. Every genre has its own methodology and thrillers require variations in pace, clever timing and emotional investment. In order to achieve that, the events in thrillers are not normally real world and as a viewer we accept that because the story unfolds in its own make believe world. But here, Ahn Pan Seok’s style is very real world, so for me, the credibility gap is so glaringly obvious and uncomfortable that I can’t ignore it. Perhaps if he had chosen a scenario that needed less explaining to the audience he might have been able to make a better thriller, even though, admittedly, the last scene is chef’s kiss.

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Even the superhuman efforts of Satoh Takeru couldn’t save this one.

After a rough week I was just wanting something relatively brainless to drop into and when Netflix offered me this I conceded that Satoh Takeru is more than just a good actor, he’s a very pretty face and was seduced into trying it.

It was 6 episodes in that I found out, to my disappointment, it was a 10 episode drama rather than an 8. You may wonder at this point if I am simply incapable of dropping a show. Well, Black Knight went down the tubes 10 minutes in… But this was one of those compulsively bad dramas you just have watch to the end. Boiled frog syndrome. There’s a totally perverse pleasure, or perhaps it’s a morbid fascination, in seeing just how valiantly good actors will struggle to put on a show as the writing progresses from almost passable, to unfortunate, to cringeworthy, to bad, to embarrassing, to execrable, to finally arrive at the only remaining destination—hysteria. Wah, the professional pride of this cast was impressive!

There’s something about Satoh Takeru that makes virtually anything he takes seriously totally believable, but even this superhuman quality of his was unable to save the farce of episode 9 (Thunderbolts and lightening, very, very frightening me…) and the sentimental quagmire of episode 10. And btw who the hell thought of adding that jaunty song into the mix? Wtf were they thinking…

The idea was marginally interesting and could have been made to almost work in the hands of a writer who could have taken the theme of death and relinquishment and given it some pathos. But I’m afraid Adachi Naoko either doesn’t know what those experiences are made of, or is just unable to write an insightful account of it. I suspect the former (forgive me if it’s the latter but it really has no impact on the end result). At first I thought it was going to be a whimsical approach but then it gradually became clear that keeping everything “nice” and above the murky waters of real feeling was the driving factor.

The character of the policeman was bordering on nauseatingly sickly and he was forced into that profession by the writer’s necessity for someone to solve a crime. In fact I swear he’d been training for the priesthood before she hijacked him for the part. And that’s the core of the problem really, the conveniences and problem-solving adjustments just got more and more ridiculous as the drama progressed. Everything was halfhearted and superficial, from the romance to the crime, which sort of lurked in dark corners. Well, I suppose I got what I wished for - something brainless.

What my rating means: 4+ I forced myself to go through to the end of it, but only because I was committed to writing the review. It annoyed the hell out of me. Actively avoid.

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Return of the Jedi—may the Force be with you…

There’s a payoff between pace and depth, and here pace predominates. It skips along like a Y-wing starfighter over a planet, just kissing the surface before flying to the next bombing target. Skimming through multiple scenarios with the barest of detail; something that could occupy half a drama is dispatched in half an episode. It’s a fill-in-the-gaps-yourself style that reflects its origins in manga.

There are also two ways of creating complexity: character depth or plot lines. After a fairly slow establishment, Episode 4 explodes sub-plots like a baradium thermal detonator, with an ever increasing cast of characters and no sign of any depth. From this point on the ML bounces between plot lines and the numerous character relationships float, sink or swim in the two seconds it takes for Lee Joon Gi’s lop-sided smile to fade. You need to keep up, as characters zip in and out like X-wing starfighters.

The drama is a no-holds barred attack on every form of corruption imaginable and some that you never even dreamed of in your nightmares. It features the master manipulator, Assemblyman Cho Tae Seob (come over to the dark side Kim, you know you want to) and his nemesis, Prosecutor Kim Hee Woo (may the force be with me, no I’m not a monster). However, for most of the drama, it’s all too easy for the Rebel Alliance to knock down the Galactic Empire with convenient information that just seems to materialise out of thin air, almost on the scale of “and here’s one we prepared earlier…” It’s all just far too convenient.

To really develop a proper struggle between the two sides you need time, and there is no spare second here, all of it is taken up churning through the multiple scenarios that seem a large price to pay to move things forward. Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with this, it’s a choice that’s been made. The question is, having made the choice, do the writers and director deliver on it?

No they don’t. At the start there is a lot of wince-making stuff (more about that later) but as it progresses this mellows a bit (or I surrendered and ceased to notice it so much) and the script and direction create a drama that, for the first half, kept me interested and racing headlong into the next twist. But pacing and complexity are a tricky thing and for this drama, like many others, trouble really kicks in around two thirds of the way through, when the pace drops to establish the run-up to the finale. There is simply too much going on to be able to fully exploit every angle. Having manufactured twists in abundance, they are then left hanging for ages before being conveniently picked up again to serve some random purpose. Obstacles thrown in the way are about as troublesome as C-3PO on a good day and in the end there is very little bite. So much time is spent explaining the tangled threads and maneuvering heavy furniture into place (and believe it or not, introducing yet more characters and plot threads) that the tension gently leaks away and I was left sitting well back in my seat, drumming my fingers on the arm.

What do I mean by wince-making stuff? Well the melo at the start was badly handled, cliché, and painful to watch in all the wrong ways. Just because Lee Joon Gi can cry easily, and look pretty doing it, doesn’t mean he should be asked to do it at every available opportunity. LJG going back to being a teenager simply doesn’t work for me. He’s thinking like an adult, acting like an adult, looking like an adult. Just weird. Then there’s the continuous stating-the-obvious spoken thoughts (mainly by the ML but not exclusively) that are condescending and irritating in the extreme. Unfortunately this insult to intelligence continues to happen throughout the show. Lastly, a basic rule of writing: if you “show” do not also “tell”, which happens far too frequently and particularly involving the patronising asides just mentioned.

There might however be some excuse for the amateurish aspects of the writing as we appear to have two rookie writers overseen by the more experienced Lee Byung Hun (I have not seen any of the dramas he has penned).

Another cost to the cast of thousands/multiple scenarios choice is that time for the character development of the leads is minimal (if there is any at all) and we are left with meh, generic characters, indistinguishable from many that have come before them, and the thousands that will follow after them. And in the cast of thousands there were a number of supporting roles that did not contribute much to the plot and with a bit of imagination could have been omitted. In a fast paced, streamlined thriller, superfluity is a luxury.

Lee Joon Gi has said he wants to continue to do action dramas whilst physically he still can, and let’s face it he’s pretty bloody good at it. In the first half there are fights in every episode and they look pretty good to me but hey, I’m really not qualified to judge. It must have been why he chose this drama, because it sure wasn’t for the challenge of the main character who had little to distinguish him from the average. But, as “Flower of Evil” proved, LJG is an accomplished actor who can pull out a great performance when assisted to do so. Isn’t there someone out there who can write an intelligent action drama for him to star in, where his character possesses more than the emotional range of a teaspoon.

Lee Kyun Young did yet another repeat of Lee Kyun Young under another pseudonym. (Yawn) I don’t know why they don’t just film him with a generic name and part so that whenever a scriptwriter needs a corrupt politician/businessman they can just save time by slotting it in, because whatever they write, it will come out as the LKY stock character. Kim Chul Ki was slightly more subtle as Jeon Seok Gyu and could no doubt have given a vastly better performance as Cho Tae Seob than LKY.

There’s a peculiar touch of irony in my mind about the use of Gustav Holst’s music for “I vow to thee my country”. Holst arranged the theme from the “Planets Suite: Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity” to suit the lyrics of a poem by Cecil Spring-Rice and created a hymn often sung on remembrance days. Although Jupiter is the primary god the Romans and takes care of society and its laws, I don’t think that the reference is intended for Jolly Jupiter, but rather the hymn about sacrificing everything, including one’s life, for your country. “I vow to thee my country” was written before the first world war and revised in the aftermath of it. Spring-Rice was a moustachioed paragon of a British Empire that espoused an attitude of paternal tyranny that pretty much aligns with the villain in the drama, Cho Tae Seob. Yet the music is the theme tune for the Rebel Alliance and usually pops up when Kim Hee Woo (Lee Joon Gi) is doing something magnanimous and honourable. (Lyrics and video here: http://www.songlyrics.com/choir-of-westminster-abbey/i-vow-to-thee-my-country-lyrics/)

As for the other music, even the Carmina Burana-esque flourish that occupied a slot in Ep 1 (at 8’ 35”) was forgiven when I heard the smokey tones of U Sung Eun on “Till the End” which was the only thing about the whole show that totally blew me away. Oh, except for the gorgeous valve amplifier (Ep 7) Jo Tae Seob uses to play the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. My heart skipped a beat. I have a 1983 Pioneer SX-450 that I refuse to part with, it’s so damn sweet.

What my rating means: 5+ Meh! Don't bother, it's full of platitudes and clichés with boring characters and plots.

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A never ending struggle to the end and not just for them…

I'll apologise in advance, this isn't going to be my best review I simply can't find the enthusiasm to go into any depth.

I never thought it was going to finish. And by the time we did end up at the beach, I was less than interested and definitely not convinced. I felt like I’d been dragged kicking and screaming through a series of fragmented plot-lines, rushed developments and overused clichés. Amnesia once is unfortunate, twice is unforgivable and tbh I got to the point of hoping to be touched with it myself…

The actors battled hard against an ever loosening plot, but were unable to save it falling apart into a weird time-loop at the end. The costumes were very pretty and far too clean, and the cinematography was also pretty.

An attempt to be epic that simply became unmanageable.

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Amateurish production heavy on social education

It seems as though someone wanted to make a “socially aware” drama about the impact of hearing loss and impairment, but really didn’t have the skills in the field of story-telling and drama to pull it off successfully. I felt like I was being educated rather than entertained. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for education and did find aspects of this production interesting and informative; but if education is going to come in the form of a drama, I’m looking for good dramatic structure, realistic dialogue and credible character interactions to carry it, such that it is woven in seamlessly. Otherwise, it would be better to watch a serious reality show/documentary about the lives of hearing impaired people.

What’s positive? It was about ordinary people and presented in an ordinary way, so it was not offensive. I didn’t actively dislike it, but I’m having difficulty in finding stuff that I can be enthusiastic about. Okay, there were some touching moments that weren’t too sentimental…

Overall the drama had an amateurish feel to it; particularly regarding the script, editing and sound.

The script was particularly unconvincing. The characters constantly have unrealistic conversations about issues. It’s much better to show characters in their normality and let the viewer put two and two together for themselves rather than preaching and patronising. But that requires a level of writing expertise which was lacking here and I’m wondering if this was a first attempt by the writer. The scarcity of ordinary interactions meant that there was very little opportunity for the actors to create rounded characters.

The plot clunked it’s way through a variety of relationship scenarios that were not properly explored or given time and depth to be credible. The structure of the plot was also clumsy, with heavy use of long stretches of backstory that interrupted the flow.

I was not particularly impressed by the two male leads, Meguro Ren and Suzuka Ouji. I think this was partly the directing, which insisted on overcooking the melo with the ironic result that they seemed shallow and one-dimensional. Whereas Kazama Shunsuke, Kaho and especially Shinohara Ryoko were more impressive and believable in their roles. It was not helped by the fact that there were not enough conversations that were free from some aspect of hearing impairment education, so the relationships did not feel natural or credible.

The editing was really bad overall and especially the music, which was sometimes randomly and abruptly cut off so that you felt like you were aurally falling off the edge of a cliff. This could have been a really effective tactic to highlight point of view changes between hearing and non-hearing characters. And occasionally I think they did that. But not consistently or cleanly enough for me to be sure what their intention was. I was just aware of sudden abrupt changes in sound levels and focus that did not seem to be synced with character interactions.

Overall, meh.

What my rating means: 5+ Meh! Don't bother, it's full of platitudes and clichés with boring characters and plots.

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It’ll pass the time…

Look, it’s not that this drama is bad it’s just really not that good. If you’re in a lacklustre mood and want to curl up on the sofa in your jarmies and stuff your face with chocolate whilst lamenting the state of your work life, then this show might be a sucky blanket to help you through the week.

To describe this as a comedy is not really accurate. Yes there are a few smile moments, but this is a romantic drama with a classic romcom set-up that takes itself seriously. And that is both its strength and unfortunately its weakness.

The script isn’t quite up to delivering the impact which the story demands. It’s sitting on an edge of seriousness but trying to keep itself light. It’s not sure whether it’s a drama or a romance and consequently the more serious themes sit uncomfortably with the sometimes superficial and cliché dialogue. It really wants to explore the characters but doesn’t have sufficient skill or gravity to give them the required depth and it turns into a long drawn out inching forward.

Although the Single Life Helper starting point was original and interesting, the plot gets caught up in trying to make the standard chaebol arranged marriage theme fit with it and it doesn’t quite work. You could see the plot twists in episode 13 from 15 episodes previously and there is also insufficient plot to give the story dynamic impetus.

The antagonists are stereotypical and not carefully enough drawn, with a single mode of operation that conveniently causes trouble. Neither are they important enough to have any real impact. For most of the drama they hang around like flies, creating an annoying buzz and then get unconvincingly swatted at the end.

There are three ok leads, but they could have been better given more in the script. The best performance came from Kim Jae Young as Kang Hae Jin, who had the most opportunity to create a rounded character. Park Min Young dusted off her acting skills again and displayed a little of her talent but nothing outstanding and she was beaten in the showing-credible-emotions stakes by Jin Kyung as Ji Mi Ho. I’ve seen better performances from Go Kyung Pyo who tried to do something with his character, but acting the classic buttoned-up ML is always a challenge. (My vote for the best rendition of this character type goes to So Ji Sub in “The Master’s Sun”.) Kang Hyun Suk was the best of the supporting cast with a lovable performance as Woo Gwang Nam.

What my rating means: 7+ A watchable drama, but nothing exceptional. Good enough to qualify for the race, but finished with the pack. The sort of thing that promises more than it delivers.

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Oversweet nostalgia, very tastefully executed

More in the style of a fly on the wall documentary, this sensitively scripted and filmed piece follows two nascent young women into the world of the Maiko. It has an art-house style that favours snippets of ordinary conversation to create the ambiance and atmosphere of their life rather than “telling” any type of story.

It’s a piece to immerse yourself in and it creates a glimpse into a secluded world where time has attempted to stand still. A world of women which is gentle, ordered, bounded, protected and essentially safe. But it has a cost and one of the characters says, “I can’t imagine how us girls could ever live outside of this city”. The restrictions imposed are like the inhibiting clothing and hairstyles, superficially attractive but stultifying, requiring a real-life sacrifice from the participants which is featured in the story. Overall though, the drama puts a glaze over their experience, effectively creating something sugary and homely, much in keeping with the nostalgia that inhabits their profession.

There are minor frictions but don’t look for antagonists creating problems to solve. The characters are universally pleasant and even the more troubled teenager is hardly abrasive. So there is no real depth here and it suffers in my opinion from being overly sweet.

The drama does not seek to contextualise the profession in terms of modern society and virtually all of the paying clients are shown as Japanese middle-aged men, representing a staid conservatism that reflects the stated desire to preserve the past as cultural heritage. There is none of the modern catering for tourists here, even though the photo opportunities when the Maiko are out on the streets is highlighted. Neither is there any discussion or concern shown for the future of such an expensive pastime that services a very small, select clientele.

Food is used as metaphor within the show and each episode features a separate dish. It was a deliberate design feature as one of the main characters becomes the cook and the series is named for that role. As I am fairly ignorant of Japanese cuisine and culture in general, there were abundant occasions where I felt that I was missing the references which were not explained. This would point to the drama being written for a domestic market rather than international consumption.

The cinematography uses as close to natural light as possible often creating the feeling of cloudy days and dim interiors and keeps the modern world of bright lights and kitchen conveniences at bay. The colour palette is very muted and this lifts the contrasting brightness of the maiko’s clothing, emphasising their uniqueness and separateness from the world around them.

Although I did not personally fall in love with this drama, the quality is undeniable, hence the rating.

What my rating means: 8+ A great drama with interesting content and good writing, direction, acting, OST, cinematography. But didn’t quite have the requisite sparkle to bump it into my all-time fave list. Worth watching.

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Sucky blanket romance

A sucky blanket of a romance, with all the normal tropes of love triangles and quadrangles and anything up to dodeca-angles; absent family; hair-pulling fights; past encounters; ML going from distant cool to close warm; men facing off like boys; and of course all the standard clichés of country life. The plot is a well-worn trail of the obvious, so you don’t even have the stress of wondering what’s going to happen, even though they have to cram it in the last episode.

One of the benefits of country shows is at least there’s less PP! Unfortunately though it does step in and manage to kill the mood… ah I really should get over it, but it’s done sooo clumsily here.

Look there’s nothing original, everything is bland, innocuous and inoffensive (and that includes the chemistry, or lack of it) but the short half-hour format makes it an ideal watch for those times when you’ve come home exhausted and all you want to do is curl up in front of the fire and veg out with something totally predictable, brainless, sweet and cosy.

What my rating means: 7+ A watchable drama, but nothing exceptional. Good enough to qualify for the race, but finished with the pack. The sort of thing that promises more than it delivers.

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A drama with potential, let down by lack of finesse.

The writer, Noh Ji Sul, penned the full-on, tear-stained melo, Scent of a Woman and also 100 Days My Prince (which I haven’t seen). Here we have out and out romcom for the first half and melo-drama for the last part. It’s worth noting that the genre tags are romance and drama, not romcom. It seems she likes extremes and she mixes them here in line with the current trend of fudging genres.

Being used to fixed genres it can sit uncomfortably when they are blended. A great deal of viewer enjoyment comes from having expectations fulfilled. When they are not the viewer is pulled out of the world of the story to deal with their own reactions. You can see it reflected in the comments section for this show. However, in the constant search for something new and different I can see this trend continuing and no doubt we will all adjust our expectations accordingly.

This story is set in two different time periods but the movement between them is somewhat random. Sometimes there are links via dreams, other times were are just catapulted back, which felt disjointed. Some visual/cinematic clues would have gone a long way to smooth the jumps and wouldn’t have been hard to implement. Just part of the overall lack of finesse I mentioned in the subject line.

Even in the present, the timeline was repeatedly twisted up. Once or twice will have the desired effect of increasing tension, but when used too much, you know you are being manipulated and it becomes annoying.

The plot in the past could have occupied a whole drama in itself but was rushed through. I felt the balance in the overall story was off, particularly as I spent the first five episodes twiddling my thumbs in the present time waiting for something to happen. If the writer, and later, the director/editor had decided on a more even weight and distribution throughout between past and present it would have woven a better and more compelling story.

I was puzzled in the first two thirds of the show why they should like each other at all. There were very few interactions that could build attraction and yet all of a sudden there was undying love. Later on the chemistry really worked and drew me in, becoming much more believable. But the viewer needed more ground to stand on early in the piece to give it credibility and a more clever weaving in of the backstory would have solved the problem.

The opening episodes are really at a romcom level, and the action is highly exaggerated to suit that type of presentation. But it does tend to undermine the credibility of the emotions to the point that I felt character integrity was being sacrificed for the sake of a joke. Whereas at the end credibility was sacrificed for a somewhat ridiculous stalker plot.

Rowoon has been very busy in some top-rated dramas in the last few years and he’s not stopping. Is he more than a pretty face? Well he does a decent job here, although his perfect good looks need to be ruffled a little more to really convince. I liked Jo Bo Ah’s performance better, and she is also an actor on the rise with some noteworthy performances on her CV.

In supporting roles, Park Kyung Hye gave a brilliant comedic performance as the desperate Son Sae Byeol, deliciously contorting her face like a slapped arse for most of the time. And Hyun Bong Sik oozed as the slightly sleazy manager Gong Seo Gu.

The cinematography in the historical section is beautifully done, with great use of colour and contrast. There’s some traditional fireworks and those scenes were very beautiful. I’d really love to see those myself - one for the bucket list…

What’s the line between accepted notation and cliché? Is it a matter of viewer perception? For me the accepted notations, such as flickering lights meaning spooky etc, were just too frequent not to fall into tired cliché. There was a distinct lack of imagination and freshness in dealing with the supernatural aspects which really should be laid at the door of the director. As far as the script goes, there’s not a lot of subtlety. It gets the job done rather than looking for novelty. You won’t have to read between any lines here.

Finally, it really isn’t hard to decide what season a drama takes place in. And here it was all over the place. People wearing shorts at Christmas, everything full green and verdant in the depths of winter. Talking about being cold and then hanging out outside. Just unnecessary, sloppy production.

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Hard-core, unrelenting melo relieved by some good performances

Don’t be deceived by the trailer, this is wall-to-wall weeping melo with a few flashes of sparkle to light up the path. We start with a big shock early on and then gradually add trauma to the mix for each character as we go. It’s pretty unrelenting.

This is the main drawback, it tries to pack too much in and takes on too many themes. A secondary focus is child-parent relationships and nature versus nurture. This theme led to the introduction of a lot of characters and some distracting and unnecessarily complex story-lines, one of which is introduced quite late. They have a different resonance to the main plot and disrupt rather than reinforce the central story. The pace of the drama is slow enough at the start to realise the emotional developments, but as the plot becomes more complex the treatment becomes more superficial. Some plot-lines need more attention to be worthwhile and on occasion the emotional impacts are truncated and left hanging.

The romances are somewhat half-hearted and it is notable that the male characters are all listed as support roles. The focus is split between the women’s friendship and their love lives, which means that neither get the strong treatment that they deserve.

The editing of the last episode doesn’t feel smooth to me and although the ending creates the right emotional mood the story-line is fragmented. It pulls its punches and loses something in the process.

On the positive side, it is prepared to get down and dirty with real feelings and conflicting emotional responses. And there are some good performances, particularly from the three leads, Son Ye Jin, Yeon Mi Do and Kim Ji Hyun. The relationship between the them had a believable chemistry and there is a naturalness to the delivery of the lines.

Overall, this is not a bad production, but it carries far too much weight to be an easy or compelling watch.

What my rating means: 6+ Some aspects of it were OK but it had serious flaws. It will pass the time but you can find something better.

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Relationships laid bare with honesty, comedy and a splash of melo

This isn’t a romcom, but it does have both relationships /romance and comedy as basic ingredients. It’s something that you need to have some good and bad relationship experience to really accept and appreciate. There are no Cinderella and Prince Charming moments here, it is not love conquers all, let’s get married and live HEA. It’s about messy human beings struggling with self preservation and self awareness.

A constant theme is that life is a mixed bag of good and bad, happy and painful, and that you have to accept and negotiate it. Set in the world of divorce lawyers, it examines the fragility of relationships in the wider context of family and also the compromises to be made in the face of difficulties. In general it doesn’t over-sentimentalise but allows the imperfections full display and counts the cost of them.

The first episode is funny, vicious and finally vulnerable, and it sets the scene for what is to come quite well. Divorce and relationship strife is a lose-lose situation and it brings out the worst as people fight to salvage what they can from the wreck. The stories highlight the pressure from all sides that causes the inevitable hardening of attitudes .

The drama is not profound and doesn’t set out to preach. There is also a healthy dose of compassion along the way. It manages to take on some very difficult themes and work with them, not always entirely convincingly, but with enough sincerity to carry you through.

However, there are some great one liners, and it showcases how humour is always the fallback mode for survival. It periodically utilises some of the darker shades of comedy to keep the mood lighter. Sometimes it flirts with the line of acceptability and credibility but on the whole stays on the right side of it and draws back when necessary to keep the integrity intact.

It’s a difficult balance to strike and I think they did quite a good job initially in meshing it all together but the further in you get, the higher the stakes, and the more it fails to gel properly. The full-on melo in the final episode was not to my taste, ‘cause I’m a less is more sort of gal, but the final outcome was right for the characters imo.

The performances were good but not outstanding. There was some great observation and enough character development to make it interesting and real, but at times the comedy elements did disrupt that and some scenes were not adequately prepared for.

This is the only writing credit on MDL for Park Jin Ri. If it’s a first attempt at being a main scriptwriter then I think this is definitely someone to watch out for in the future. She has the ability to create interesting characters and the insight to give them depth.

Overall I liked this drama, but then I’ve got a whole bunch of life-experience to empathise, smile knowingly and appreciate the ironies. It isn’t brilliant but I think it’s better than average so I was in two minds about the rating. However, in the end I chose the lesser as I couldn't really justify the higher. If you’re into wish fulfilment you won’t find much of that here and I recommend you to flick channels and go for “Crash Course in Romance” instead.

What my rating means: 7+ A watchable drama, but nothing exceptional. Good enough to qualify for the race, but finished with the pack. The sort of thing that promises more than it delivers.

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The oppressive cost of power and order

I’ve just binge-watched this show. I hadn’t intended to but I was caught up with it because I was fascinated by the focus on the limitations and demands of order. If you’ve come in hopes of a standard romance, then you may well be disappointed, because love is shown to be just another victim of the rapaciousness of order, flapping pathetically like a bird in a gilded cage. But hopefully the deeper and more thoughtful themes in this show will captivate your interest.

The drama explores the necessities required by order to maintain itself. To sustain a cohesive society with all its factions it is necessary for the powerful to be bound. The necessity to prevent rebellion/chaos and maintain order is alive in every rule. Loyalty is the only currency. Loyalty is to the one you serve and once that person is dead, you are unceremoniously ejected from the seat of power as your loyalties are no longer fixed and therefore questionable. Everyone, including the king is bound by those rules and must follow them or pay a heavy, and often fatal, price. Within the confines of the palace freedom is the illusion that everyone craves.

The oppressive cost of power is explored through a number of characters, who deal with the shackles in different ways. Some scheme to undermine it, some scheme to try to create safety for their own group, some feign ignorance and keep their heads down, some scheme to gain unassailable power. The FL resists it, fighting to keep a tenuous hold on the fragment of autonomy that she has carved out for herself. Universally, everyone is forced to hide their true feelings and conform to what is required of their role. The suffocation of those endless formal bows and the life spent simply third in line, half bent over, in the small procession that follows the king everywhere he goes. But in the end there is only one way to survive, as one of the characters says, (paraphrased) “if you can’t beat them, join them and go with the flow”.

The role of women is particularly explored here and it is no surprise that the uniqueness of this drama is the result of a female perspective, both in terms of the writer and the director. If you liked the film “The Piano” (Jane Campion) then you will see echoes here of how sex and genuine love are used to “buy” relief from loneliness and the burden of responsibility, and the options available to women in response to those demands.

In terms of the acting, both leads were very convincing in their parts and were surrounded by a good supporting cast. The script was not outstanding in my opinion, but more than adequate to the task. It occasionally slipped into mawkishness, but also surprised in other places. In a drama that relied on the believability of the relationships, the plot lost me sometimes, particularly with regard to the letter and the kidnappings scenarios. However, I can credit that they were used to illustrate broader themes.

Overall this was a surprisingly good drama that far exceeded my expectations and gave me a lot to think about. Recommended!

What my rating means: 8+ A great drama with interesting content and good writing, direction, acting, OST, cinematography. But didn’t quite have the requisite sparkle to bump it into my all-time fave list. Worth watching.

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Tender, sensitive, beautiful. Thoroughly excellent.

This is a story about an age gap. It’s in the title, but it’s also at the heart of the writing and the unfolding of a relationship in which one is already an adult and the other coming of age. The mesmerising beauty of this drama is the acute observation and treatment of this journey.

It is in the excellence in the writing (Kwon Do Eun) that has perfectly captured the age difference in the dialogue, and displayed a depth of understanding that reveals, in sequence, each tiny step forwards. It is in the directing (Jung Ji Hyun) that forces nothing and under rather than overplays each scene, giving it space for a natural unfolding. It is in the cinematography and editing that keeps it very clean and pure, capturing facial expressions in the moment, in a simple and direct way and not holding them until they lose their essence. It is in the soundtrack which is sparingly used and refrains from emotive strings. And finally, it is in the excellence of the acting by all of the cast, but especially the two leads (Kim Tae Ri and Nam Ju Hyuk) who reveal the emotions with a visual ease that belies the skill involved, so that they emerge with total credibility. Wah! Superb!

It would be a mistake to approach this piece as simply a romance. The underlying theme is how the times and circumstances that we are born into as well as the random events that happen impact our dreams and shape our lives. It also reveals the cost that must be paid for the realisation of aspirations and responsibilities. Set in the economic downturn of the IMF crisis in the late nineties we see lives and relationships transformed and dreams crushed, but also opportunities realised, responsibilities fulfilled and sacrifices made through an engagement with the reality of the present.

This is a story about how nothing is forever. Moments of love, friendship, success, failure, ambition and passion — all change irrevocably with time and events. It is important to realise that the present is the only time that you have. If you live for and fully engage in the present the memories that stay with you will become the colour of your life. They may not be the moments that you think are important at the time, but these are the moments that last forever.

Perhaps the illustration of this theme provided the only fault I can find—that of the pacing and slight fragmentation in the latter stages and the necessity to rush some character development but I think it came true at the end (which I thought was the right ending). I loved the nod to her previous drama "Search WWW" that was the postscript to the show.

Setting it in the late nineties allowed the writer to explore a love story in a time far enough distant for it to be credible that development was at a later stage and the innocence of adolescence was something to be preserved. The ML (Baek Yi Jin) respects and gives space to the unfolding of maturity in the FL (Na Hee Do), which he himself was denied and this is a major part of the charm and warmth of the story. The gradual awakening of her sensuality, particularly during the beach scene, is beautifully portrayed by Kim Tae Ri and sensitively directed and filmed in close ups of her face that capture the subtle moments of realisation. This is pure, heartwarming nostalgia at its very best.

I defy you not to fall completely in love with Na Hee Do. What a creation she is! Kwon Do Eun has created a peach of a role and who wouldn’t jump over 10 metre fences for the opportunity to play this part. Kim Tae Ri has convincingly dropped thirteen years to engage with her unfailing optimism and resilience to failure. She has perfectly captured the character’s naivety, disarming honesty and staunchness as she blunders forwards, regardless of risk, inspiring hope in those around her. This is a stunning performance by Kim Tae Ri that completely enthrals from the first moment to the last.

If the writer has a weakness it’s her male characters. They don’t really have enough wrong with them; no edge, no raw, roughness to play with. Here again, as in “Search WWW”, she shows no hesitation in writing a range of strong, complex female characters; from the unhappy, controlled and judgemental, Shin Jae Kyung (Hee Do’s mother) to the clever, hard-nosed fencing coach, Yang Chan Mi. But her leading males are soft centred, as though she is nervous of being able to make them attractive if they have flawed character traits or are dislikable in any way.

Having said that, Nam Ju Hyuk’s performance as Baek Yi Jin was a masterpiece of warmth and tenderness. His character represents the voice of the times. He embodies someone for whom love and compassion are the currency of life and shows us its simplest form as a desire to hold a space for another to live in safety and happiness. His relationship with Na Hee Do is a voyage through varying aspects of love and support that subtly change as they both grow in age and understanding to embrace equality. And it was easy to see the transitions in Nam Ju Hyuk’s face. There were some beautiful moments in their relationship that explore not just romance, but the foundations of love, protection, support, generosity and respect. I enjoyed his interpretation of the ML and the chemistry between him and Kim Tae Ri was magic.

Kwon Do Eun knows how to touch your heart without raising a fuss. No false emotions, onion tears of histrionics necessary. Just simple scenes, like listening to a pager message from a phone booth. She sympathetically captured the excruciating embarrassment of adolescence that reached an unforgettable climax in the aftermath of “I have to have you”! But she also knows how to ham it up, as in the brilliant scene between separated husband and wife in the internet café. There’s a thread of delightful, knowing humour that swims like a silvery fish through all the episodes. It frequently made me laugh out loud and kept an almost permanent smile on my face.

The colour palette utilises bright and vibrant summer colours, reinforcing the nostalgia of a youthful optimism and perseverance, rather than the drabness of the economic downturn. The cinematography has an elegance that frames each shot with care and keeps the viewers’ attention where it should be, on the actors, whilst also adding character, texture and visual beauty. Who can forget the scene on the bridge (enhanced by CGI) with its opalescent sheen and overarching rainbow.

The whole production cleverly walks the edge between the nostalgic and the sentimental. It rarely falls over it and that is something very difficult to achieve. It is helped enormously by the straightforward cinematography, the choice of simple music and the partnership between director and actors that kept the performances restrained and the emotion true. This could easily have been overplayed, sickly sweet and emotionally exaggerated, but it wasn’t and that’s why it has earned such a high rating from me. It was a complete joy to watch and I cannot recommend it more highly.

What my rating means: 9+   A drama I totally fell in love with and is endlessly re-watchable. It ticked all the boxes and had some serious wow factor. It would go on my personally recommended list.

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