3
3
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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Enjoyable silliness
Look it’s not just politics that is drifting through the clouds like a weather balloon convinced that its feet are firmly on the ground. Everything, including K-drama, has taken off into the stratosphere in flights of fancy and all the tethering ropes are trailing behind like detached umbilical cords.I’m sort of going along for the ride with this particular balloon because it’s a lot of fun. I’m not sure that it can sustain it over another series without introducing something a bit more solid than Mr Bean-counter running a hospital, whilst The Doctor (Who) aka Baek Gang Hyeok, kits up in scrubs and sews another artery together in less time than it takes to fire up the TARDIS. Not just a specialist trauma surgeon but a transplant surgeon too. In fact, a dab hand with anything he can get his fist around, scalpel, gun, helicopter joy stick…
Is it good? Well it’s fun and it carries you through on a pace so fast that your credibility warning buzzer has no time to trigger. What did trigger my credibility buzzer however is that something I take for granted, my country’s sophisticated ER/Casualty system, does not exist in all developed countries.
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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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Great side dishes but average mains
Like its previous namesake "Hospital Playlist" this was a hospital centred drama, but it failed to live up to the standard set by its seonbae (선배) . There was a lot to like in the case studies that played out through the series. I think these side dishes held the best writing and even sometimes, the best acting of the show. They were varied and often quite moving, with frequent opportunities for a bit of weeping. But the mains really lacked that spice that locks you in and changes something from OK to good.The writers should shoulder a large chunk of the blame, in that the characters of the four 1st year residents were somewhat one dimensional. There was some character development, but to be honest it was more a progress through learning a skill set and becoming a bit more mature. Only one of them really had their personal life filled out to any extent, which meant that we didn’t really see any rounded characters emerging. A slightly better attempt was made to showcase their group interactions, but it didn’t really dig far enough or get down and dirty enough to reveal the layers of the characters. I think it was an opportunity missed to make the whole thing much more engaging for the audience. At twelve 80 minute episodes they were hardly short of time.
I’m not a great fan of unlikely and convenient romances, and by the end of the series we were drowning in them. Surely in this slice of life genre there is opportunity to explore a range of different types of relationship. Overall, it was not a bad watch, but not a particularly good one either.
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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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Almost really good—but not quite…
I’d really like to give this drama more than the 7.5 I settled on because there is a lot on offer. But for me, the last four episodes lost their way when the main arc of the plot ended and felt much more like introductory episodes trying to establish a story where there wasn’t a thread. This left an overall feeling of blandness and added to the other things against it, I could only drop the rating.So what would have garnered it an 8. Well, the performances. They were good overall but Jang Na Ra really delivered a standout performance here, and it is worth watching just to see her. The other leads were also good, but with less complex characters also had less of a chance to reveal their talents. Having said that Nam Ji Hyun and P.O stepped up to the plate and I enjoyed their scenes together.
The relationship between the two FLs was well developed, moving from seonbae/hoobae to encompass a well rounded appreciation and friendship. The steps to achieve this were credible too.
The script was informed—the writer has done the job of a divorce attorney, so probably cherry picked from the cases that landed on her desk.They were varied and sometimes had interesting twists, but their resolutions were often trite and rushed.
Which brings me to some of the negatives. I’m not a fan of wailing melo, or saccharine sentimentality in order to create an unrealistically simple happy ending. And there was quite a bit of both. Now this is a personal preference, and I know that there are a lot of people out there who appreciate this approach, so judge for yourselves here. This was particularly apparent to me around some of the interactions with children and spouses.
The forward thrust of the lives of the leads petered out around episode eleven, with Cha Eun Gyeong’s (JNR) main plot line all but resolving. The other characters did not really have a strong enough plot focus to carry through. The result was that the sequential cases continued without a continuing main thread to support them A bit like a steak and onion pie without the pastry, as a result things slopped around the plate with the last few remaining crumbs of piecrust floating in them. Leaving a very unsatisfactory aftertaste.
Overall, this is not a bad watch at all. It has some excellent stuff to offer, but may leave you wishing it was more.
Just editing this to backup unterwegsimkoreanischenD's warning not to watch episode 0 if its available on the platform you watch. It's a weird spoiler filled mish-mash.
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Have a bucket handy
I don’t know how much cutesiness you can take before being in urgent need of a bucket. I’m not good with it, so be warned, there’s one couple whose nausea rating rockets past stratospheric and had me retching for the FF button. Talking of couples, the word incestuous, seems almost ready to spring from my lips. It got so bad that even the celeb posters in the lobby were making out. If it could move it was paired up with something that only needed to show signs of breathing. Compatibility was an irrelevant afterthought if it was there at all. But hey, I’m not a sourpuss, and if it’s a bit of fluffy romance you’re after, then this is definitely your drama!Actually, for once, the leads were the best couple (Lee Sung Kyun and Kim Young Dae) and I really liked both their performances.Not the hottest pairing ever, but they had likeable characters and played them well. Second up in the credibility stakes was Park So Jin and Lee Jung Shin. After that it goes downhill pretty fast…
Unlike most dramas, which start and end well but flag in the middle, this had a great mid-section a passable beginning and a totally forgettable end. Unless you’re an aficionado of PP you can skip episode 15 altogether and not miss anything at all.
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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Stuck in traffic on a very long winded Road Home
My education in Chinese dramas continues apace with this romantic offering. This is 100% about relationship; every sigh, every tear, every regret, every breath, every tender touch, every long lingering look (and there are a glut of them to the point of nausea) is lovingly laid out for you. So if you’re a romance junkie, this one’s totally for you. And the leads make a very creditable job of the chemistry even though the script circumnavigated the globe rather than let them get skin on skin.Quite how they managed to act this well amidst the shambling, third rate budget production going on around them is to their credit, because once it strays into any other territory it’s like sailing through lumpy porridge. I recommend just scooting through and only watching the scenes between the leads in the first half, then skip to the end. You won’t miss anything and then the drama might seem quite good and you’ll be less likely to fall asleep at the wheel.
The ML works as a bomb disposal expert (for once the job matched the personality) however, there’s a laughable lack of procedure around it. Although, it does do a good job of highlighting the stress to the family of people involved in such dangerous work. The FL is cast in the stay-cheerful-be-long-suffering-self-sacrifice-to-the-end part: “I am willing to donate half my husband for the country”. ’Nuff said. But at least she has a professional job and a life of her own. As with most Chinese stuff, it’s got an education emphasis, complete with nifty tips and tricks. This one centres on how to be grown ups and have a long-distance relationship.
The plot has the feel of the writer gets up in the morning and thinks, as they chomp their toast and gulp their coffee, okay I need to go shopping, get the kids to basketball, ring my mother, renew the car insurance, organise a Creatively Exhausted Writers support group meeting and, oh, script the next episode. Hmmm, not got a lot of time to be imaginative today so they can just chat aimlessly for half an hour, then I’ll use that idea I had lying around from the last drama I wrote.
The problem being, they think that every morning so there’s not a lot of forward planning going on with the result that there is very little flow or cohesion, just a random sequence of scenes. Some of the playing out of crises is — well—embarrassing. Obviously where research and experience are absent, fantasy has a ball. Actually there’s very little plot at all and it could all be over and done with in six episodes including plumbing some depth. The whole thing is a perfect definition for “filler episodes”.
Okay you have to have a little bit of sympathy when they obviously had the brief to talk up some barren desert and sell it like it’s prime Manhattan real estate. Not sure what Mandarin word they actually used, but “pretty” is not what springs to mind. Don’t get me wrong here, I genuinely love the outback, but my descriptive words and feelings might sound more like awe inspiring, powerful, unlimited and silent. And I wouldn’t go out there in a skirt and high heels.
As for the dialogue; banal and directionless come to mind with occasional sparks of insight between the leads, as though someone on the writing team had some time to think creatively that day. And the pacing? It’s a very, very long road home and expect to crawl along like you’re stuck in traffic.
There’s not a great deal of understanding about how to build tension using cinematography, editing and soundtrack. Oh, just do normal tracking shots with some random music over the top, then a couple of close-ups—that’ll work. Or continuing to film in an urban location where the wind was so hard into the microphone it almost drowned out the dialogue. At times the editing is really bad, with lots of scenes rammed together like shish kebab on a skewer. Even on HD streaming some of it looked out of focus and badly lit.
On a more serious note, there’s a storyline about a kid being educated away from home, who gets shunted around like a pass the parcel. Even when he was at home, he spent long periods on his own whilst his father worked away. Then we find out that his new main carer has 200 days of business trips a year. I found it profoundly sad and not least because the writing team thought that was a situation they didn’t really need to investigate much.
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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And as if by magic....
I could really rip into this on a number of counts, but I think that would be unfair. Because, on its own terms and in its own genre, it’s quite good and sometimes really good. I try to resist the temptation to criticise something for what it never set out to be, and this one is clearly teenage fantasy land as far as romance and politics goes. Therefore to ask it to be sophisticated is not fair. There is a naivety about it that can get quite eye-rolling, particularly as far as the politics goes. But unlike, for instance, Alchemy of Souls, it is well directed with some good performances that help to carry you through the credibility gaps. But unfortunately there are quite a few of those…But first the good bits. Apart from the CGI, which I’ll get to later, I loved the colour palette for the series. It was rich and saturated and provided a sumptuous backdrop for the action. This was supported by dynamic camera work that helped to focus in on the action.
Having been adapted from a book, there had been some thought put into the formation of the characters which were varied. Because of this, I was never in doubt as to who was who. In general the cast stepped up and delivered, managing to lift an at times banal and clumsy script. You know it’s not good when during the climax you are explaining backstory and the tension plummets. The ultimate villain of the piece however, was fairly cringey. The character was a good idea and Yu Cheng En tried his best, but I don’t think it will be one for his CV. The writing didn’t help him, it was laboured and repetitive. Such a character is hard to get right.
The lovers delivered in spades and there were plenty of opportunities for romantic and playful interaction. I suspect this is the basis for the high rating and if romance is your primary interest, then this is definitely worth a watch. I agree with PeachBlossomGoddess, Hou Ming Hao being drop dead gorgeous doesn’t do any harm and easily papers over any deficiencies in his acting. Lu Yu Xiao melted nicely into his arms and wasn’t too pouty petulant either. There was both chemistry and affection aplenty.
The pacing for the first thirty episodes was very good. It skipped along at a pace that managed to leap across the yawning chasms of the plot holes, giving you no time to reflect on how you nearly crashed and drowned. Unfortunately the last six episodes didn’t make it, more about that in a minute.
Now for the negatives… The basic idea was sound, but the execution of it was sadly lacking. The fantasy magic was an all purpose anti-biotic which cleared up every sort of woe. Just point your fingers and mumble some words that preferably include heart and array, throw in some agonising pain, then without exception it all gets cured. All sorts of previously unheard of miraculous spells and occurrences leap in to quickly dispense with a dilemma. It’s a sign of a badly thought through world building exercise. If the scriptwriter has no concept of how things should work and what the limitations are, then how can the audience invest credibility into it. Yes, it isn’t real, it isn’t possible, it’s fantasy, but, that doesn’t mean that the imaginative element should not have structure and reasoning behind it, rather than just be a convenient way to solve plot problems.
Those last six disastrous episodes… As I said it rips along perfectly well until that is you get to the big plot twist around episode 30. Which instead of landing with a bang, sort of flopped into existence and everything after that just fell apart and underwhelmed. There was too much plot to be adequately explained for the time available and as a consequence the chasms started swallowing chunks of storyline, so that all that was left was random happenings desperately straining to hold onto one other.
But the main reason it didn’t come up to expectations can only be laid at the door of the budget. The CGI and fight sequences were bad. Sorry but there’s no other word for it. The CGI for the qi was very basic and not well integrated into the image. It had a sameness to it that became predictable and unconvincing. The green screens were often lurid instead of subtle, with a colour palette totally out of synch with the overall feel. In a story about warriors, there is naturally an expectation of at least some decent fights. But even the finale followed the same limited point and shoot style and was so easily solved that it made a nonsense of the whole build up beforehand. As for the spinning parasols, I must admit I couldn’t suppress the laughter, you’d think that auto-twirl would have been built into the design, but obviously the props budget couldn’t stretch that far.
This one is for the romance junkies who can overlook its glaring faults.
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Quirky, surreal, warm and friendly
There is a somewhat bizarre plot which meanders along picking up themes as it goes. We go through digressions into crime, music, friendship, blackmail, betrayal, unrequited love, abuse, possible murder etc, all embedded in a wintry slice-of-life, set two hours drive out of Tokyo. It gathers all the themes together, along with a seemingly random selection of self diagnosed failures as characters (with the obligatory oddball viola player - musician’s joke…), but like strangers at a party, they don’t quite mesh. There is a slightly surreal feel that I am coming to associate with Japanese dramas and it has a strange affinity with Sartre’s play, “No Exit” (Hell is other people) where each of the characters wants something from the others which the others can’t or won’t give them. However, this is not a story about Hell, but about acceptance, both at a personal and an interpersonal level.It doesn’t really follow a single plot line, but presents sequences of fragmented scenarios that have a thread running through them. Just when you think it’s all fallen apart, it comes back together at the end.
There are some really good performances from the core cast who hook you in and carry you through. The “playing” of the instruments is a bit unconvincingly painful to watch at times, but that’s a constant gripe in many shows that involve musicians and the actors do a good enough job if you don’t look too closely.
A bit like a meal of leftovers, it’s all hashed together, but tastes good! I was in two minds about how to rate it, but in the end enjoyed it enough to bump it up from ordinary to good.
Note the Easter egg squirrel in the final episode, just before the credits :-)
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Turgid and relentlessly predictable
Look, I’m never going to love a show like this.The first half of this show is a let’s-pretend-we-are-saviours-of-the-poor-downtrodden-unfortunates. The second half is is the usual predictable gangster/corruption stuff. The script totally smacks of being written by someone who has zero understanding of what they are writing about. Everything from the emotions the characters are required to exhibit to the conversations that they have is totally unrealistic and wide of the mark. The gangsters are caricatures and there’s a lot of cringeworthy faux laughing. The plot and actor’s lines were so predictable that I was almost saying it with them—actually I did say it with them on a number of occasions. There’s a credibility gap as wide as ten ton truck in the way they behave. Dressed in plain clothes, they never identify themselves as police, but just wade into fist fights on every possible occasion, randomly throwing in a few gunshots without warning.
Not only that, but so many fragments of plot around the FL’s family hang off the edges of the main action like flailing fish and there is no credible character development. Son Ho Jun as Han Jin Woo simply looked embarrassed about being in the show at all. All the other characters had one mode of being and acted it out from beginning to end because they had no choice. I’m a real fan of Kim Hee Ae and that was why I picked up the show. But this is not one of her best performances.
All I can think is that this was the show where director Ahn Gil Ho learned from his mistakes, because Watcher and Stranger are light years ahead of this drama. But he had different writers to work with on those productions and, well, it really shows.
OK, it’s Sunday night bland entertainment, with nothing except fantasy-land porridge to offer. Was there anything to like about it? I think like is a bit strong… The OST made no impact on me whatsoever. The other production values were uninspiring and perfunctory. I only got through to the end in order to post this review. Jeez I need to go reward myself for diligence!
If you want something like this done properly, then I’d recommend "Live".
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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Straight out of the mould and badly dressed.
Another Chinese romance from the mould. It’s a style that reminds me of a lazy summer holiday, where nothing much happens, the sun shines, there’s a couple of rainy days and occasionally you go see some sights, but mainly hang out on the beach under an umbrella listening to the sounds of waves lapping the shore. In true Chinese fashion, the goodies get the prizes, the baddies get punished and the occasional grey character reaches self improving realisations and regrets their transgressions. All nice and clean, warm and cosy.It’s a pleasurable enough state and let’s face it, we all want that unchallenging moral certainty. Especially in the current global crisis, it’s a place to hide in and recuperate.
However, I must admit that my comfy satisfaction was constantly under threat of disintegration because of wardrobe malfunctions. Poor Chen Xing Xu. I can’t believe that he has ever been so badly turned out in his life. Imagine turning up to work in something cool, and then having to change into a suit disaster in turd brown, so big it looks like an 80s power jacket with the shoulder pads removed, cut so badly that the sleeves pucker and wrinkle at the top and pants that made his bum look saggy. All whipped up in a shoddy material made from recycled plastic bags and bubble wrap. Not be outdone however, Lu Yu Xiao was all dumbed down in a similar shit brown potato sack at one point, and was forced into shoes that looked like steel toe caps on a night out. The only character who looked the part was Dai Xu, maybe he had a clause in his contract…
To be honest, this one didn’t shine above the average for me. The chemistry was a bit lacking, more on his side than hers I think. The scripted murder mystery theme provided a great start but wasn’t really woven into the story very well later on and promised more than was delivered.
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More Alice in Wonderland than Little Women
Loosely based on Little Women is the sort of loose that happens when the elastic in your trackies gives way and they drop to your ankles in a wrinkled heap. Yes they are still trackies, but not obviously so. I spent the first episode distracted by trying to unsuccessfully work out how this drama maps to the book. But I was looking in the wrong place, because, although there are parallels to be found, the map is really in the theme: the significance of money.This is fundamentally a story about money and its sidekick—power (the perennial obsessions of K-dramas, well maybe most dramas actually…). How and why it shapes lives, morals, choices and character. How poverty shapes your mentality and expectations. What you are willing to let it buy and what that does to your integrity. What risks you are willing to take to acquire and keep it. Under what conditions you will let it go. The price that your decisions exact from both you and those around you.
It puts the protectors, helpers, underminers and benefactors of the wealthy centre stage and examines their motives and desires. This is a rare perspective and I can only remember it being the centre of a drama in one other totally brilliant case, “Secret Love Affair” (if you are interested in this aspect, watch SLA, it will not disappoint, although it’s not a thriller).
As you can guess by now, it is not the plot that makes this drama special, (more about that later) although you can simply watch it as a thriller. It’s the examination and unfolding of motive behind the fight for freedom and opportunity in a world that values money over the individual. A society that insists we fight for limited resources to fulfil not only our dreams but our basic survival as well.
It’s almost impossible for us to imagine a society not based on money. But money itself is not of course concretely real, it is simply a universally accepted system of sharing resources that becomes meaningless if we lose trust in it. It is the illusion around which our reality and dreams are built. And if you are going to be fanciful, you could watch this drama as a commentary on the system’s strengths and weaknesses and the approach people take to best work it. Given that it is compulsory to engage in this system, the question as to what is morally acceptable and what is personally justified is core to the unfolding of the narrative.
Having said all that, there are problems in my opinion with how the drama is written and presented. There’s a vibe of the sisters being ordinary people (a reference to Little Women perhaps) who are unwittingly and sometimes unwillingly mixed up in something big.
However, through most of the drama, the sisters don’t display enough realistic, long-term emotional reactions to support their ordinariness in the extraordinary and violent situations that surround them. In a normal thriller we suspend disbelief because the whole thing is not related to any recognisable reality in the first place. Here, particularly in the middle section, I am being made aware of the gap between quasi normality and the world of the story with the result that I am also very aware of suspending my disbelief. And at times I found the approach is not subtle enough to make it work.
Because the women are presented as relative amateurs, there are moments that stretched my credulity to breaking point. For instance, without any preparation and seemingly without backup, they are willing to confront people they think are probably murderers. There are scenes where professionals who would never disclose information to anyone let alone the naive woman in front of them, disclose it. Etc, etc.
There’s an odd mix of the ordinary, the extraordinary and the completely surreal. The more surreal it gets the less the ordinary women at the heart of it are credible. It turns into conspiracy theory central with hallucinogens thrown in for good measure. Whether this was intended as a reflection of the madness that money creates in people is debatable.
The plot gets increasingly bizarre and takes off in strange directions and at times loses impetus. This has a fragmenting effect which leaks tension and can be frustrating. But at other times the sense of confusion and powerlessness is very effective in putting you into the shoes of the protagonists.
Overall, this is an ambitious drama and when it works it really works, and when it doesn’t, it really doesn’t. I’m someone who is prepared to put up with stuff not always working well if an attempt is being made to experiment with something new and different. I think this drama tries to do that, so I was happy to give it the benefit of the doubt, but even my goodwill was tested beyond its limits by the end.
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 reality of hope. A deeply compassionate drama.
Both writer (Park Hae Young) and director (Kim Seok Yoon) know how to create sensitive dramas built around pathos, but with a cutting edge. Kim directed “The Light in Your Eyes” and Park penned the class act that is “My Mister”. You can imagine what you will be getting, and they deliver on it—in spades.At the start there is little to attract in the main characters. They are all struggling to find any sort of meaning in soul-destroying lives that are dominated by a long and exhausting commute to the city from their countryside home. But this writer has a beautiful knack of taking that ordinary exterior and peeling away the layers to reach the vulnerability and struggling humanity within. And by the end of episode 2 you are totally captivated by these self-scored 20/100 characters. Add to that a director and cinematographer who know how to capture the smallest twitch of a muscle in a face and make it speak volumes. And actors like Kim Ji Won and particularly Son Seok Koo, who can work with them to reveal the interior life of a character without words.
As with “My Mister” the raw material at the heart of this drama is family and the unfathomable glue that holds it together despite difference, ambivalence and natural preferences. Essentially they are characters weighed down with who they are, wishing they were something else, ignorant of how to change but trying to work out how to make things different. They are trapped and struggling to emerge, like butterflies, from chrysalises of painfully low self-esteem, guilt and negative thinking. If this doesn’t sound like an attractive proposition, it is the skill and wonder of the whole production to make it compulsive viewing. Each of the characters draws you to themselves and touches your compassion as they struggle towards the elusive future that beckons them.
The plot meanders through their realisations and lurches along with them. In the main it works but occasionally loses its way, particularly later on when time hopping causes inevitable fragmentation. I was not convinced that this disordering of time to create tension was strictly necessary as the depth of the characterisations are sufficient to carry you through. However, imo, it would be counter-productive to enforce a regular development on a drama that is essentially exploring the vagaries of the human psyche with all its winding roads, u-turns and blind alleys. The unevenness of it creates the overall mood and ambience of the drama and reflects the stop-go nature of real life.
The drama features the standard three leads and their relationships; but this is not a standard romance drama. Relationship itself is the focal point, not the falling in love. Essentially it examines how we can approach and be with each other whilst still retaining ourselves. And suggests that the only way we can live with both ourselves and with others is by being honest and taking the hit for doing so, as we work towards self-acceptance and self-understanding. Ultimately it is upbeat, but open ended.
There are no generic characters here. Each one, even the minor players, has been carefully created and presented with depth and there are some wonderful observational details and cameo performances.
Lee Min Ki does such a great job with the character arc of the irrepressible, oblivious and impulsive Chang Hee. His confusion and lumbering realisations are beautifully portrayed and provide a flicker of humour darting through the shadows. How can you not fall in love with him? Especially over the car!
I have an affinity with Yeon Mi Jung and the things she prayed about as a child. The character is played elusively by Kim Ji Won who manages to capture the enigmatic exterior that hides the depth and singularity of her character’s thinking and perceptions. You are always waiting expectantly for what left-field thing will emerge from her mouth. Occasionally the script can feel a little pretentious and self-conscious, but it is mainly because the writer is wanting to explore non-intuitive ideas and trains of thought. If there is a reason to rewatch the series, then I think Mi Jung is it. A second time round, understanding the character arc, would illuminate much of her early actions and responses.
Perhaps the most vulnerable of the three is Yeon Ki Jung, portrayed with empathy by Lee El, who manages to undermine herself at every turn and perhaps elicits the broadest spectrum of responses from both the viewer and the other characters, from exasperation to total compassion.
The interloper into the family is played convincingly by Son Seok Koo who manages to capture the multi-facets of Gu Ja Gyeong from brooding to awkward to nasty to vulnerable. The character and his background provide a disturbing contrast to the rest of the drama and sometimes jarred for me. If there is any flaw in the credibility it comes with the ending for this character. But his time on screen is compulsive viewing and many of the scenes between him and Kim Ji Won are very special, full of nuanced, silent communication and unspoken feelings from both of them.
The cinematography and editing has more the feel of a film to it, as though the camera is just a neutral observer hanging around and we see the action though those non-judgemental eyes. It lingers on contemplative faces and reveals hidden depths. In many ways the whole drama doesn’t criticise or condemn, but tries to simply observe. And in that observation there is the balance and compassion that colours the whole production. Nothing is too polished or self conscious. It draws you in and places you firmly in the action as a participant in this slice of life. Beautifully done.
There is also a very restrained use of a soundtrack, so that often it is the silence that holds you in the moment with the character. There is a lot of simple piano music, ethereal voices and soulful songs, which have been carefully chosen to highlight the mood. Did I catch “So Tender” by Say Sue Me from “Nevertheless” in Ep 11 at 47’, playing in the cafe scene between Yeon Ki Jung and Jo Tae Hoon. I think I heard it earlier with regard to this couple as well.
This was a special drama for me and goes straight onto my personally recommended list.
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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