Salatheel

Underrated and undervalued

I wanted to write a review for this drama because I think it is vastly underrated. Reading the comments it was clear that the toxic elements in the main relationship were a serious problem for a lot of people. As far as I’m concerned, showing toxic relationships is not a problem as long as the consequences are also honestly shown. And for me, this drama does that. There is a beautiful moment of show-not-tell in the very last scene which I will write at at the bottom as a spoiler. And that moment spoke volumes to me.

I thought it a beautifully insightful show about the types of relationships that happen in your inexperienced early twenties, when you are trying to live the fantasy of your adolescence and start to realise that a great deal more is required of you than you had expected. That however much you assumed it was going to be possible, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Love it seems, is not some magical thing that waves its wand over you and suddenly Cinderella is dressed for the ball. Excitement is not the only necessary ingredient or even the main ingredient. Trust, not manipulation, must be there and that is something that you need to work out how to build and then maintain.

Song Kang did a masterful job as the fb Park Jae Eon. So good in fact that there were many times I just wanted to slap him (metaphorically speaking). His character’s arc is about reliance on sex as the answer to all problems and what it takes for him to realise it is not the only answer and sometimes absolutely the wrong answer. A criticism would be that not enough time was spent on Park Jae Eon. His character transitions were there, but I could have done with a little more help, especially towards the end, in recognising them and understanding them. Time could have been stolen for it by omitting the somewhat bland relationship taking place in the office. As a viewer you need to work a bit, don’t just notice Jae Eon’s jealousy or his domesticity, but realise what those things mean.

Similarly, Han So Hee was also very good as the conflicted and self-doubting Yoo Na Bi. Again her reasoning was not always explicitly stated but hinted at all the time. Of the leads, only Chae Jong Heop as Yang Do Hyuk had a straightforward role which was because there was no significant character development. He played the nice guy nicely, what more can be said. It was not a demanding role. There was lots to like in the relationships of the supporting characters, which looked at different hurdles to be crossed in the relationship game. In particular Lee Ho Jung as Yoon Sol stood out.

This drama is not a romance about getting love right and living happily ever after. It’s about getting love wrong. It invites the viewer to observe the mess that we make of things with each other and what might be required to muddle along in a better way.

It is a good script, with credible dialogue, brought convincingly to life by an able female director and good actors. It showcased some great artworks (Na Bi’s sculpture at the end was stunning) and some beautiful cinematography. And for once, because it was a Netflix original, the sex scenes were realistic and believable.

This drama does not lay it all out for you, but requires your attention to detail and some thought. To really get the most from it I would recommend that you watch it twice (it’s only 10 episodes long, so not too onerous to do that) and track the development the second time round. You will see and understand much more once you know where it’s headed. If you are prepared to put in a little effort, it will not disappoint.

Spoiler ahead…



Spoiler ahead…



In the last scene, Na Bi almost drops Jae Eon’s hand when she sees Do Hyuk in a cafe with another girl. The look of naked panic and vulnerability on Song Kang’s face is what spoke volumes to me. Na Bi will leave Jae Eon behind quite quickly and he knows it. It is not Na Bi who will be hurt by this relationship. On the contrary she will gain confidence. He is the one who will be licking his wounds. I just hope to any sort of god that he doesn’t go to Paris with her, that would be just too painful!

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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Been there, seen it, done it all before... and better

There’s a strange contradiction in the first part of this drama. It centres around sexual abuse and the trauma caused by it, but signally fails to reflect the distress caused from nasty situations created by the plot. In similar situations of threat and vulnerability, the abuse victims experience fear and trauma, whereas the lead characters treat it almost as a joke, particularly Ma Yi Deum, and walk away unmarked. If the viewer accepts the experience of the lead characters, which is technically where their allegiance should lie, then their only option is to belittle the experience of the “victim” characters. It is an uncomfortable marriage of the serious and the trivial, of drama and romance tropes which initially made uncomfortable viewing for me.

I’m not sure what the intention was, to lighten up a heavy topic or to show the character Ma Yi Deum in an unfavourable light so that character development was more pronounced, perhaps. If so, it did itself no favours and the overall impression was that abuse is something that a determined personality can sail through without being seriously affected. Dream on.

Having said that, the tone of the drama changed towards the mid section and I found it easier to warm to the character Ma Yi Deum. Jung Ryeo Wan did a great job and I found her convincing in the part and wonder if this was why she was chosen for “Diary of a Prosecutor/War of Prosecutors”, where she also did a great job in a far superior drama.

Heo Sung Tae as Baek Sang Ho is good in this, and when you look at his filmography you can see he knows how to pick a good drama. He’s an actor that doesn’t bask in the limelight but always turns in a good performance. He completely out-acted Joon Kang Ryul in every scene where they were together. Joon had three facial expressions and thoroughly worked them all into overtime.

The other actors got the job done and to be honest there was little to be explored in the mundane script.

Once the main theme of the drama kicked in it changed into fairly standard thriller in terms of the plot which was predictable and clunky. However there is one moment of ridiculous plotting which defies all credibility and other stupid moments that pissed me off and in the end I just got too bored and gave up. There’s only so many times you can watch this plot when there is nothing original or really engaging in the production to keep you going.

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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Bad copy of bad originals

You can clearly see the American influence in this production and to be honest it doesn’t sit well. This is the Korean version of CSI/NCIS and it has all the same weaknesses as the originals. Instead of the more usual focus on the machinations of internal politics, the slow unfolding of a crime, the in-depth character interactions (imo the strengths of Korean crime dramas), we have a series of crimes dealt with in one or two episodes and some two dimensional characters whose personalities have been clearly modelled on the American versions. Everything skims along the surface, with no depth and no character deviation or development.

Crimes are solved in superficial and ridiculous ways in double quick-time and there’s a load of spurious criminal psychology. The convenient plot devices stack up and all credibility is trampled. The young female prosecutor seems to have inordinate amounts of time to hang around watching autopsies and never has to do anything boring like sit at her desk and work. She has a penchant for doing stupid things that get her into life-threatening situations from which she always miraculously escapes. Horrendous experiences abound with zero effect on characters who bounce back to what they were in as much time as it takes to run to the next scene. And just to increase the air of unreality, the director requires the actors to really ham it up…

If you like the style of CSI then you’ll probably like this. Personally I think it’s a really bad imitation of a bad American original.

What my rating means: 1 - 3+ Totally unbearable, but often compulsively watchable as you really can’t believe that it can be this bad.

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The show didn’t deserve the quality of its actors

I write my reviews as I watch a show and often most of it is written by episode 8 and I tweak it where necessary as I finish watching. So I wrote something for this show, then found that I was watching a totally different drama in the second half.

The start of the show is a touchy-feel of romance, a pinch of mystery, a spoonful of trauma, a litre of tears and absolutely no spice. Mix all ingredients in the bowl and bake for 8 long hours to create a MacDonalds style bun - bland and inflated with not a lot of substance and awash with OTT sentimentality.

Then, about two thirds of the way through it changes completely. I could see the plot twist coming from four episodes previously and was thinking, please don’t go down that route, that’s just way too obvious and cliché. But it ignored my advice and blundered on with a totally predictable and off the wall plot involving a complete psycho with murder, mayhem, memory loss and every other cliche in the book.

Then in the last couple of episodes it found a balance and ended on its best effort.

But somehow through all of that it was watchable and what made it so was the acting. This show really does not deserve its leads. Ji Chang Wook and Choi Soo Young put in really good performances that were way better than the sentimental script and ridiculous plot deserved. They have very believable chemistry, but Ji Chang Wook always manages to have good chemistry and being such a likeable person in RL I’m sure he makes it very easy for actresses to be relaxed around him.

Not only them but the raft of experienced supporting actors really kept it afloat when it was in danger of going under. Especially Nam Tae Hoon (Jang Seok Joon) who put in a sensitive, believable and moving performance. According to his bio on MDL he has only had very small parts in the past, let’s hope this launches his career and he gets better parts in the future.

I criticise thrillers for not doing the psychology right, so now I’m going to do it here because this one really bugged me.

Censorship and taste are strange bedfellows. You can have as much gory, vicious, annihilating, sick and twisted violence as you like, but whatever you do, don’t show the real impact of the trauma which violence begets. And in the first half of this show we had another sanitised version. The sentimentalisation can be just as sick as the gory violence. It pretends that a sickly smile and a nicey-nicey attitude can paper over all woes, and healing from them just needs someone “nice” to smile at you so you can learn how to behave “nicely” in public. I really wish it was that easy…

OK rant over.

So this one is a mixed bag and I’m finding it difficult to know how to remember it and rate it. I think I’m just going to have to give the credit to the actors for pulling it off.

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. a tragedy and a farce.

The structure of the plot is great, the exposition is credible but the roll-out is often farce. What do I mean by that? Well the structure is deciding things like A betrays B, the exposition is the world building around it and the roll-out is how everything actually happens. And how it happens is the difference between credible and ridiculous.

There were three different directors for this drama. And my perception was that there were three distinct styles to the beginning, middle and end. The beginning was solid, but the middle was eye-rolling. Even a daytime soap would have struggled to match the melo that swept all before it. It was not in general the fault of the actors (Lin Jing excepted), imo, although they all did a nice line in pop-eyed surprise at some point.

The OTT voice acting, the cringe-worthy false laughter, the overly dramatic editing, the piling up of catastrophe on catastrophe, the average script, the relentless impossible fights and tedious predictability, all added together to take their toll. Getting people into a tight spot is relatively easy, getting them out of it dressed in the shreds of credibility requires ingenuity and imagination and tbh there simply wasn’t enough of that to go round.

Occasional moments in the first half but much of the second half provided me with a lot of laughter. Unfortunately, in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons. The pinnacle was the prince and the candle. If you’ve seen it, you won’t forget it. It took me out for at least a minute of convulsive mirth.

Apart from lots of loose ends for most of the characters, the last 6 episodes largely redeemed the deficiencies of what had come before. Although the emotional stakes were ramped up, this director turned down the wailing melo with the result that it really made an impact. Ethan Juan did a great job of Wuji and his voice actor, Ma Zheng Yang didn’t let him down. But unfortunately not everyone was as fortunate and the ranting and maniacal laughter continued in some quarters.

Somewhere underneath however there is something to praise in this drama. Even if the CGI and the unbelievably tacky military costumes (the sort that are garishly awful and look like something your mum ran up on the sewing machine for a float at the Lord Mayor’s Parade) left a lot to be desired. It had some interesting characters, a great plot structure, good twists and to start with some sizzling chemistry (well on ML side at least). Admittedly that paled into a sort of fond married couple dynamic later.

It rips along at a cracking pace and drags you along with it and there’s enough in there to satisfy most tastes and desires. So, if you’re the type to not notice the glaring faults and you can take rampant excess in your stride, go for it, you’ll love it. There’s plenty of folks that do.

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Messy characters take centre stage

The reviews on this one are quite mixed and I can understand why. It isn’t a standard approach and if you come wanting a fast paced snappy storyline like “The Judge Returns” or “Again My Life” then you will be disappointed on a number of fronts. This is less about plot and more about how character and behaviour are shaped by experience, morality and ethics. Ultimately it examines trust and the sacrifices you have to make to build it. Swapping the vulnerabilities that you know for ones that are unfamiliar to you and having the courage to rely on others to cover your back. It takes characters locked by circumstances in their individual boxes and follows what happens to them when they choose to open the lid and escape from their isolation.

Unlike the dramas I mentioned above, where there is so much emphasis on rolling out the slick, clever plot twists that there is no time for things to go really pear shaped for the team of heroes (something I find annoyingly unsatisfying) in this drama there is real pain for the protagonists. Their scheming does not just knock over the villains and outwit them at every turn. They suffer serious setbacks and take the hits for the things they try to do.

I had a bit trouble in the first few episodes latching onto what I felt were pretty unlikeable characters. But I’m glad I persevered, because the richness of character is a real feature of the drama and gradually they wound me in, kept me watching and turned the tables until I was caught up by them. All of them are imperfect, protagonists and villains alike, and their faults are on full display. In fact that is the focus of the character growth.

It was a good ensemble effort and most of the cast stepped right up to the plate and gave some convincing performances. Personally, I didn’t particularly care for Lee Tae Ran’s performance as Jang Gyeong Ja, she didn’t have the depth and overplayed the melo.

Yes, as some of the reviews have pointed out, it slows through the middle, but that didn’t cause me a problem because there was always plenty of sub-text to think about and reflect on. in fact, rather than my usual binge habit, I wanted to take this one more slowly, so that I could appreciate the subtleties written into the excellent script.

The plot did have a number of holes in it but overall it stood up, had some decent twists and turns and as it was not a case of characters serving the plot, but rather the other way around, I was happy to just go along with it.

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A mix of really good and confusingly bad.

This was a difficult to rate drama, because it was both impressively good and also confusingly bad. I would divide it into first two thirds good, last third missed the mark. What really worked in this drama were the central characters and their relationships. Throughout the scenes which were set outside Tanqi, there was a compelling story which involved the building of their relationships. It was the heart of the drama and provided an anchor for the whole narrative.

As a viewer I needed this anchor because the raft of characters that were introduced was extremely confusing. I found that I could just about keep up with which sect they belonged to, and the costuming helped here, but really lost it at times in terms of who was allied to whom and the history of the various characters’ interactions. As a result, I felt like I was tossed on the waves and in danger of drowning some of the time.

However, when the focus of the story moved to Tanqi, about two thirds through, the anchor was also set adrift. The intrigue plot simply felt like it got out of hand and was a force on its own, dragging the writer and the characters along with it. Somewhat like the effect of too much power in the hands of someone not big enough to contain it. The interactions between the main characters were disrupted and their appearances seemed to be reduced to matters of convenience, destroying the strength of the drama in the process. In fact one character was parked up in a weird sub-plot for virtually the whole of the last third.

There’s a lot that could be said about many other things, but there are also a lot of great reviews already written that discuss them, so I’ll keep this short. Just two points; when my favourite character was lost in the tea house, I was just gutted. I couldn’t go on for quite a while and I’m never going to forgive the writer. RIP. And secondly, did anyone else think that the romance interest was set up wrongly and they should have just swapped partners? I couldn’t find any reason to pair them up in that way. It made no sense and very little chemistry.

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Lots to like but ultimately failed to convince

There was so much to like in this drama, the performances were good, the script was tight and the characters well drawn. The plot really held your interest and it managed some good twists, even if you could see some of them coming. But right at the heart of it was a major flaw as far as I was concerned, that undermined the whole thing. And no, it wasn’t the perceived immorality of forbidden love.

The fact that Edward Chen makes such an excellent job of being an immature, bratty teenager and the writing for him is spot on, makes the romantic relationship all the more difficult to understand and believe. I simply couldn’t credit that the character of the FL would be at all interested in him as a lover. Their relationship simply did not gel for me and I had to just suck it up and move on.

Plus, it’s really hard to get past the unprofessional attitude of the FL in the drama. She behaves so badly, so often, that I ended up really not liking or respecting her at all. I don’t have to like the characters to rate the show, but when it’s a romance, it’s sort of necessary to at least warm to the lead couple.

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 sentiments are worthy, the drama is is not

I was hoping for more from this drama with an MDL rating of 8.5 (at Feb 2023), but it failed to deliver, mainly because the writer has little grasp of how people actually talk and interact with each other—and it’s nothing to do with the subs. The script is occasionally insightful but mostly a clumsy, preachy, info-dump with totally non-credible convenient coincidences and unfathomable leaps of logic. The characters are strange, half-baked affairs that don’t have much depth to them. The overall result is chicken stock with some minuscule bits of interesting stuff floating around in it.

I wasn’t that impressed by the acting either. Although with this script it’s going to be a challenge delivering the lines and nothing is helped by the stilted directing. The supporting cast were not given enough of the story line and they felt like spare parts just wheeled in to lubricate the plot when necessary. I think Hoshino Get as Shima did the most creditable job.

The writer has chosen to highlight some current social issues, and yes, they are worth highlighting. But… There is little room for the viewer to form their own opinion from what they see. Instead of sympathetic emotions arising naturally, we are told (as if we are attending a sociology lecture) in strangely manufactured voice-overs and unnatural conversations what the problem is and how we should feel about it. All too common an approach at the moment, I’m afraid. As though I can’t be trusted to come up with an appropriate empathetic response all by myself, but need to be forcibly spoon-fed a sanitised, acceptable attitude. So instead of a natural compassion flowing from me, there was just a somewhat cold, cerebral understanding. As though I’d been provided with the correct answers so that I could pass the exam.

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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Wholesome apple pie

OK it’s no secret that I’m not fond of romcoms, but this one is good enough to win me over. (Thanks to Zogitt for the recommend.)

There are absolutely no surprises and it follows the tropes and clichés to the letter. You can tick them off as they come up: random football, pretend boyfriend, mistaken identity, accidental kiss etc, etc… But that doesn’t really matter with this one because the courtship is so sweetly done, with lashings of delightful flirtatious banter.

It’s full of gentle humour and is such an easy watch to chill out to. No adrenaline rushes or cringeworthy moments, no whiny manipulation or cold arrogance—just wholesome apple pie. The two leads pull it off admirably as two people finding their way to being together as they bump over the minor speed humps placed in their way. They did the psychology right for the FL which led to some beautifully touching exchanges between the lovers.

The secondary couple are a little more stilted and less easy to ship, but engaging enough. Though I’m wondering if their scenes might have been written by an assistant writer as they have more of a pedestrian quality to them.

Basically, the script is a 12 step instructional program on how to negotiate a relationship like a grown-up. And I’m being literal here, there is quite an educational tone to it and after we’ve done the obligatory PP, it does get a bit medical education for the masses and lost me somewhat in the process. But it’s way more palatable than its companion drama, “Meet Yourself” which is basically a glacial-pace (fictional) docusoap, whitewashed nicely.

Unfortunately, about three quarters of the way through it runs out of plot and the problems get solved in the background, which was pretty unsatisfying. The script lost its edge and became very ordinary and the pace really dropped off as it bumbled along to the end.

The opening titles tell you everything you need to know about the story in bite size, so if you don’t like what you see in the first one and a half minutes, then you can duck out without wasting any more time.

Be warned, the soundtrack is not just bad, it’s abysmal. There’s an inexplicable cocktail of operatic arias, from Traviata (drinking song) through to Carmen (habanera) that don’t seem to have any relevance to the action they accompany (with a splash of Beethoven and Mozart thrown in for good measure) or, you can suffer some unbelievably naff lyrics (maybe something got lost in translation) set to hotel lobby style arrangements. And my taste in clothing is just a tad different to the ML, who gets totally swoony over an absolute shocker of a dress worn by the FL and as for her shoes, well they were just plain ugly. I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.

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 bit all over the place, but really hit the spot on occasion

We all know the romcom/romantic drama plot beforehand, but just have to be willing to forget that episode 7 means that they will hug, episode 10 means they will kiss, episode 14 means they will be breaking up etc etc and "The Master’s Sun" is no different. Perhaps it is worth remembering, as I write this in 2022, that it is 9 years old and still watchable, which is worth a great deal and should therefore be forgiven if some of it seems hackneyed. It was probably not so when it first came out.

The towering strength of this drama is So Ji Sub as The Master, Joo Joong Won. Yes he plays the standard rich, cold, arrogant ML, but he does it with a believeability rating of 10+ which outshone the Sun (Gong Hyo Jin as Tae Gong Shil) and all the other little moons and asteroids circling around it. For once, the writers gave the character a credible reason for his attitude and So Ji Sub revealed it in every scene. For the first half of the drama he was the compelling watch. Not to say that Gong Hyo Jin and other cast members gave a bad performance, but it was standard fare.

The plot was a bit all over the place. It introduced short story lines for individual episodes, particularly at the start, but that eventually became annoying as it fragmented the main thrust of the story. There were also other threads and backstory to fill out the time. Joo Joong Won’s was the best of them. The backstory for Tae Gong Shil was very badly handled.

Although the Hong sisters wrote some really enjoyable interactions, especially around the love triangle, they really did scrape the barrel regarding reasons why the leads shouldn’t really be together. Some of them were understandable, but at other times, they seemed convoluted to the point of complete confusion and I had no idea what motives the writers wanted me to pick up on. The whole of episode 16 was an annoying waste of time as we went around that loop yet again.

I wanted to give this a better rating than I eventually did because it really tried to get there, but just kept not quite reaching it. I don’t think the writing was sufficiently tight to get the dynamics right over seventeen episodes. It would have worked better with the modern tendency on platforms to commission a shorter length of 12 episodes. I will say that this drama was a far superior watch to the other offering of theirs that I have ventured into—"Alchemy of Souls," which was so badly written and directed that I dropped it!

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 film script became a drama that works

Initially I dropped this show but came back to it later, and I’m glad I did. There’s a lot that could be better about it, but the heart of it is very good. What interested me was that a film writer (Yoo Young Ah), wrote a drama that filled 16 hours with a plot that could have serviced a two hour movie, and managed to pull it off.

Movies, like short stories, revolve around one basic idea. To try and do more is actually to do less because you don’t have the space to properly explore them. So, here she takes the basic noona/chaebol romance, stripped of any excess emphasis on politics, secondary romances, plot twists (the normal complexities written into long dramas) and plumbs the depth of it. Although I don’t think the characters had enough shade written into them to give them the full three dimensions, Park Bo Gum acted his heart out and gave a a really convincing performance, particularly towards the end.

I doubt there’s anything more than that comment, insightful enough to add anything to the already abundant comments in other reviews.

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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A lot to like, but flawed delivery

Essentially this is a love story set against the background of the Gwangju Uprising. It is not so much about the politics but rather a serious piece of social commentary that explores the impact on the people involved. There is a lot to like about this production that carries you through the flaws in the plotting, writing, staging and direction.

The story centres around coercion on multiple levels: personal, family, business and political. We all make choices in life that reflect our response to current circumstances and when those circumstances turn increasingly oppressive the trigger point for each individual is different. Although our choices are our own to make, what we decide to do will impact those around us. At what point does the greater good triumph over family responsibilities? What is the cost to the individual if they choose family? What is the fallout if they choose the greater good? What is the tipping point, if there is one, to change from one to the other?

The drama sets up a number of scenarios to explore these dilemmas: from the nurse who has been impacted by her father’s decisions, to the student who chooses action regardless of family. The drama illustrates the human and emotional costs involved and shows that social change is only possible through the sacrifice of not only innocence but also the innocent.

The pluses of this drama are the performances, not just by the leads, Lee Do Hyun and Go Min Si, but also some of the supporting cast. Oh Man Suk was excellent as Hwang Ki Nam and had a very credible ruthlessness. Lee Sang Yi as Lee Soo Chan made a memorable impression as a good man forced to recognise and embrace reality. The lovers had a beautiful and believable chemistry and that made it easy to go along with their instant love.

There are also some very good character development arcs, as various characters get to grips with these issues. For me Lee Soo Chan, who is memorably played by Lee Sang Yi, is the best illustration of wilful ignorance to action. But others in the story are forced to come to terms with themselves in less favourable lights. There is a sense that we all would hope to be a hero, but the show reveals the courage needed just to survive, let alone take action, and does it with a certain amount of compassion.

Although the concepts within the drama are well thought through and delivered by the writer, Lee Kang, the actual structure and plotting is not always good. There are many times, particularly with the leads, where motivations are forced, or jarringly out of character, in order to serve the purposes of the plot.

The direction did little to help the lacklustre tension and was far too static and slow. It was in the mode of a romance which means it failed to do justice to the dynamics of the setting, which was in the middle of an uprising. At times we needed to see more anxiety and less stoicism. There needed to be more frequent and more marked changes of pace. This was partly the script but the greater responsibility lay with the director and how the scenes were played out and edited. Passages of dialogue in dire situations were delivered in calm measured ways, instead of urgent, desperate whispers. The editing interrupted impending threat by giving the actors all the time in the world to be romantic. It also often jumped erratically between the different scenarios leaking tension like a sponge, rather than building it in layers.

Overall, this is a good drama and well worth watching if you are prepared for patches of frustration along the way. It provides good food for thought and reveals multiple perspectives to reflect on.

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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A promising fledgling trapped in a cage of romance tropes.

This drama was a pleasant surprise that exceeded my admittedly low expectations. There was a straightforwardness and believability about the writing, and the delivery of the lines by the central leads, Im Si Won and Shin Se Kyung, that enhanced the reality of the story. The attitude of the FL was credible given her background. She was written with some depth to her, unusual in romance dramas. The pressures and considerations around her profession as a translator were well illustrated and interesting. I must admit that I’m pretty hopeless at learning languages but I do have an appreciation of how a language shapes your world. After all, you can only know that you experience things that you have words for.

The serious nature of the topic under discussion at the start was well treated, with echoes of DP, another drama that explores institutionalised bullying. The ML had some of the expected personality traits: cold, unresponsive etc, but he was given a credible reason for them in his background. The drama did a reasonable job of showing us the steps of his transformation without completely turning our frog into a prince charming.

The characters of the leads were non-standard for romance and they were well fleshed out and believable. With two unconventional and interesting leads one wonders whether it was necessary to have such a prominent secondary couple. The mood of the drama was more akin to “I’ll see you when the weather is fine” or “Just between lovers”, both of which emphasised the primary romance, with less than usual time given to the secondary one. We really needed to spend more time with our main couple to understand the subtleties of their interactions with each other. Sometimes the time lines were twisted and there was an inexplicable reaction happening before the motivation that explained it, which was confusing and unnecessary.

According to kdrama tweets on Twitter, (https://twitter.com/iconickdramas/status/1347390682848129025?lang=en) this is Park Shi Hyun’s first outing as a lead writer, having been an assistant writer to Kim Eun Sook who wrote “Goblin”, “Descendants of the Sun” and “Mr Sunshine”. If this is the case, Park is definitely to be commended and encouraged because it shows promise and it’s faults can at least be understood if not forgiven.

Having mentioned faults, let’s go there and explore them. I think that one source of the problem as far as I’m concerned was trying to fit a non-standard romance into a standard formula with a standard treatment. In the process the subtlety was trashed and a great deal was lost in translation. The natural flow of the story seemed to be forced in some places and stifled in others by the rigid application of standard romance tropes and editing choices. The relationship between the two leads was forced. The writer hardly gave it time to develop before pulling it apart on cue which seemed totally inappropriate for this drama. As far as I’m concerned, in order to reveal the natural development of the characters it needed it’s own non-standard form. In particular, the episodes around two thirds of the way through lacked character integrity for me.

Unfortunately we were treated to the tedious long frozen gazes that seem to plague romance dramas. Sorry, but I’m so over that style of directing and editing. I find it unnatural, weird and incredibly dated. You know that very soon it will identify an era that was very OTT and laughable. In fact it seems like that to me right now. I imagine that it is all about live broadcasting, allowing viewers to have long lingering hot-shots of their favourite crushes. But this was a Netflix series, watched on-line where you can freeze the frame yourself and gush in the privacy of your own bedroom (or whatever you want to do…). So why?

I felt that Park Shi Hyun wanted to write something different and was being constrained by outside forces to conform to a norm. The result was a strangely unsettling experience full of cliched romance production values and lip bump kisses. It really had the potential to be so much better than that.

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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