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This review may contain spoilers
This is obviously very good and as of today there are over two hundred 10/10 reviews on MDL very articulately explaining why. I don't want to waste anyone's time with parroting the same sentiments, so I'll focus on the three things I did not like.
⌲ When I watch slice of life life dramas there is a limit of how many sad, tragic events or emergencies I can take in a single show & this one definitely exceeded that limit. Just because this show has countless brilliant, heartwarming scenes, that doesn't mean it was easy to get through it for me, not at all. Emotional roller coaster-ing is common in this genre, but I feel really too many negative shocking things happened in this one life, sometimes in too quick of a succession.
⌲ In my opinion Kim Seon Ho's guest role is really strange. I could barely believe it that it's really him playing the character in the early episodes & I initially thought they took away a supporting actor's job to give the big star a cameo, but that is most probably not the case. Nonetheless this is really immersion breaking to me, after his character reunited with Geum Myeong he has "become" a completely different person. He has jarringly transformed from an interesting but flawed person into a guy that is -how can I put this- serves a fan service role to women, like how when people accuse various Asian dramas to be pornography for women, this is the kind of main character they are visualizing, I think.
⌲ And finally let's talk about the poet dreams. Poets are extraordinarily over represented in kdramas for some reason, but I think this is really not a great fit here. An extremely poor & smart adolescent girl, who has already gotten many slaps from life would never ever dream of becoming a poet by trade. As well made as the plot around this is throughout the entire show, it's just too absurd to me..
For example imagine that in an alternate timeline Ae Sun's dream had been to become simply just famous & near the end of her life she became a renowned poet due to a combination of talent and her extreme life experiences fulfilling promises made just the same ...
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As for scoring the drama I decided to go with 9. I understand why it's so highly regarded, why almost everyone is rating it at 10, it's just that I think Reply 1988 is much better than it & When Life Gives You Tangerines had moments that were really hard to get through at various points in the show. Of course entertainment means different things to every one of us & it's not really unreasonable that someone would watch this & think that this is the best thing they've ever seen. I just don't feel like giving a show a 10, when I to an extent feel relief that it's finally over.
There is also the fact that this show released at a time when it has been two forevers since another slice of life kdrama came out that could even come anywhere near this level of quality and plot quantity.
⌲ When I watch slice of life life dramas there is a limit of how many sad, tragic events or emergencies I can take in a single show & this one definitely exceeded that limit. Just because this show has countless brilliant, heartwarming scenes, that doesn't mean it was easy to get through it for me, not at all. Emotional roller coaster-ing is common in this genre, but I feel really too many negative shocking things happened in this one life, sometimes in too quick of a succession.
⌲ In my opinion Kim Seon Ho's guest role is really strange. I could barely believe it that it's really him playing the character in the early episodes & I initially thought they took away a supporting actor's job to give the big star a cameo, but that is most probably not the case. Nonetheless this is really immersion breaking to me, after his character reunited with Geum Myeong he has "become" a completely different person. He has jarringly transformed from an interesting but flawed person into a guy that is -how can I put this- serves a fan service role to women, like how when people accuse various Asian dramas to be pornography for women, this is the kind of main character they are visualizing, I think.
⌲ And finally let's talk about the poet dreams. Poets are extraordinarily over represented in kdramas for some reason, but I think this is really not a great fit here. An extremely poor & smart adolescent girl, who has already gotten many slaps from life would never ever dream of becoming a poet by trade. As well made as the plot around this is throughout the entire show, it's just too absurd to me..
For example imagine that in an alternate timeline Ae Sun's dream had been to become simply just famous & near the end of her life she became a renowned poet due to a combination of talent and her extreme life experiences fulfilling promises made just the same ...
---
As for scoring the drama I decided to go with 9. I understand why it's so highly regarded, why almost everyone is rating it at 10, it's just that I think Reply 1988 is much better than it & When Life Gives You Tangerines had moments that were really hard to get through at various points in the show. Of course entertainment means different things to every one of us & it's not really unreasonable that someone would watch this & think that this is the best thing they've ever seen. I just don't feel like giving a show a 10, when I to an extent feel relief that it's finally over.
There is also the fact that this show released at a time when it has been two forevers since another slice of life kdrama came out that could even come anywhere near this level of quality and plot quantity.
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