Sinasina

How old would I have to be to enjoy this, 13?

It's normal for romantic comedies to not be well written, or have a large number of cliches, as long as the romance is fluffy and fun & the rest not too bothersome, then it's not very difficult for me to enjoy them & write a positive review. With Mobster though even the romance is very lacking. Maybe part of it is me having kdrama fatigue, but good gawd this whole very shy elementary school tier romance involving middle aged people is really not doing it for me. It was enjoyable until they started dating, but after that it has gotten really bad. I'm sure the writer thought it would be fine, since the second couple's romance is more mature, but in my view the second couple barely had anything built up before their relationship shifts..
The triangle ends relatively on time, but the second ML is a really annoying character in the first 66%~ of the drama and all of his scenes are very skippable..

As for the rest outside of the romance, it's very very sad. It's super silly and immature, way more so than what we see in an average kdrama that is. Calling this whole mobster / not mobster shebang trash would be perhaps a bit uncalled for, but it's close. Most importantly, all this is not very funny.

The emperor penguin thing is cute, but that's like the only thing..

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It's not my cup of tea!

I understand why someone would like this show, but I could just not get into it. Whether it's the strange, borderline crass comedy, or the obnoxious ML character, the meaningless flashbacks, or just the story in general, I found it very difficult to reach the end. Also the portrayal of art in this show is mildly infuriating, even the romance is not that great, despite the leads having great chemistry & looking great together visually, some of their dialog is just too much to bear. I mean I usually like it, when in a romance the people involved have a significant difference in intelligence, or education, but here it's just too over the top. Then again over the top would have been fine too, but unfortunately the show tries to alternate between serious and silly content without settling with either in a natural way.

I've read in the comment section how happy many people were about the "lack of" a breakup. Personally I don't think editing the last episode this way & then trying to make it right retroactively makes it any different than what we usually get. Despite the twist, in my perception it's still just the usual separation followed by a 5 minute long happy ending. I'm not impressed.

Park Gyu Young was truly outstanding, I'm looking forward for her next drama...

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Before picking this up I saw many reviewers mention how they preferred this over Goblin, but unfortunately that comparison does not make any sense. At first I thought that it could be the nostalgia, but GFB is not that old. This drama came out in 2013, 3 years after Secret Garden.. Maybe it could be popular because of Seunggi's fangirls?

I like Suzy, she seems to be always typecast to act as the same character she is portraying here. At the time of filming this, she's been 19 years old and to me her acting seemed pretty amateurish compared to her later works, but she is still probably the best thing about this drama. She was pretty cute & had some funny moments. I never liked Seunggi and I especially did not like his character here, nor did he have great chemistry with Suzy. (that could be hugely different in Vagaband, I don't know, yet)
Despite all their issues I guess they had their moments, their romance is the reason why I managed to somehow suffer through these 24 episodes. That's right this is one of the longest kdramas ever.

The main problem here is the absolutely terrible writing. In a cheesy a romcom the terrible writing is excusable, but I have the impression, that this was meant to be some sort of epic Sageuk saga and considering how much effort/cost was spent on the sets & the costumes, calling this an ambitious production should be fair, right?! Frankly the romcom parts are just too infrequent and flawed to carry the rest of the drama along. So yeah the terrible writing, it's just difficult to put into words how many problems the writing has and it's not even just the ubiquitous eyeroll inducing scenes. The pacing is off, it takes far to long for the actual plot to start rolling, considering that the first 2 episodes were the best part of the story, while only being a sort of a prequel is saying something. It's often praiseworthy when writers deviate from the typical kdrama plot progression. (kiss in ep6-8>>happiness till ep13-14>> conflict >>finale) However what we had here is far worse, it took absolutely forever for the romance to get anywhere, but forget happiness, they never even had a shred of hope really.
So much time is spent on the gisaeng house and yes initially I thought those gisaeng related happenings were rather interesting, but ultimately what did those women amount to in this show? It feels like a plot device that was nicely set up, but never used in a meaningful way. Let's not even get me started on Yubi's character, sister crazyeyes. All the scheming & war related subplots were really poorly executed. The fighting scenes are badly choreographed, but that hardly put a dent in my impression of this drama. (hypnosis, illusions, ninjas)

I don't like it, when the main force driving the plot is the main characters wanting to lose their cool magical powers. I also strongly dislike it, when the mundane wins over the magical in general. I really shouldn't have started this..

I could go on and on about the aimless writing, one big thing I noticed is that one moment the drama takes itself very seriously and in another it devolves into some sort of slapstick comedy show. Comedic relief is fine after some tearjerking melo, but this just doesn't work here all that well..

TLDR: Don't bother watching this, it's a mess.

~~
Watch Goblin if you haven't watched it yet.
If you want a cheesy historical drama that's actually good, I can recommend Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, Eternal Love instead. That cdrama is nearly as cheesy as this one, but EVERYTHING about it is hugely better.

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I don't regret watching this, but it wasn't a great experience. The first 25 episodes could have been summed up in one - typical kdrama-like - episode. So yeah that's 25x40 minutes of my life wasted. After that the show turns into an enjoyable romance drama that made me smile occasionally, but the comedy isn't very strong here. The writing is bad, there are many eyebrow raising moments, the master Miyagi-like Shifu's antics, or the fire scene in the last episode. Gotta give it to them though, at least they delivered on the whole "boy meets girl" thing & the show reached an acceptable, albeit rushed conclusion. There are some other positives too, such as the chaebol dad, the entertainment CEO & the second leads never really pass the annoyance threshold for melo & angst, the picture is pretty and also the tunes are kind of good too. I mean one shouldn't expect jaw dropping melodies, but some of the vocal performances were really one in a million. (heard some high tones, that reminded me of the aria scene from the 5th Element, but perhaps even more impressive)

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I loved IU in this, she was great, Yeo Jin-goo on the other hand not so much. As for the other characters it's a mixed bag really, there were some great ones & some really weak casting choices. I loved the audiovisual experience, whenever beautiful cinematography meets music this amazing is always a treat.
I did not feel the chemistry between the leads, Yeo Jin-goo's bad acting perhaps? To me it feels like the Hongs tried to recreate the goblin experience, but their writing just did not live up to the task. This is their worst work so far I think. Don't misunderstand it's not bad by any means, but it's like an empty shell compared to Goblin. Even though I think the last episode was pretty good, I just wasn't emotionally invested enough in the characters to really feel the melo, so to say.

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Adults probably shouldn't waste their time with this!

This is one of the worst cdramas I have ever watched. Truth to be told I wanted to drop it after ep5, but I had nothing else lined up & I needed something to watch during my 5 hour workout session. Naturally I have had my fair share of high school & college romance cdramas, but this is perhaps the first time that I felt this bored. People talk about liking slow burn romances & I usually like slow burn romances as well, but there has to be a hook, such as good comedy, or interesting characters, or sometimes even just the audiovisuals. In this show there is nothing like that. Uninteresting characters go about their school lives in a really boring & dragged out way, at least that's what happens in the first 25 or so episodes. (out of 36 episodes) The OST is weird, the visuals are nothing to write home about and even the actors are bad. I don't really blame them though, I mean how well can a 15-16 year old girl act in a supposed college romance story? (and FL is still far better, than the at the time 16-17 years old idol ML)

The last 10 episodes are much better, if I consider those a separate drama that's probably a 6/10, though it's quite difficult to forgive the extremely bad separation plot.

As for the second ML, for the first 25+ episodes he doesn't do anything beyond misunderstanding FL's every little action for FL liking her. After the fifth time I started smashing my fastforward button. His other love line is bad as well. The actor is an adult, but he is no acting genius , that's for sure.

The writers that wrote this worked on Put Your Head on My Shoulder & A Love so Beautiful before. I find it baffling how could those people come up with a script this bad. My disappointment is comparable to when I tried watching Start Up.

Just to say something good about the drama, I found that FL's gradual transformation process was really great. It's not jarring like in Ugly Betty, or other soaps that follow this trope. Another thing that comes to mind is that FL really looks like her mother in this drama. The mom was a phenomenal casting decision & she is probably my favorite character in the drama.
edit: I thought of another good thing! The drama has one "real" kiss scene and I think the way they hid the touching lips was relatively good. A hundred times this over cheek & forehead kisses. (or stupidly playing with angles)

Honestly I don't understand why this drama has an MDL score of 8.3. It's not funny, it only has a little fluff near the final episodes & as I said it's badly acted as well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean sure there are many that get mesmerized by beauty & then proceed to watch whatever happily, but we are watching literal kids here. I'm not sure what the average age on MDL is, but I have some uncomfortable thoughts about this.

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12 year old me would've loved this!

This is a family drama mostly catering to children's tastes. I think 10-14 old children would absolutely love this, but for adults it's not that great. Not only does the drama have giant plotholes, but also the story has very little to offer. I mean sure the FL did a phenomenal job portraying a mystical cathuman, but that's not enough to carry the entire show. The leads may have had okay chemistry, but their relationship had very little substance and the whole thing with ML rejecting FL's advances, despite dating and even living together has been quite frustrating.
Also the whole "rollback" thing is a horrible waste of time, they should've just cut the show short, or come up with something else, like filling 3-4 episodes with fluff instead..


Still at least the show is not trying to be anything more than silly & juvenile. I had some good laughs here and there. Compared with Meow the Secret Boy this one is HUGELY better.

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I have conflicting feelings about this one. Obviously the drama is great, there is no denying that, but I'm a bit disappointed how predictable & cliche the 2 main elements of conflict/drama were and how much time they've wasted on them. (Oh no your mom, oh no my mom .. & reverse love triangle with autistic brother) Ultimately I'm happy how they resolved these things, but it was somewhat draggy both times. The first 4-5 episodes were absolutely top tier, it had one of the best openings that I've ever seen, but then the ball dropped quite a bit. I've heard the production team received many complaints about two scenes in episode 3 (what a great episode it was btw). They could have dialed things down a bit to avoid further controversy, oh well live filming is the worst :-)
The drama received praise for the authentic portrayal of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Yeah sure, the actor did a phenomenal job, way beyond what I have expected of him. (I did not like the actor before) The main problem is I don't like how every time a person with a major disability shows up on korean TV, they would make the actor keep bowing down perpetually. It's like they want to convey a message to the Korean audience, he has a disability, but he is extremely sorry, forgive him, he is bowing down so politely, all the time. Sure, people with this disorder would not meet your eyes in a conversation, but this whole bowing thing is at best stereotypical.

The acting performances were great, the leads were incredible. I have never thought that one day Kim Soohyun would show off the charts chemistry with any actress, but he was really awesome. I think the military did him good, his acting improved a lot, his performance in emotional scenes especially was hugely more convincing than before. I did not really know Seo Yeji before, but I have only praises for the actress. She reminded me of Jennifer Lawrence's best performances. (not Hunger Games). The supporting characters were all extraordinarily good as well, at first I was a bit miffed about seeing 2 out of 5 of my least favorite senior actors in the show, but I guess the casting was spot on, since I got used to them pretty quickly, as opposed to being being super annoyed seeing them in every other drama.

The story despite being a bit draggy at times is certainly above average, the writer successfully delivers on wholesomeness, healing & romance. Sure there are quite a few problems, such as the show could have deserved a lot more depth, it absolutely sucks if I try to judge it as a medical drama.
The comedy is off the charts good, although there was a lot less of it nearing the finale. I have been feeling a bit down lately and I had hard time laughing, I started to doubt whether I can still appreciate humor as I had before, but in this drama there were quite a few moments, when I ended up laughing out loud, or spitting tea onto the carpet, it was sensational and still bittersweet at times. The last episode was great too, thank God it was a sufficiently long happy ending, the kind that I like best, long, but not too long. There was even a major plot twist, that I should've seen coming, but ended up surprised.

Product placements have been becoming increasingly immersion breaking in recent years. This drama has many very clever barely noticeable placements, kudos for that writing interns, but good God those car ads were just too much. There are several scenes specifically purpose written, where we are shown how incredibly good the brakes are on that specific car brand & to top it off all the older unbranded cars kept breaking down.

The deer! The first time I heard the deer making that sound I was like OMG, what the hell is that, but after going on Youtube I had that TIL moment, yep deer can really make a sound almost identical to that. I've seen thousands of deer in my life, but I have never heard them making any crying sound like that, but it seems to be real. For more information check out this YT video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAkgkyeHpOc

The audiovisuals were spot on of course. The OST had quite numerous tracks, it's nice when we don't hear the same song playing 6 times in every episode. There were some really cool lens flare effects, perhaps they used vintage lenses to film some of those bike riding scenes?

Overall 8.5/10 seems fair. This is the best 2020 drama that I've watched so far. I'm sure I will eventually watch it again and I might end up adjusting the score too, who knows. (I liked it a lot more than Crash Landing)

edit: 2020 is over, but thinking about it now I think Hospital Playlist is the better drama, though it's not nearly as fun..

edit2: I decided to up the score a little, nitpicking is fine and all, but this is really a great drama.. :-)

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This drama was quite excellent, 10/10. Yes there are issues such as quite a few dumb decisions by our MCs and some semi obvious plotholes, but still I find that it's much better than dramas such as Master's sun & DoTS, maybe even slightly better than Pinocchio. Honestly I did not feel that the ending was rushed at all, it had everything that's important. I especially liked that every 2-3 episodes there was a little breather from the melodrama. Probably this is the most underrated drama that i've seen thus far. Shin Mina was even prettier than usual, it seems like she gets prettier every year, her figure especially is quite something, if real...

Normally I don't like watching melodramas, but I don't regret watching Tomorrow with You for a second, I'll just need to watch a couple of Running Man episodes to get over it.
edit: Now I'm a lot more experienced with kdramas than at the time of writing this review, this is definitely not a melodrama, it just has a little melo flavor.

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Loose ends, loose ends.. *sigh*

The second season is still relatively close to kdrama perfection, while maintaining the Reply writer's unique style. Also there is nothing that aired since It's Okay to Not Be Okay that comes anywhere near HP2 in terms of raw production value, it's nice to see that Korean television can still do it :-)

The recurring cast members were still brilliant, however compared to the first season there were a few sub par supporting actors cast as patients and their relatives. Then again it's not realistic to expect that a show could get 5+ new AWESOME supporting actors for minor 2-5 minute roles every single episode, so I'm okay with that.

I'm happy how everyone that should've gotten together has gotten together and that nothing particularly annoying has happened in the 12 episodes. The second season is full of funny and extremely touching scenes, I may hate shows that want to drag things out for as many seasons as possible, but I could keep watching HP for 10 years in a more episodic format, no problem. Hospital Playlist is still a strong medical drama, even without all the romance, but I do realize that some people that don't like this genre felt bored during surgery scenes etc.

So why is it not a 10/10?
Something is off with the story pacing. It took way too long to for the 3 new couples to get together & the final episode is extremely rushed & lacking for a series finale. I have the impression that the production team is expecting a season3, or they were at the time of producing most of the episodes. So yes, while I'm happy see Jae Hak's storyline has gotten a closure, but I would have rather had the Chuchu couple resolve the evil mother in law issue, or SongHwa to become a family to Ikjun's son. IkSun deserved a lot more camera time as well. There were so many things I've been looking forward to & almost none of them ended up happening. Admittedly I'm not a fan of open endings, or loose ends, especially loose ends that had a tremendous amount of buildup as is the case with HP2.

So yes, the production team may have done most of the filming with a third season in mind, but the final episode is full of red flags for that. So I no longer hold much hope for s3. With that said I've read in the comment section how people think that the last subtitle line "Thank you for watching Hospital Playlist" means exactly that, but that's probably a minor inaccuracy, because the Korean text may have had "Thank you for watching Hospital Playlist++", so "+++" could still in in the cards, but only time will well.

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It's not great.

I love noona romance cdramas, but this sure does not feel like one. FL is in her late twenties, has a child & is divorced, but acts like a shy 18 year old college student most of the time and her kid has largely no plot relevance. ML is the usual 24 year old domineering CEO, however he devolved into an insolent teen as the story progressed. His character is not very well acted either, the actor did FAR better in Sweet Teeth. I don't see much chemistry between the mains either. Yes, there is a lot of fluff, but it just feels too fake. Like seriously this drama has some of most forced (forced in the sense that it feels weird & fake) hugs and kisses I have ever seen in a romance drama. The reason why it's a 5 and not 3 is, because it's rather low on angst, there are no love triangles worth mentioning & there are just no villainous characters overall. Even the mom is unusually well behaved.
Also like half of the show takes place in a corporate setting, but the writers have forgone the usual crap that goes down in workplace cdramas.

-I must mention that the final reveal about the forgotten ehm incident was the most underwhelming thing ever & the rushed ending left a sour taste in my mouth.

-Also the second lead couple's story was just stupid, I'm sorry.

-As for the third couple, their story is basically educational content to teach us how much better it is to NOT be a sissy. The censors must have loved this.

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I picked this up, because someone in the comments mentioned that this drama's poster is the most misleading one she has ever seen. It's indeed a little misleading, but I wouldn't say that this drama is completely free of triangle makjang.

Jung Kyung Ho is without a doubt the best thing in this drama. However seeing him in Hospital Playlist being a much better version of himself, also having much better chemistry with another actress makes his performance a little disappointing to me. I like Kim So Yeon, but her character was somewhere between bad weird, and two dimensional, if that makes any sense. The rest of the cast were not worth mentioning, even the second couple's story is short and bland..

The main romance in this drama just doesn't do it for me. I'm alright with the supernatural element of the story, but due to the sequencing of events & the absurdity of the whole premise it is just too much for me to accept these two being happily together, at least not so soon.

The romance may not be great, but it's not even the drama's greatest problem. The majority of the plot revolves around corporate infighting, scheming and other similar stuff. It's not only that these things are almost always boring and annoying to watch, but the corporate plot in this drama is a new kind of low I have not yet seen before. (or maybe I have in the cdrama "Love is Sweet") So yes, the writing is just teribad.

It's worth mentioning that despite this drama not being that old, it feels really old school.(98-2005 era) There is a lot of shouting, throwing things around, flipping tables etc that modern dramas fortunately don't have anymore. The second ML is also a very old school villain character.

The ending is weak. Important things are left unexplained and we just get a completely random 5 minute long happy ending.

Ultimately the drama has very little going for it. There is no hook that would make me forgive all the stupid, or annoying things. The melo does not work, the romance does not work, the chaebol procedural part of the drama is just trash and thus the rating of 4.5 seems overly generous already.

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This show is fantastic! Out of all the kdramas I've seen this is the closest to the Reply series (especially 88) in presentation & characterization, but at the same time this show doesn't push the love triangle in a stupid over the top way, which is a huge plus. I mean sure this one is set in present day Korea and it's not a 1-2 women + many guys setup, but the vibe is very similar.
All the characters, including the minor ones are interesting. All the sub-stories are cool. It's great how the drama starts, it's great how it ended and the quality stays consistent throughout. Normally I prefer dramas like WWwSK, or Fight for My Way, but this was a nice relaxing experience without the epic/cathartic moments that those kinds of dramas are known for. It was very funny, but not embarrassingly funny, It was just unreal enough to be interesting.

The casting is basically perfect, even more so than in R88. I hope that I'll see more of these actors in the years to come. The OST was good, though it could have been a bit less repetitive. +

Just to say some negative things: They took the fart jokes way too far and there were some dramaception moments that felt a bit immersion breaking.

Overall it's an easy 10/10, I hope it becomes a cult classic outside of Korea. Looking at the ratings leaves a sour taste in my mouth, I hope it's not because of the gay character, but with Korean viewers you never know...

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Reading the overview & reviews I've expected that this would be a semi episodic drama where every couple of episodes an alter ego would be resolved. I thought it would be like a medical drama that that briefly touches upon some serious topics, with some romantic comedy added in, very much like what I've experienced in "It's Okay, That's Love". That's not it, the medical things are just fluff with no consequences, the FL does not do anything that a doctor should do with a mental patient. Despite this show being a fairly recent 2015 title it feels old, it's very much like a 2005 drama. It has several cliches that have been retired long ago, also at certain points in the drama I felt that it's overflowing with makjang. The second FL did not have a lot of screen time, but whenever she was on I found her character to be completely unnecessary and annoying. I like Park Sojoon as an actor, but oh my god his character was annoying me to no end, he portrayed a very oldschool second ML. The chaebol infighting wasn't interesting at all, even though this topic has been done to death, I've seen MUCH better written and more interesting iterations, both in older and newer dramas. There are also some serious problems with the pacing, there is a lot of filler in the first 17 episodes, the story becomes quite draggy in the middle. This could have been acceptable, but after all that time they only delivered a 10 minutes long happy ending & many of the story threads aren't really resolved in a satisfying way. (like what happens with mom, dad, second FL etc etc) The last 90 minutes are really rushed and I'm not entirely happy with the conclusion. I feel that there were some missed opportunities, imagine an alternate ending where Segi & Dohyon join hands to navigate both their personal & professional lives with great success. Also our villains were dealt with under a minute, it's not as bad as their entire family dying, because they get hit by a meteor, but it's a nearly as random of a conclusion to their story.

Despite all of the above this drama has some outstanding qualities. The main actors were an awesome pair, they've had good chemistry. I have liked Hwang Jongeum already and she did not disappoint. Ji Sung delivered some genuinely impressive acting, maybe the best acting I've seen in the alter ego genre thus far. If I look at the story as a romcom & ignore everything else then it is a very good romcom, there were some exceptionally funny moments. Even though many of the supporting characters were not very well written, the actors playing them were quite good, especially Kim SeulGi, it would be nice to see her as a main lead someday.
The OST is also a bit oldschool, but it's really good, especially the title track.

8/10 seems a bit too high of a rating, but I was entertained enough I suppose..

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I watched this after seeing Pinocchio & While You Were Sleeping. IHYV is very similar to these two, it's written by the same writer who seems to specialize in these procedural supernatural romance dramas, so no surprise there, I wasn't disappointed, for the most part. What's interesting that While You Were Sleeping feels like an improved version of the same underlying story, we even had precognitive dreams in IHYV too, so in originality naturally IHYV wins big time.

So let's begin with the negatives. I really didn't like the love triangle, especially around episode 9-11. In a mystery/procedural drama there is no need for this, since there are plenty of tools to keep the viewer on edge, this defo felt out of place. (Pinocchio & WYWS also had triangles, but those were very weak & benign in comparison) Sungbin's story felt unnecessary once her trial was over. I like the actress, but there was definitely problems with her scenes in the second half of the drama, maybe she served as a tool for some clever product placements that I've missed?! The amnesia plot was annoying & unnecessary,it was a low point in the drama. Also there are problems with drama logic, like can the Korean police be really that incompetent...
Positives are aplenty. I really liked the unusual main couple. Especially Lee Boyoung did an excellent job. I also loved the judge character that is played by the guy I already knew from Running Man. The ending was one of the best I've seen so far in a kdrama. Also the bromance between the female leads was really good, even better than in DoTS. I liked the OST, though it's obviously nowhere near as good as in WYWS. The plot (except around ep9-11) had a nice flow & I liked the theme of the show overall. There are more positives, but there is not much reason to talk about them, overall this is a very pleasant watch with forgivable flaws. I think Pinocchio is still the best in this genre, out of those that I've seen, but this is not far behind.

edit years later: Decided to change my rating to 10, while my criticisms have merit, I have seen very few kdramas I enjoyed more & the rewatch value is really one of the best as well..

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