Sinasina

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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I don't even know why I started watching this. The subject matter is really far outside of my comfort zone. Typically I don't like Joseon era dramas (hats, politics, hats again)& I especially loathe oriental medicine as a whole, I think that it's a 50 billion dollar scam industry. This drama too often feels like a paid advertisement for that industry, oriental doctors & real doctors coexisting/cooperating harmoniously, how nice!

Why did I give it 7 stars still? Well, the humor is pretty good, albeit it brings nothing new to the "oh no I found myself in the age of Camelot, or knight of the round table in modern London" genre. It's full of embarrassing jokes, that are almost difficult to watch at times. The romance is good, there is more than enough chemistry between the leads & there is no love triangle. The story could have done without the trivial & typical hospital politics stuff. I'm not entirely satisfied with how the show ended either, first we had the typical noble, let's separate, because I'm needed back there & then the story concludes with a 5 minute long happy ending.

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One of the strangest cdramas I've seen.

When earlier today I was watching episode 25 of this drama I was wholly prepared to rate it at 6, write a few perfunctory lines & move on to the next drama. If I want to be entirely honest, up until that point we have not gotten anything special, ignoring how unusually pretty the leads were in the drama that is. I mean sure over time the chemistry between Xiao Zhan & Yang Zhi has improved tremendously to the point that I could barely believe it, but there was not much else going on. The leads shared an extremely shallow, borderline juvenile relationship that followed the the usual cdrama templates, involving a really stupid breakup due to ehm reasons. The secondary love interests were annoying in the early episodes, but they have not overstayed their welcome, so actually love triangle haters can safely watch this show, but I digress. The point is that basically up until the last 3-4 episodes I perceived this drama as kind of a shallow idol drama with no value beyond the fluff and oh boy there sure was quite a bit of fluff, were there like what 30 kisses before the rolling credits? Then suddenly things have turned real... Cdramas simply don't get happy endings like this one, since the fans will watch the final episodes anyway, there is no reason to upset the template. (proposal>meeting of the parents>pre wedding group fight>wedding>kid>credits) This is the first time in a long time (or perhaps ever?), when the ending of a cdrama has really surprised me. It was so well acted, so full of heart, so touching & so beautiful. I did not even really notice that the drama had an OST in the early episodes, but even that was so impactful during the final moments of the drama, I'm speechless.

Normally I wouldn't rewatch something like this, but I've started to doubt my own perception, were the early episodes REALLY that bad? Perhaps I'll find out and soon at that :-)

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It's neither a good xianxia or a good romance drama.

(Disclaimer: I have read countless xianxia novels & I like the romance genre)

This is quite possibly the most overrated cdrama I have ever watched. Love Between Fairy and Devil is -unfortunately- neither a good xianxia story or an entertaining romantic comedy.

Xianxias typically have various elements that I like, for example cultivation, action scenes & a large number of bads either dying or getting some serious face slapping etc etc.
Here most of that is not really there. The character I hated the most is basically not dealt with (Heavenly Emperor? guy) at all. The strong ML is also getting constantly nerfed for really stupid reasons. The xianxia main plot is a watered down version of other stories i've seen/read before, It's really not very good, though there is very little of it overall. Had the romance been better on the account of the plot being so string thin, then I could have still enjoyed the drama..

..However the romance doesn't work very well for me at all. The whole thing makes no sense. Forbidden love is a popular topic in fiction, but it's really hard to justify it here for a number of reasons. We could talk about how Orchid is basically a baby in immortal realm terms, or how from her perspective ML is not only ancient, but also the manifestation of pure evil, also openly plotting to destroy her home, but ultimately I don't care all that much about these. The main problems are the following, the progress is super slow & jittery, there is very little excitement in their relationship and the show is lacking in comedy as well.
To add insult to injury we barely had any happy fluff content in the 36 episodes.
For example "Eternal Love - Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" has a similarly uninteresting Xianxia plot, but oh my gawd it's like 30 times funnier & there is so much more emotional impact overall. I could only describe the romance in this drama as lukewarm.

There are more genre independent script-writing problems. For starters the whole drama feels rather boring, because the storytelling is not only excruciatingly slow, but also the presentation is too juvenile for adults to really immerse themselves. Furthermore there are a very large number of insane plotholes & contradictions. As often is the case the writer is counting on her audience forgetting the minutiae of what has happened 2-4-6-10 episodes ago. Disrespecting the audience like this is not cool! There is also the ending, if I had to rate the final 2 episodes I think I would go with 2/10. It's not the worst ending I have ever seen, but it's in the bottom 10.

To talk about some positive things too, I think the drama had superb visuals in this genre. Also the acting is wonderful. It's annoying how much talent & effort went into creating a grand production from a script like this, it's a tremendous waste that's what it is.

As for Esther's baby voice? Well, this is what the production team wanted & she did a great job.

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I've seen worse dramas, but not many.

I suppose the best thing I can say about this drama is that I enjoyed the first 4? episodes, up until FL met her mom. Even before that point it was super super silly, but -to me- entertaining. It is thanks to that and my handy fastforward button that I managed to finish this. From then on it becomes a complete mess, where the writer has not even attempted to respect her audience and the things I wanted to watch were dialed down to the absolute minimum as well. (comedy, romance) Naturally as a comic book style thriller of some kind it's still garbage.
So yeah it's trash, just do yourself a favor & skip it.
I guess I should try to be more descriptive, but believe me it's not easy in this case. Okay here goes nothing! Imagine a 50 hour long family drama about a Chaebol family that has supernatural elements and a lot of vigilante justice involving 3-4 couples and a lost daughter. Now take away the BEST 35 hours & what's left would probably still be better than Strong Woman Kang Nam Soon.

Comparing it to the so called prequel, Strong Woman Do Bong Soon is pointless, because fun cameo notwithstanding they have nothing in common at all. (It makes one speculate about some things about the writing process and interns. I apologize for the dumb tinfoil hat moment..)

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It's not nearly as good as the best family dramas! (Once Again, Father is Strange etc)

In "It's Beautiful Now" the story revolves around three couples & two families. This is a fairly basic family drama setup, there is also a big mystery connection between these two families. It's a textbook setting for this genre, really. In good old family drama fashion the production team tried to please all age groups, so no one will feel this is the best thing ever, but everyone will find something to enjoy. The reason why this is inferior to Once Again is because the couples are just not nearly as entertaining, I guess for me this is what it usually comes down to, when judging how good a family drama is, because the other things are usually fairly similar across all family dramas & that is certainly the case with this drama as well. To iterate on this more I absolutely adored the Hae Jun couple & that is what kept me going for 50 episodes. However the other two couples are very problematic, the Hyun Jae couple goes from super boring to makjang-ish and the Soo Jae couple is so difficult to empathize with that I skipped most of their scenes. It's normal for family dramas to have unlikable characters, but in this one they're far more numerous than usual, though many of them received minor character adjustments making them more bearable in the later episodes.

If I disregard everything else other than the Hae Jun couple, then this is a 10/10 romcom. However if I do the reverse, looking at everything else, this drama is rather mediocre, with quite a bit of makjang. I'm not sure anymore, but If memory serves, then there were like 10 rather bad episodes in a row (maybe from 32 to 41 ~) Also the ending is a bit disappointing, I love long happy endings and this is one thing family dramas usually do extremely well, since out of 50 episodes there is more than enough time to finish up with 3-5 fluffy episodes giving everyone perfect closure. In this drama though two out of three couples had EARLY weddings, so instead the writer went with a little medical emergency type of thing, which was not horrible or anything, but maybe a little out of place!? Though admittedly I liked the early weddings & the newlywed banter a lot..

So is this drama worth watching? If you have seen the best family dramas already, such as Once Again, My Father is Strange, Five Enough and you noticed that you like this genre, then you should be able to enjoy this, otherwise I would stay away.

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Good, but overrated!

I'm quite shocked that almost everyone is rating this at 10/10. I mean sure it's a drama that is worth watching, but it's not overwhelmingly great. I'm fine with romantic comedies having absurd nonsense stories, but CLoY is not supposed to be just a romcom, there are times when the the show takes itself very seriously and there is supposed to be quite a bit of impactful melodrama. I feel that it does not quite work.(the serious melo parts) Maybe it's because of the cartoon villain style adversaries, or because of the 4 idiots in the second half I just cannot take the sad bits seriously. Also the drama was much better in the first half, I think there was no need for the idiotic plot that commenced once Seri has returned to the South. I have seen people discussing how many details they've gotten right about the North, there were even some real north koreans refugees interviewed. I'm sure they've gotten many minor details right and that's laudable, but there are just so many absurd things, let's not even get me started about product placements..

Anyway I enjoyed the comedy, especially before they've gone to the South. The romance between the leads was so so, I don't think that the Hyun Bin+Son Ye Jin coupling was a particularly good choice. I think Hyon Bin was a lot better in Secret Garden and Son YeJin also did much better in Something in the Rain. Don't misunderstand I do think that they did a decent job at their characters, I just did not feel the same authenticity, or the chemistry that they've had with other actors in the past. I must admit that Seo Ji-hye was incredible as Seo Dan, I'm looking forward to seeing more of her in the future. As for Alberto Gu, well I'm not sure what was the deal with him. For starters he did not have a lot of screen time, nor did him dying serve any meaningful purpose. I mean sure I did enjoy the ~20 minutes he spent with Dan, but it feels like he was the redshirt that the writers used to make a bigger impact for the ending. Ah yes, the ending, they just had to go with the forced separation for 2 years formula, not the worst, but not great.

The production quality was on an extremely high level, they had a really high budget & used it well for the most part. I found it incredible that they've even used anamorphic lenses in the pilot episode. The anamorphic look really worked too with establishing that authentic war movie vibe.
The music is a mixed bag, on one hand they've made some amazing OST tracks for this show, on the other though the director did not do an amazing job at arranging those tracks to fit the scenes particularly well.

edit: Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin as of now are supposedly dating in real life. Despite me not liking this pairing in this drama too much, I gotta admit their behind the scenes videos/bloopers showcased hugely more chemistry than their actual scenes shown in the final edit..

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It tries to educate as if it were a TVING drama, otherwise it's quite good.

How do I even get started? Okay, so this drama has a so called omnibus style storytelling, which means that there are a bunch of very loosely connected storylines. It's almost like a family drama without all the family relations, but darker & at times far more serious and raw. The other reviewers have made a lot of great points. Our Blues is incredibly heartwarming, borderline magical at times, has a decent dose of romance, while bringing up topics that you typically don't see on Korean TV. The setting is great, the fish market of Jeju & those diving women were rather novel. The acting is absolutely top notch, probably the best you can ever expect in a kdrama.

So why is it not 10/10?
Well, the problem is that some characters & storylines are just plain bad, there were quite a few episodes that had nothing I was interested in. Some of the controversial topics in the drama are presented in a very fake, inorganic way. I guess the educational intent is just too blatant.

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Awesome up until episode 13!

The Good
⌲ The unique & fun romance
⌲ The acting
⌲ The subverted tropes (not all tropes though)
⌲ The fun second couple (I wish they had more screen time)
⌲ The pillow fight!
⌲ Most - but not all- annoyances were dealt with very quickly.

The Average
⌲ The love triangle (not bad not great ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
⌲ The ex-secretary club (I don't think the writer knew what she wanted to do with them)

The Bad
⌲ ML's jarringly forced character growth(s) in the later episodes!
⌲ All the horrible corporate and vengeance plots in the later episodes!
⌲ The lack of fluff in the later episodes
⌲ The ending feels super forced. (As much as I like a nicely wrapped happy ending, I would rather have loose ends, than everything resolved like this)

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More than a little overrated

The Good:
- The beautiful (though highly unrealistic) romance
- The "scandals" did not lead to predictable relationship problems.
- The strong child actors
- The lack of a love triangle (the step brother was not nearly as bad I thought he would be)

The Neutral:
- The leads could have had better chemistry.
- Took too long to get officially together.
- The villain dad
- The stepbrother

The Bad:
- The ridiculously incompetent police
- All the "scandals", reporters, victim shaming plots
- The crime related plot is sloppy & mostly uninteresting.
- The story and even the dialog is excruciatingly slow. (this should've been a 3 hour long movie)
- The random side villains serving no purpose, other than wasting screen time
- The emotional impact completely died after the half way point.
- The redemption ark for reporter 1

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I'm not a huge fan of Flower of Evil, but that is a much better drama than this. Compared to Just Between Lovers, or I can Hear Your Voice this one is pretty weak, 6.5/10.

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Superficial acting, shallow OTP relationship

This is yet another fluffy romcom cdrama without many complications. The triangle is easily resolved, there are no annoying in laws, there are no breakups, other than the 2 one episode misunderstandings there was no drama in it. Okay sure the rival actress character tried to stir up some shit, but that did not amount to anything, nor did it bother me too much, beyond highlighting the FL's lack of intellectuality. It's somewhat annoying how these villainous bitchy characters always get forgiven, or get redemption arks.
I did not mind the sister character, she was too cute for me to take her antics seriously.

The leads may have had some chemistry, but the portrayed relationship was incredibly shallow. The drama is like 90% about the OTP's relationship and that is all about beauty and attraction. Basically there is no plot, I don't get the impression that two people are trying to get to know each other and grow together. It's not that I was bored due to the lack of makjang, triangles and whatnot, but this drama really is pure fluff and nothing else. You know how in Korean variety shows there are some games where first the girl does Aegyo for a while & then the guy reciprocates, well this entire drama is almost like that. I could have turned off the English subtitles and I wouldn't have lost very much.
The secondary couples have better stories, but they had too little screentime to really "save" the drama from mediocrity.
At least it's a normal length drama, it does not get too draggy.

I still enjoyed the drama a little, pretty people doing cute fluffy things can be entertaining enough without anything else, but there are much better fluffy dramas than this, 6.5/10. Intense Love is the opposite of memorable..

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This started out as a pretty decent drama, but I had a pretty hard time getting into it. More specifically I just couldn't easily ship the OTP in this show. I'm not adverse to age gaps at all, but the leads are just too far apart not in age, but in maturity and the production team made this even more extreme with making Moon Ga Young's character and visuals as juvenile as possible. It was kind of like watching a cartoon about the romance of a polar bear and an alien robot, I could only follow the story with detached amusement. (At least there was no love triangle)

With that said I have eventually gotten into it just fine and I felt pretty entertained, unfortunately the writer felt the need to ruin my fun almost right away. The three hours preceding the finale were pretty much garbage tier. First they broke up due to noble reasons, then they made up for like 5 minutes & finally the writer proceeded with the mandatory 2 year separation plot. I'm sick and tired of bullshit separation plots and the one in this drama felt especially bad. At least the final episode offered a pretty decent, but short happy ending.

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There were a few things that I wasn't comfortable with, while watching this drama. I really did not like their portrayal of autism, Koreans seems to have a stereotypic (more often than not)misconception how a mentally ill person should talk, walk and hold their gait, however this was borderline offensive for me to watch. Most characters were treating Shion as a child the entire time just like in a children's show, many supporting characters had lines such as "he is really like a grownup now" "he progressed so much" and yet their behavior remained the same, as if Shion was a patient in this pediatric hospital.

Moving on to the drama as a whole, obviously it was not preproduced and that really shows. There are multiple odd shifts in the story, character personalities change out of nowhere, probably based on audience feedback. I feel that up until episode 17-18 not even the writers knew what they wanted to do with their main loveline, once they've decided on a path they went for in a rather abrupt manner. I think originally they wanted to go all in with their love triangle with Dohan, but then they've gotten cold feet & the second couple's relationship got mended in a flash.
Episodes 2 - 10 ~ are nowhere near as good as what follows afterwards, I considered dropping it very early on, because the medical cases were not that interesting, the story dragged a lot & even though the angst was expected with a story like this, I felt that it was without merit. Thanks to live filming they completely shifted the mood of the series around e10 & what followed was a lighthearted medical drama that for the most part oozed of hope. At times I have really loved it.
There is no romance in the first half at all and there is very little of it up until episode 17 or 18, I'm not sure if the romance tag is entirely warranted. The way how the main couple got together feels forced & their happy ending feels like a nonending. Yun Soo's parents weren't shown. The writer's idea of a solution for the parent issue was a 1 year timeskip, something along the lines of "They are still together after a year, so dear audience fret not the in laws were convinced somehow"
There was a lot of hospital politics & scheming in the show, however it was not fun, nor interesting, nor a crucial part of the story, so I recommend skipping all the scenes involving hospital politics.

The supporting characters were awesome and there were some awesome parts later on, for these reasons the 7/10 rating seems fair, despite all the negatives that I've listed above.

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This show has many of the worst kdrama plot devices. It starts out as a somewhat fun romcom, but already in the first few episodes it's not really above average in any way. Even the chemistry between the leads is not that great. The drama has one of the absolute worst love triangles that I've seen and that's not all, we even go into full on melodrama quite quickly, but not the good kind. (perhaps the tragedy tag shouldn't be missing)

To mention some positives too Nara did a great job portraying her character and at least we were given a long and a sufficiently satisfying happy ending.

Rewatching for me is absolutely out of the question. Seriously though how is this show rated at 8.3? It's one of the worst dramas that I have managed to struggle through and usually my opinion is not that far off from the average reviewer either..

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