Skontra

as far as I remember: she went to prison because while she had an altercation with a customer she pushed her away and fell with her head on the pavement edge and died
(the death part I am unsure of, but she did go to prison because of that altercation)

however: she told nobody about this and everybody believed she left her son because of selfish reasons

love triangle: yes, however FL is never interested and treats sml like a friend
happy end: very happy.

fyi: very strong chemistry between the main couple

very conflicted about this drama.

I love the second couple so much I would have liked them to be the main couple.

I love the character of FL.
I liked her as the big sister, the daughter and even the office worker.

However I really did not care much for her as a romantic partner or part of the main couple.
With ML I feel similar. I love the character however I don't care about his relationship with FL.


Would have loved to see more about the second couple as well as the relationship between Ji Uk and Gyu Hyun.

the romance is not a focus.
although the chemistry is there, it is not driven by it

its subtle enough that you should enjoy the show

Some most likely, certainly not the female actresses and their are some who are too old to still have to do that (e.g. Gong Yoo or Lee Dong Wook - both over 40) or others had done that pretty early: Park Seo Joon.
There are of course other reasons:
Lee Seung Gi did a tone of TV shows during those 4 years.

But it is certainly odd, the sheer amount of top performers that maybe needed a break or had other reasons for a hiatus.
Maybe for some covid had a bigger impact on their life or health (even mental).

First: this seems to be a bad take and summary.
You criticize the fact that some shows were not renewed while also criticizing that there are more shows that have more than one season. Pick a lane.

You criticize that "we are now familiar with the kdrama genre" and that they should "innovate" themselves.
you did not watch Business Proposal because the plot was similar to Whats Wrong With Secretary Kim?
Sorry but besides the "rich guy/ heir" trope there is nothing about these two drama that is similar.
Completely different setup, completely different subplot (secretary vs. "secret employee")

They are both romantic comedys, of course they have similarities on that side.
But that would basically be for ANY romantic comedy.
In a way WWWSK should not be great for you because that kind of plot has actually been done before xD


I don't know how long you have been watching kdramas, but to me it feels like you have been watching them since late 2020 (your sign-update), since then you were able to watch "the greatest hits" produced before 2020 and after.
Now you have caught up, thus you have to wait longer for a good drama to appear because obviously not every drama will be your cup of tea.
FYI: no criticizm on when you started. I started myself in 2019 and have reached exactly this "problem" on catching up.




But there is actually a VERY valid point that you seemed to have missed:
Most of the great actors and actresses (and great newcomers) that greated this kdrama boom (I would say starting ~2015?) have not done many drama since 2020/2021.

Suzy, Park Bo Young, Kim Ji Won, Chae Soo Bin, Song Hye Kyo, Kim So Hyun, Go Ah Ra, Yoo In Na, Lee Hye Ri, Song Joong Ki, Yoo Seung Ho, Seo Kang Joon, Hyun Bin, Park Bo Gum, Jo Jung Suk, Lee Sang Woo, Gong Yoo, Lee Dong Wook, Park Seo Joon, Lee Seung Gi
The list goes on and on.

Most of them have done 1 or 2 drama in the last 4 years (2020 - 2023) and especially in the years 2022 and 2023.
Before they were part of at least 1 or 2 drama every year and a lot of them were hits.
So maybe kdramaland is missing a lot of great performers that made the majority of those great kdrama from ~2016 to 2021.


Interesting:
Most of those actors have one or more drama scheduled in 2024 or 2025.
Maybe that is something you can be excited about.

I agree however this is a problem of writing.
e.g. there is a scene where he plays basketball in high school were he is clearly invested and social
there are a lot of other scenes were it clearly shows that he is not apathetic.

It seems like they wanted to make him a little misterious, maybe very calm/cool and confident.
thus they created a very different version of him getting to know Hong Ju vs. after he was sure of his feelings

to be fair, that's better than Put Your Heald On Your Shoulders where they used flight recordings of paris to showcase Heidelberg :-D

At least this director stayed within the county XD

the german was SO BAD. how can the director even mix in glaring grammar errors?
one of the worst "german-speaking" from "natives" in any drama

Don't think she will recommend it with the time she spend to watch it :-D

I did not like FLs acting in A Date with the Future. I cannot really put my finger on it but there is something I dislike.

I like the acting of ZRN in this drama a lot more. The chemistry with the ML is much better as well.


To be fair: the first 10 episodes can be challenging to watch for mutliple reasons. Really depends on how much someone likes the "domineering CEO" trope.
But after that it gets a lot better.


This drama has a lot of character growth - basically for every single character.

Also: possibly the single funniest Mother of a ML in dramaland ever :-D

First: thanks for the information. As I said my statement was based on this article and the translation and I did not read up any further information to make a valid point.

Second: I generally agree with you that her being the purpatrator makes more sense since she was expelled. It would also make sense - most of the time - to publicize that she was the victim if that would have been the case.

However: nobody is proud of being a victim, a lot of people want to deny the fact that they were in a victim role even years later. Some fight all their live to get out of those moments and never ever want to relive them. Sympathy is the last thing they want sometimes because thats for the victim, they do not want to be associated as one ...
(Again, since I do not have any information about this case, I will not speculate)

Although your analysation is spot on considering the information you currently have, your attitude is not.
Considering the contaxt is fine, considering the fact that you do not know all the information and which information is maybe even fake or not, is important as well.
You should be much more open minded before making a statement or announcement about someone, especially if all your information comes from "news" channels these days. Far too much fake news to believe in everything that is said or written.

Also:
I do not watch tiktok (don't even have an account), have no idea what a reel is and barely watch shorts (if that are the mini-clips on youtube?).

Perfect example that your analysation may be spot on considering the information you have, but because you lack information your statement is just plain wrong and very arrogant.


fyi: I also think context is very important, so here my 2 cents:
If you arrogantly make statements about other people and "attack" them and it turned out that you are completely wrong (like in this case with your last sentence about tiktok, etc.), it taints everything you said before and after.
Because the context is: since you proudly lied once in your statement, maybe you did twice (e.g. I did not verify your statement about her being expelled and that could be made up - I don't know)
Considering your last statement I am more inclined to believe that you may have made that part up.

Hope you have a nice day :-)

If the english translation is correct, it is important to state that your statement is false:
They did not. They stated "she transfered schools due to a school violence-related case"
It does not state her being expelled.

It also does not state wether she was the victim, offender or even an spectator/witness to this "school violence-related case".

I do know that victims or witness's transfer schools at times because they are afraid of retaliation.

However I just wanted to point this out, I do not have an opinion about this and am not interested in speculating =)

for reference if anybody reads your comments:
ML did not "just and easily" cover up the accident.

He tried to call the police but his stepbrother hit him on the head with a wooden stick, he goes out cold.

After he wakes up, he is in a hotel with his stepmother and stepbrother and again wants to go to the policy.
However his stepmother "threatens" him that if he goes to the police she will jump out of the window and kill herself.
Because of his stepbrother "emotional" attacking him about possibly loosing his mother he decides to cover up.

He then starts to drink and does call FL once (before they personally knew each other) but could not say anything.
After that he leaves for the US because he could not handle this situation.


Yes he did cover up, but he himself was emotionally blackmailed, he did try multiple times to tell the truth to the police and at the end of the day was not able to.
However he was - I believe in his late teensor early twentys.
So he should not shoulder too much of the blame considering the other two scumbags (stepmother and stepbrother) in the equation

I distinguish between acting, storytelling and the story itself.
Either of those are capable of carrying emotions to someone who watches a drama.
I never said anything bad about the acting, on the contrary.

To me only the story was bad because the entire premise of the story does not make any sense to me which is basically:
- ML works at the company to make the game
- FL is allowed to live in her own illusion and not even her parents try to help her or any professional help is requested
(Those two parts are the most basic part of the story for the present and the main couple)

To me it makes no sense that her parents "Left her" in her own illusion for over 12 years. Not seeking some sort of professional help and leaving it to her friends to find a cure or worse: letting her live in this illusion for her entire life?

Also: it makes no sense that the ML needs 12 years to create this game or even needs a company to do so. if you want to argue that he found out about this kind of treatment very late, okay - but even then the entire synopsys that he is amazing at making games and he needs a company to create this game, sorry - very unrealistic.

Since the two most important parts of the entire setup of the drama makes no sense to me - the story is a failure (imo).

Despite that, as I said, the storytelling and the acting is great.

If you don't question the basic setup of this drama, the story is not bad - I agree.

I did not distinguish between beginning or end of the drama.
The story - to me - was very lacking from beginning to the end.
The whole setup did not make any sense ...

"below" "does not measure against" "not up to standard"
His acting - imo - was very bad in comparison to the rest of the cast

1. Great acting! Everybody did an amazing job. tbh only Wang Zhuo Cheng - compared to the rest of the cast - was really subpar (although he did not have much scenes).

2. The story disappointed me at times. The storytelling was very good, everything came together at the end. But the overall story - to me - felt very unrealistic and disappointing.

3. The ending (last 2 episodes) was a disappointing to me as well.

Overall the drama is a nice watch. The acting, storytelling and the portrayed friendship (past and present) makes up for the mediocre (in my opinion) overall story

It really depends on which kind of drama you like to watch (this is romance / sports):
Forever Love
Meet Yourself
Lighter & Princess (more on the heavy side)
You Are My Hero
My Fated Boy
When I Fly Towards You
Legally Romance

Nothing But You - also with Leo.

Tbh there simply are not many drama like AASOL because these kinds of dramas (intelligent FL, non-over-the-top ML, no ridiculous melodrama, great story, no unnecessary break-ups) have not been produced much in asia and most of them have been produced in the last 3 years.


Binary Love (there is a third party, that is really annoying)
Perfect Marriage Revenge
To Fly With You
Touch Your Heart

Each misunderstanding is resolved quickly - none last more than 1 episode
there are probably 3 notable "misunderstandings" or lack of communication