A cliche taken to new lows
Oh, wow. They took one well-known premise and put their own spin on it. The premise? Lost memory. Its a cliche that we've seen from soap operas to "big" movies. Somehow losing ONLY your memories that might resolve the plot too soon. The spin? Intensely trying to fix it.
So, visuals. It looks great. From the colour palette, to framing, everything is good. Even the ocasional lens flare look "well thought". As if, while filming the scene, the visual director saw the potential, yelled cut, and modified the framing just a bit, to recreate and include the lens flare in a better way. I don't know obviously, but its something I always do when taking photos, changing the framing because of a last second live-occurrence, it just gave me that vibe. Moving on, the fight choreography is meh/good. Sometimes it works, sometimes it is kinda wonky. And sometimes is a pure joke, because they went for the drama...
Audio. Good sound design. The tracks, the volume, it all works. A couple of ADR involved, but overall its good.
Good editing, especially in regards for the later reveals. Good pacing usually. Good world-building. High production value. Yeah, yeah, the technical aspects are good.
Now on to the "good" parts. The casting, the chemistry, the acting, all good. Character development, charisma, all good. Yeah yeah yeah, I'm skipping all of these. Sorry. Yes, we have some phenomenal acting and such, I know, but sorry (again). I wanna skip directly to the bad things.
The main problem was in the story. I don't know who the screenwriter is, I don't know who the director is, I'm not one to follow and remember such info. But whoever is that accepted this script, did a terrible job. If they stayed with the cliche, cheasy approach, with this cast, it would've been a great drama, or at least very entertaining. But, alas...
It all starts with an expo dump, a doctor dropping "yep, you have the kind of amnesia we often see in the dramas". And I went "oh". I was afraid it was going to be a sh**y one, if they were that lazy from the start. And then what follows is a string of goofy monologues of FL. And it might've been a good approach to storytelling, you know, learning about our protagonist by experiencing the same stuff, at the same time with her. A good example for this, Star Wars ep IV (one of my "go to" examples, yes). You have no idea what's going on, but you find out at the same time with Luke and it all feels natural, while you also get invested in his story/journey. Like I said, a good approach, if it wasn't for the fact that this drama starts the same way as any other asian piece of media, be it drama, anime or a book: with a 1 minute monologue thats meant to be the hook. You know, that "I had no idea at the time what this will be for me" kind of opening monologue and then starting the "real" story. And this trope, in which we see exactly what it happened, renders all the next part null, now you just wanna skip the nonsense and get to the part where our couple meets one another. And then they changed the cliche completely. Instead of taking advantage of her memory loss and make her do manual labors for him, the most funny and easier usage of this trope, nope, in fact they alllllll wanna help in getting her memory back asap. And then they go heavy with the serious backstory. So, instead of a light and goofy rom-com, we got a comedy interwoven with serious and heavy parts. And by serious, I mean serious: blood and torture stuff. It is very hard to balance both acts. And the screenwriter/director/whoever failed in doing so. And its a damn shame because the cast is really talented.
Anyway, back to the story. What follows its a mix of goofy, drama, romance, blood. Yes, exactly that. In isolation, every scene is good for its specific angle, but when mixed together, not so much. And because involves serious stuff, obviously we also have plot contrivances and plot holes. They needed those, otherwise the story would've ended in just two episodes. Oh, right. A movie would've been a better fit, maybe. I'm saying maybe because it has a lot of padding in form of "misunderstanding dialogue", so if you dropped it, all the reasons for the things to happen, they also kinda disappear, too. So, it would've been even harder to make that mix in just two hours, I guess. Anyway. So the story has its ups and downs, filled with that mix. But then.
Starting with ep 8, it becomes sht. Cheap, fake melodrama up to 11. Instead of taking some actions that would end the plot faster but in a normal way (what can pass as normal for this show), every fking action and dialogue is meant to create drama just for the sake of viewers. All the nonsense before, created by talking in circle about stuff and creating misunderstandings? Gone. Now we have the cast only saying words that WILL give the feels to the viewers. Every scene is meant to be "aww, omg, I can't take it anymore, this is so sad... I feel so sad for them...". Even the sound design is for that. It starts playing like its the end of the world, whereas I was "GTFO with your cheap tricks! More on with it already!". By ep 9, I started yawning. Good plans, bad plans, happy times, sad times, I wouldn't care what would happen on screen. I just wanted for it to end already. "Funny" thing: after watching ep 11, I had to go back the previous one, to remember what was it all about exactly. I've seen it, yes, but while trying to remember the events for the future review, I realised I forgot the scenes, I had no idea what word would I use to describe it. Btw, I guessed the "big" thing in regards to episode 11, too. And I mean I guessed it before they dropping the hints all across. Based purely on "lemme guess, the writer will try to make it even bigger by...". Once that idea was out there, I started to notice the hints also. And then, because so far it was still not enough, episode 12 starts with some tense, serious scenes, only to be replaced with comic relief. 5 minutes of pure nonsense... The Marvel/Disney+ slop approach *sigh* And then, because it was STILL not enough, we get that whole nonsense while that piano track plays (I won't spoil it, but it is bad).... I can't even explain how sick and tired I was of this drama. It felt like torture. And when that thing ended and after I saw that the episode was only 21 min in, I almost cried at the thought that I'll have to endure even more. And lo and behold, the first scene that followed was something I was dreading... And I'll stop here.
Well, you get the gist. I hope. Like I said, good cast, fantastic acting, amazing charisma across, good visuals etc. Lots of good stuff, but the story is lacking. The romance and the comedy work purely because of the talented actors, the script and dialogue: sht. And thats for the first 2/3 of the drama, the ending is even worse than that. Oh, a personal opinion: I hated that trio of women. Very annoying. Good acting at times, but still very annoying.
It gets a rating of..... dammit, I think I'll give it a 6 (??) for the acting, character development, technical aspects and such. With just minor tinkering, this drama could've been a solid 7 or even an 8 (ok, maybe not 8, lets not go too crazy here). Alas... Kinda entertaining at times. Even sweet in their own way. No return value for me, I don't wanna experience that lousy ending again. Great waste of casting. Bummer.
Have a lovely day.
So, visuals. It looks great. From the colour palette, to framing, everything is good. Even the ocasional lens flare look "well thought". As if, while filming the scene, the visual director saw the potential, yelled cut, and modified the framing just a bit, to recreate and include the lens flare in a better way. I don't know obviously, but its something I always do when taking photos, changing the framing because of a last second live-occurrence, it just gave me that vibe. Moving on, the fight choreography is meh/good. Sometimes it works, sometimes it is kinda wonky. And sometimes is a pure joke, because they went for the drama...
Audio. Good sound design. The tracks, the volume, it all works. A couple of ADR involved, but overall its good.
Good editing, especially in regards for the later reveals. Good pacing usually. Good world-building. High production value. Yeah, yeah, the technical aspects are good.
Now on to the "good" parts. The casting, the chemistry, the acting, all good. Character development, charisma, all good. Yeah yeah yeah, I'm skipping all of these. Sorry. Yes, we have some phenomenal acting and such, I know, but sorry (again). I wanna skip directly to the bad things.
The main problem was in the story. I don't know who the screenwriter is, I don't know who the director is, I'm not one to follow and remember such info. But whoever is that accepted this script, did a terrible job. If they stayed with the cliche, cheasy approach, with this cast, it would've been a great drama, or at least very entertaining. But, alas...
It all starts with an expo dump, a doctor dropping "yep, you have the kind of amnesia we often see in the dramas". And I went "oh". I was afraid it was going to be a sh**y one, if they were that lazy from the start. And then what follows is a string of goofy monologues of FL. And it might've been a good approach to storytelling, you know, learning about our protagonist by experiencing the same stuff, at the same time with her. A good example for this, Star Wars ep IV (one of my "go to" examples, yes). You have no idea what's going on, but you find out at the same time with Luke and it all feels natural, while you also get invested in his story/journey. Like I said, a good approach, if it wasn't for the fact that this drama starts the same way as any other asian piece of media, be it drama, anime or a book: with a 1 minute monologue thats meant to be the hook. You know, that "I had no idea at the time what this will be for me" kind of opening monologue and then starting the "real" story. And this trope, in which we see exactly what it happened, renders all the next part null, now you just wanna skip the nonsense and get to the part where our couple meets one another. And then they changed the cliche completely. Instead of taking advantage of her memory loss and make her do manual labors for him, the most funny and easier usage of this trope, nope, in fact they alllllll wanna help in getting her memory back asap. And then they go heavy with the serious backstory. So, instead of a light and goofy rom-com, we got a comedy interwoven with serious and heavy parts. And by serious, I mean serious: blood and torture stuff. It is very hard to balance both acts. And the screenwriter/director/whoever failed in doing so. And its a damn shame because the cast is really talented.
Anyway, back to the story. What follows its a mix of goofy, drama, romance, blood. Yes, exactly that. In isolation, every scene is good for its specific angle, but when mixed together, not so much. And because involves serious stuff, obviously we also have plot contrivances and plot holes. They needed those, otherwise the story would've ended in just two episodes. Oh, right. A movie would've been a better fit, maybe. I'm saying maybe because it has a lot of padding in form of "misunderstanding dialogue", so if you dropped it, all the reasons for the things to happen, they also kinda disappear, too. So, it would've been even harder to make that mix in just two hours, I guess. Anyway. So the story has its ups and downs, filled with that mix. But then.
Starting with ep 8, it becomes sht. Cheap, fake melodrama up to 11. Instead of taking some actions that would end the plot faster but in a normal way (what can pass as normal for this show), every fking action and dialogue is meant to create drama just for the sake of viewers. All the nonsense before, created by talking in circle about stuff and creating misunderstandings? Gone. Now we have the cast only saying words that WILL give the feels to the viewers. Every scene is meant to be "aww, omg, I can't take it anymore, this is so sad... I feel so sad for them...". Even the sound design is for that. It starts playing like its the end of the world, whereas I was "GTFO with your cheap tricks! More on with it already!". By ep 9, I started yawning. Good plans, bad plans, happy times, sad times, I wouldn't care what would happen on screen. I just wanted for it to end already. "Funny" thing: after watching ep 11, I had to go back the previous one, to remember what was it all about exactly. I've seen it, yes, but while trying to remember the events for the future review, I realised I forgot the scenes, I had no idea what word would I use to describe it. Btw, I guessed the "big" thing in regards to episode 11, too. And I mean I guessed it before they dropping the hints all across. Based purely on "lemme guess, the writer will try to make it even bigger by...". Once that idea was out there, I started to notice the hints also. And then, because so far it was still not enough, episode 12 starts with some tense, serious scenes, only to be replaced with comic relief. 5 minutes of pure nonsense... The Marvel/Disney+ slop approach *sigh* And then, because it was STILL not enough, we get that whole nonsense while that piano track plays (I won't spoil it, but it is bad).... I can't even explain how sick and tired I was of this drama. It felt like torture. And when that thing ended and after I saw that the episode was only 21 min in, I almost cried at the thought that I'll have to endure even more. And lo and behold, the first scene that followed was something I was dreading... And I'll stop here.
Well, you get the gist. I hope. Like I said, good cast, fantastic acting, amazing charisma across, good visuals etc. Lots of good stuff, but the story is lacking. The romance and the comedy work purely because of the talented actors, the script and dialogue: sht. And thats for the first 2/3 of the drama, the ending is even worse than that. Oh, a personal opinion: I hated that trio of women. Very annoying. Good acting at times, but still very annoying.
It gets a rating of..... dammit, I think I'll give it a 6 (??) for the acting, character development, technical aspects and such. With just minor tinkering, this drama could've been a solid 7 or even an 8 (ok, maybe not 8, lets not go too crazy here). Alas... Kinda entertaining at times. Even sweet in their own way. No return value for me, I don't wanna experience that lousy ending again. Great waste of casting. Bummer.
Have a lovely day.
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