Xeraf

Even though i was expecting it, i am mad at the ending

So there seems to be a bit of bad blood between fans of the dad's actor and the fans of the young leads, not sure why, apart from complaints about him not being in enough scenes. Personally i think all the lead actors are pretty good.
The show itself is shot pretty well and overall solid execution.

Spoilers (rant) ahead:
Personally though i just hate the dad character and from the first episode i knew that the "happy ending" was gonna be him being accepted by the family. I have seen some people mention how its nice that the family is healing and stuff, but like how? He was gone for over a decade then he came back and just forced himself into their lives. They were strugling for so long without him, the daughter basically had no life trying to help with the family. Then he comes in after he has money and tries to win them over. But like he didnt do anything, besides flaunt his money, to make them like him. They tried to redeem him by showing that he got scammed and then he tracked down the scammer and beat him up and then got money from a family member of another scam victim. Like ok, so what? He did that while his family was alone for over a decade. He could have spent that time working and sending them money at least, but he just needed to heal his ego. Like there was zero redeeming qualities about him,
The mom still loves him, ok, thats fine i guess, she knew him before he became a fuck up. But the way the son acted clingy to the dad was pretty annoying, though maybe a bit understandable, since he was small when the dad left and didnt know much.
But the daughter accepting him being back towards the end was so terrible IMO, there was no redeeming actions from him. If anything he acted so smug with her, if he at least was humble and apologetic (there were a few scenes, but too few and too little) there might be something, but as it was he should have been kicked out. And the last scene of them eating together all happy was like a slap in the face.
Also the gossipy neighbours were annoying.
Her love interest being the CEO's "son" was unnecessary IMO and didnt really lead to much of anything"

The show is watchable for the relationship of the young couple and the relationship between the mom and daughter, but IMO anything to do with the dad is very disappointing.

Honestly if the ending was that at least the daughter didnt accept the dad i would have scored this show much higher

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Fun show with one major gripe

Would have rated this higher, if it wasnt for the second to last episode.

At first it seemed like a typical boss + subordinate who gets charmed story. Which honestly it still is, but it adds a few things on top. Overall a fun story, wouldnt say it was amazing, but pretty good for the theme. Acting was pretty nice, nothing extraordinary, but it fit the story.

There were some fun dynamics and misunderstandings from the male lead. Didnt really like how easily female lead sorta got over the hump of liking the male lead and then she immediately forgave him when she found out he knew her secret and was messing with her, but those are relatively small things. All the side characters are fun and entertaining.
Though the female wasnt necessarily portrayed as meek pushover and doing everything the male lead wanted, she was actually acting relatively mature for the theme of the show, she could have been imo given some more to do carreer wise. She pretty much gave in on that part. But that doesnt really take away too much and is a personal gripe with kdramas overall.

One big gripe i have is !SPOILERS AHEAD! that in second to last episode it is revealed that the male lead and female lead knew each other as kids and the male lead lived with them when they were young, after his mom "abandoned" him (yes that is also part of the plot), which even though was heavily hinted at through some flashbacks, was IMO completely unnecessary part of the story and just felt like a filler episode. And on top of that they added another unnecessary thing that changed nothing, the female lead had a younger brother, but he died. This didnt cause any sadness or similar feelings in me, we had no prior hint to this one and no attachment, the female lead also was relatively ok after learning it.
The actual ending to the show was meh, the male lead went to new york for a bit to work on his art and the female lead didnt even get his job, she got a vicedirector position pressumably working under her original annoying boss.

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Turns annoying very quickly

It started ok, but quickly turned into a stream of annoying events. The male lead is very manipulative and pushy for a big part of the show. First he tries to make his "online friend" fail in getting a guy and then when he finds out he knows her IRL he starts being very pushy and stalkery. The female lead starts relatively ok, i like her bossy attitude at times but then when it comes to male lead she just forgets how terrible he was and melts on sight. The game company setting could be interesting but its very simplified and feels mostly like somebody stitched together some ideas on what game company looks like, it was very distracting seeing all the nonsense that became part of it. Had to skip through most of the last 6 episodes. Honestly instead of 24 episodes 16-18 would have sufficed.

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Great show with a few blemishes

This show had me seething at times, basically throughout the first two episodes i was so angry because of the stuff that happened. It could have been a 9 or 9.5 if i didnt have issues with the way the show ended, this might be a personal thing rather than actual issue, though i do think it was out of place and unnecessary, but lets wait with complaints about that till the end.

Overall i think the shows plot and storytelling was great with a few minor issues here and there, it focuses mostly on company politics of the main leads and tangentially on lives of some of the office workers and executives. All of it felt pretty well written, i liked the struggle of the new copywriter employee of liking her demanding job while trying to have family life and convince her kid to let her work. All the characters were pretty well written, the heiress was pretty fun and felt quite refreshing compared to some other shows. She was portrayed as a bit arogant cause of her money, acting a bit naive and childish at times but still pretty smart and driven when she actually wanted something. Son Na Eun was adorable in the role, she was the reason i started the show too, so it was nice that her character turned out as someone i can enjoy watching.
Lee Bo Young was great as the main lead Go Ah in. Her character was portrayed as quite strong and driven, considered a b*tch thats greedy and after money, by many of her colleagues. The portrayal of her struggles and unstable mind felt pretty realistic and her slowly getting close with her colleagues felt nice.
Portrayal of the other characters and the hierarchy of seniors and their juniors captured quite well. at least from i know, the korean work culture and hierarchy/respect structure.

Anyways like i said it could have been a 9 or higher, but i didnt really like the ending. More concrete spoilers ahead
First the main leads rival in the company got fired, which felt quite satisfying for a bit, but then they had a moment with other employees sending him off with respect after all the backstabbing he has done, which i didnt enjoy, but eh i can get over that. Then the main lead was appointed CEO and they had a bit of a cheesy first day welcome for her with like a freeze frame style ending with everyone smiling and being a bit smug. Ok, not my cup of tea, but it was nice enough. Should have ended there But no straight after that there was a year later epilogue of the main lead having her own agency and everyone from her original team left with her and they all own a few percent of it, cause why not. It felt so out of place, if i ever rewatch the show, i am stopping it before the eppilogue starts. Not only did it feel out of place to put it there they also added a scene of everyone cheesily listing their percenteges and then she looks straight into the camera to tell us something.

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Dont bother if you want actions to have consequences

Honestly this was a slog to get through and i basically skipped through half of it.
Started watching it for Jin Ki Joo and stayed for her and few other actors despite how infuriating it was at times.

The female lead started as a bit of a go getter and standing up for herself, that was only the first few episodes though, for most of the rest of the show she just lets everyone walk over her and then forgives everything.
And its not only just her who forgives everything she was basically kidnapped by her adoptive mother as a child, even though unknowingly, Her adoptive mother was coerced by her grandma and with her fathers involvement. All that and more just swept away and forgiven.

The biggest joy of the whole show for me was seeing inapropriately placed product placements. Such as giant subway order during serious scene.

There is a few scenes with brighter moments, but those are overshadowed by all the nonsense.

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A fresh down to earth story among so many hyper romantic dramas

If you are looking for an exciting romance full of energy then this one might not be for you. Though i would encourage you to try an episode or two.

Its a story about quite adult issues of people between around 30 years old doing regular jobs. The female lead is a virgin at 32, which is established right away and she craves to have sex, not in a lustful way but more being embarassed about never having it. Her friends/colleagues have their own relationship issues, but she is romanticising all their relationships a bit. Overall focus is on her, but we get a little window into the others lives. Ending is quite nice and relatively sweet without glamour, just like the show . Its a chill watch and with 9 episodes less than 30 minutes each its an easy recommend for a weekend or midweek afternoon.
As both character leads are very awkward and inexperienced there is many awkward moments and misunderstandings, but they get resolved through actual communication, wow what a concept for a romance dram, but seriously its so nice to see a misunderstanding not causing some convoluted plotline for 3 episodes.

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BIG SIGH

At the start this seemed like a fun show and first 6 or 7 episodes are pretty nice. The last about 3 or 4 episodes made me dislike almost everyone in the show.

The acting in this is uhm, decent. Idk the first half the characters seemed ok, but sometimes there is so much over the top performances, i am not sure if its just the direction or the acting. Probably mostly the direction, looking at the way the show turned out.

The show didnt know when to be serious and when to be funny... or which one it really wanted to be.

Spoilers ahead.
The show pretty much starts with the ML's company taking over the FL's company, he is then assigned to the lab she works at and fires her. After the firing they are into each other, which is already a bit of an issue as a start. But ok, i can see her getting over being fired cause of budget cuts and she technically is not qualified to be in the lab. But the ML acts so arrogant, like he basically learns "everything" he needs about potatos in what is not more than a few weeks and shuts down almost any suggestions or complaints from the lab RESEARCHERS. The FL over the course of the show becomes more and more of a doormat. She forgives her ex, who cheated on her and while being engaged and then broke up with her by handing her a wedding invitation with the company owners daughter. She also consoles him a few times. And i know forgiving him is not really bad, but combining with everything else, its just so annoying. She unknowingly celebrates with the her exes ex and then later quietly listens to her about how they met without telling her anything. And then she finds out that her leaving her previous job was orchestrated by the ML. And this is a big one for me, even if he didnt do this to her, if he did it to another random employee, he is still a bad person for it. And she basically forgives him without any real effort, apart from meddling from the potato lab employees. So basically when her ex was about to marry the company owners daughter, one of the family wanted the FL gone, so she asked the ML to handle it. His plan was to drive her out without having to fire her, so he reasigned her to completely new department, which would imply it was a punishment for something, so she would be ostracized and quit. She then endured for weeks but eventually quit. Which btw, her ex was aware of all of this . And then they resolve this in one episode, but not with anything meaningful, the whole episode is spent on nonsense. Apart from her best friend telling her that she knew about her ex cheating and planning a wedding with someone else months before they broke up. She gets forgiven imediately.

The whole revelation of the past really feel so pointless, there was no real consequence to it, the episode was mostly spent joking. Him being the partial cause of her terrible past and her friend knowing about the cheating, didnt add anything of value apart from making me dislike them.

Also the company daughter, that married FL's ex, was at first portrayed sort of as a naive girl that sort of was used by the ex, but then she reveals she fully knew he was dating someone and told him to stay with her and she didnt regret anything and would do it again. Granted she doesnt know it was the FL, i dont think, but still a terrible thing.


So in the end none of the characters ended up likeable apart from maybe the FL's brother, though he is kinda annoying from the start, but still ended up better than the rest.
Everything got magically solved by coincidences in the end or just handwaved away. Last 3 episodes were really just a bunch of padding to get to 12 episodes IMO. Like the 10th episode was just some company "camping" used to delay the big reveal. Which btw, the whole time camping the ML now knew what he did to FL but was avoiding telling her.

The show didnt know when to be serious and when to be funny... or which one it really wanted to be.

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Its a romcom you can watch if you have nothing else.

Gonna be quick here, because there is not much to it.

Its a decent plot, short episodes (maybe 40 minutes of actual runtime), doesnt overstay its welcome.
The plot is very simple, though wouldnt call the show secret romance since before it fully starts people already know about it, nothing new here, rich boy meets poor hard working girl and teases her on the job then they date.
As far as acting goes, from what i have seen of him this is one of Sung Hoons better roles, though still feels kinda stiff. Song Ji Eun plays a very cutesy, maybe a bit ditzy hard working girl and she played it pretty well.
There is also typical chairman dad trying to set up his son with a girl that is super into the son and has some "status"
Most of the side characters are pretty underdeveloped, but they fill their stereotypical roles.

Honestly 7 might a bit much for the show, but there wasnt anything i straight up disliked, just nothing much out of the ordinary.

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ok start, slowly going downhill

I liked the actress in King the land, so when i saw her as a lead in a show i was kinda excited, but the excitement fell after about 3 episodes.

The female lead is portrayed as a hardworking down on her luck poor girl and the male lead is a rich a bit egotistic idol that is out of touch with normal life of people. Thats it, there is no real nuance, apart from one bit where the ML says he was poor until he was like 10 years old and then got scouted, but that pretty much didnt have to be there, at least for me it didnt change his character in any way.
The female lead is such a disappointing pushover throughout the whole show with maybe like 2 or 3 scenes of her actually doing something and standing up for herself. She is also portrayed for a bit as some super strong former high school wrestler, but it then goes unused and spolier, when they get attacked and kidnapped she is completely useless and has to be protected. Only after everything was pretty much over she knocked out another girl. Why even bother showing her effortlessly throwing the male lead in the beginning?
The plot had some potential, but the way it was handled was pretty weak. It was only 10 episodes so at least it didnt waste my time too much. Overall it was neither good nor bad, just kinda there, frustrating at times and at times kinda funny.
Kim Ga Eun was pretty, the acting of the cast was ok, just not much to work with.

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Overall simple with a few unnecessary decisions that lead nowhere

A very common story of a CEO and secretary, though she wasnt technically a secretary. Fair warning to people if you dont like female leads acting super cutesy/pouty at times, the female lead does it a lot.

This definitelly felt like it could have been a few episodes shorter and tightened up. The story is very simple padded with a few side plots that get solved almost right away and feel very throwaway, and with a bigger plot twist, that honestly felt like it was stitched on to add runtime.
The side characters are all ok, though mostly underdeveloped. Everyone's acting feels fine, havent watched too many taiwanese dramas so cant compare too much, but they felt less exagerated than some other dramas i have seen.

Not much else to say without writing out plots of the episodes.

!!!!Spoiler for the ending!!!!

The main couple breaks up a few episodes before the end. It felt refreshing to not having a scene where they end up together and they are happy at the end, but then they slightly ruined it for me when they imply she is going to fly to another country for him.

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Its relatively inoffensive, but i will probably forget everything in a week.

Honestly watched this for Han Bo-reum after seeing her play an absolute psycho in Homemade love story and wanted to see her in a nicer role. She was ok, her character was cute enough, but nothing to get excited over. Like all other characters on the show she was there to fit a relatively generic plot.

The story is set in a game development company and the show throws in a few industry terms, but is in no way accurate to how things actually work. Nothing too atrocious, but if you have some knowledge of game development, there is a few cringe moments.
The male lead is set up as some corporate genius reviving failed bought out companies, and he applies his methods to game development, which would never work. So many "what??" moments.
Not much more to say really. There is a side romance of the female leads friend and the male leads corporate coworker, but that seems to be just to fill out the runtime, nothing really happens there.

The story may have been more intersting if the male lead fumbled more, even though there were some setbacks he solved everything a few minutes later. Typical "perfect" male lead that is good at everything, just so boring.

Anyways, this is it. The show is just there if you have nothing else to watch.

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The best i can say its watchable enough for 10 episodes that are 45 minutes. If it was the "standard" 60 minute 16 episodes i would have dropped it.

Actors and their acting are ok or even good at times.

The "romance" in the story hinges heavily on the main characters relationship as kids. They meet 20 years later and they are still in love, ok possible, but the dude shows up only to get revenge on her, and somehow they are meant to be in love. The interactions they have had throughout the show didnt add anything that should make them like each other, apart from a few forced ways that he has to help her. But thats after he almost cost her her job by humiliating her on her show. The way they split as kids felt very unreasonable and forced, but they were kids so okay i guess.
I also heavily dislike her dad, he made a comic/cartoon about her and she complains to him about how it ruins her love life and he makes jokes about it and then continues with trying to make more of the comics?

Spoiler:
I was hoping she would end up with her colleague, but nah, the two leads start dating for a bit in the final episode then he leaves again because of another stupid misunderstanding and then half a year later he comes back bankrupt and she takes him in again. If they have stayed split up living their lives it would have been much better ending at least.

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An okay show to watch over the week/end if you like the leads

Overall its an ok show that doesnt overstay its welcome. Wouldnt push anyone to watch it, but if you are interested in it, i wouldnt push you away from it.

The story is a bit basic with inclusion of mind reading. Which was handled in an okay way until the female lead gave way too much weight to one picture book and its story about her power. Some parts regarding the power dragged a bit and some were nice. I would rather have them focused on eating food than the power, honestly the power could have been more of a background thing and it would probably work better for me.
The male lead is a bit too pushy at points for my tastes, but not to a point of being creepy, though it gives weird vibes. The female lead is supposed to be a company boss (even though its a small company), but she seems rather meek even with her employees/partners.
The sideplot of the chocolatiere friend's romance was IMO more fun to watch. Maybe because it wasnt the focus, so it didnt have so much baggage with it.

Acting was decent overall. My main issues would come from the behaviour of the two leads, which i dont know if it was intentional or the acting so i wont be too critical there.

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A bit disappointing, but overall ok watch.

This review is mostly negative, because i was hoping for much more.
There are two big disappointing things for me here. The premise went unused for most of the show, its pretty much just tropey employer(chaebol)/employee kdrama. The second thing is the FL and the ML dont really work together, while they are both a bit stunted emotionaolly, the ML is on another level. ML seems very childish, and yes i know there is background explaining it, but that doesnt change things. She is super professional and driven to the point of apparently ousting 3 previous directors, but she relatively easily for the new guy? A lot of things just dont feel earned. Like how is the ML so good at everything? Him being so young, he didnt have time to master so many things and business while also leading secret nerd life.
The reasoning for grandma chairwoman being a hateful hag is flimsy at best, so her hating the ML feels just a convenient plot device.

From the premise i was expecting some workplace rivalry and bickering after they find out they were into each other as teens, but that premise was avoided for half the show, only to be resolved in one episode. "Oh no we hate each other, but we love each other now, oh whatever will we do?" "Never mind, we are over it now".
Its like they needed a hook for people, but didnt want to bother developing it too much. They even made the secondary couple keep them from finding out. Btw, the secondary couple feels much more solid and would have prefered they got more screentime. Though the secondary couple is another case of classic kdrama magical coincidence of the friends of the leads dating. They could have just made it that one of the leads introduced them, but no, just a coincidence and basically a secret from the leads for a while.

Honestly the last two episodes felt more as fulfilling a commitment to finishing a show than enjoyable closing of a story. Didnt feel like there was anything at stake, just gotta pad the last two episodes runtime. The FL got an opportunity for a job in US in much better position, from a former coleague we never heard about, but that got declined pretty fast and caused only a little drama with the ML, that didnt feel serious at all.

The acting from all the main characters was pretty good and enjoyable. Though i think the FL was played a bit too cutesy at times and the ML childish, but that could be due to the direction and script.
Production wise it was pretty solid, cant much complain there.
On a personal note i enjoy seeing all the product placement in kdramas and there is plenty here, so i had fun with those. I think they were mostly handled decently and incorporated into the scenes without much intrusion, but i can see people being put off by some of them.

Anyways while i have many complaints, its a decent show and enjoyable watch if you dont mind tropey stuff.

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So tropey and annoying

This show has been quite a let down. Gonna keep it short and a bit spoilery

Once again i have been baited by a show presenting the FL as a strongheaded independent character only to make her fall for the ML one episode in. The ML is pretty much a stalker, following her everywhere, and being "helpful" when she asked him repeatedly to leave her alone. After she falls for him he ghosts her for 5 years and yes he had a reason to be away, but he could have picked up his phone and written her a message. Yay a trope of not talking for no reason other than plot demands it.
Then they meet again for work thing and he acts the same stalkery way and again she falls for that shit. He even bribes her childhood friend to help him. SHE SHOULD HAVE A RESTRAINING ORDER ON THIS MAN IF ANYTHING.
There is also a secondary couple, but i wasnt much interested in them.
They all have a movie related carreer, and the male lead is childhood friends with the secondary couple. FL by magical coincidence starts working with the secondary female lead. Also the secondary couple broke up 5 years ago and met around the same time again the main couple met. It just all feels so lazy and convenient.
The production seems ok, but who cares anymore.
Only real draw for me to continue watching would be the two FLs, but its just too annoying for me.

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