Beatrice

Another no kiss, exploitative fanservice drama

I didn't know anything about this drama or the actors, so I gave it a fair objective watch and it's so disappointing. If the actors cannot commit to fully playing gay characters that includes even one plain kissing scene, then they should not be playing the leads of a gay romance. If they did at least commit to that minimal professional extent, then it would at least give the drama some sort of legitimate artistic grounding, but since they didn't it just makes it so many meta layers of bad, undermining any possible critique of the hypocritical kpop industry of making money off the the appearance of a gay romantic actions without any support for any actual gay rights or artists by literally embodying the hypocrisy.

The premise itself is a very real issue of using gay as concept to attract attention which the character Ji Hoon plays lip service to being against. Using skin ship and other actions as fanservice to pander to real people shipper fans that many idols are forced to do that have now gone from the once ubiquitous homophobia laced pocky game to non committed queer roles with no kissing. The in drama company so clearly is using the "Business gay" concept but also having their artists staunchly deny and have to avoid the media questioning their shady tactics like the media is wrong to question them. This is playing into the delusional fantasies of real people shippers that idols that are denying relationships are lying to them.

The in drama ceo is also quick to sell her artists to J who wants to work with his first love, and Hyun Bin who has roofied both Ji Hoon and Eden and had them both assaulted by an actress. He took photos of it happening to Ji Hoon and almost tanked his whole career. That's a huge criminal deal and the drama just brushes past it just like it has with everything else that's also a disturbing very real thing that kpop idols have to contend with, their management selling them for sexual favors. There are so many heavy industry things that the drama is lamp shading but does nothing with.

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Poor Opening

There is a fine line between expressive and over acting and the actress that plays Ah Young has annihilated that line and needs to take it down 5000 notches. The character is also immediately very annoying, turning off the tv that someone's in the middle of watching to hit on them, daydreaming and impeding traffic with her car stopped on the road but of course gets away with it because the cop that stops her knows her and she continues to take a phone call while standing in the middle of the road after he drives off. She literally writes herself in as a y/n character of course under the guise of saving Woo Bin. I feel so bad for this guy getting physically harassed by her. It was nice to see her be separated from him once Rebecca writes the police guy Myung Hwan in as her husband and probably his partner as their kid to distract her. It's weird that he's the only one that didn't get to return to his police officer job and is suddenly running the beachside book store. This drama randomly has the most explicit sex scene in recent non Netflix kdrama years.

It was a terrible struggle to get through all of her scenes even with the short half hour plus run time of a mere 6 episodes. This could have been way more enjoyable with a good actor with better acting skills, but this isn't that. It still has an interesting premise that they tease at the end could be expanded upon. I hope if they do it will be better cast with competent actors as the lead.

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Atypical Kdrama

Right off the bat I enjoy the casting of the main leads for Gwi Ju and Da Hae. I like how Jang Ki Yong is playing against his usual cool guy role, being a dorky regular Joe Gwi Ju who has the mushroom/coconut hair. Chun Woo Hee is effervescent as Da Hae who gives off this endearing charm where it's understandable how people are drawn to and trust her. I love how both of the actors ground even a silly funny reactions so that they aren't cringey, which includes the bickering which is usually a fast forward moment in other dramas. I love the scene where Da Hae goes off to con a fourth husband in order to shake of Gwi Ju. She shows off her full con mode, she's very effective but Gwi Ju doesn't have any jealousy or anger or is even phased. Which was a preview version of later when he finds out she faked her death in an attempt to save him. He was angry and confused, but he just embraces her as soon as he realizes why she did what she did. Their chemistry is so good! Of the extended cast, Kim Geum Soon is really impressive as Baek Il Hong, Da Hae's loan shark turned adopted mom. She's fantastic at keeping her motives ambiguous as to whether she's sincere or a plot, whether she loves Da Hae or she's a cold hearted crime boss who will collect on Da Hae's due.

The writing for the most part is really good. The writing for this show actually understands how to withhold and reveal information with impact. They play with the expectations of the powers really well from the evolution of Gwi Ju being able interact with past Da Hae, to her revealing to him things his future self did but the audience aren't sure if she's lying or not and she's able to use this in a actual lie as well, to her simultaneously interacting with both past and future him, and how he's saved. The flower scene is probably the most trippy time travel event of the whole series, because she didn't lie but he also didn't buy the flowers until his future self gave them to her. Ina's friend/bully doesn't even know that Ina has the power to read minds when she looks into people's eyes but was unknowingly able to use it to mentally bully Ina. Da Hae is able able to flip Man Huem's fatalist viewing of her negative dreams into a reinterpretation of the events into a positive outcome, building on what her fellow regular human father in law Man Seok has been doing to make the positive dreams come true. Man Seok seeming like she was tricking Il Hong about a vision about seeing the daughter she lost (the one that died while she was in prison) grown and alive but actually was about embracing Da Hae who faked her death hit me so hard in the heart.

The weakest part of the writing is Dong Hee's storyline and struggle with eating and body image. Dong Hee was used a comic relief character when she was heavyset and then suddenly she's just all serious when she's lost the weight again. The optics of that is really suspect to say the least. I could see there was the intention of wanting to convey the reasoning behind Dong Hee not being able to fly was not actually her physical weight, but the crushing mental insecurity and regret, but I don't think the story conveyed that as well as it can be. Then the other weak parts was the unnecessary teasing of the scumbag doctor by Da Hae and Grace that causes him to push her out the window and then him being the one to cause the foreseen school ire that forces Gwi Ju to time travel to the past feels forced. It's like they just transferred all of Dong Hee's cartoony nature into him just to move certain plots along.

The conclusion is lovely though. It turns out Da Hae and Gwi Ju definitely got frisky at least once at some point because they have a son at the end and it's so beautiful that her child is who brought Gwi Ju back to the safety of the future. I thought it was funny that they didn't show Ina's face in the future, only that she has long hair. Her actress was probably actually around 11 at the time playing a 13 year old while all the class mates were played by 14 or 15 year olds which makes her look as small as possible, so I understand how it would be hard to age her up. They should have cast an older kid so she could reunite with her dad too. Overall the drama was very enjoyable to watch and it's always great to see kdrama try to do something different and mostly succeeding.

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C grade

The adults act so childish while the teenagers get all the emotional heavy stakes and interesting plot developments. The best parts of the drama were actually the teenagers and their struggle to meet these physically and mentally taxing educational standards and expectations of their parents and society as well as the mother daughter relationship between the aunt and niece. The wildness of the the hagwon institutions like how the parents have to line up everyday to get the best seating for their children was interesting as well. The murder mystery part of the drama was okay, but it was dragged on for like 3 or 4 episodes too long. When it was revealed that the brother is a red herring and assistant guy is the murderer, that's when they should have wrapped it up.

I quite enjoy seeing pairings where both grown consenting adult characters have the female lead as older than the male lead and the corresponding actors, but the casting here is really distractingly off with the actress not looking anywhere near believable as the character age range she is portraying. It didn't really need to be a noticeable issue except for the drama itself making it awkward by throwing lines like "she doesn't look old enough to be a mom to a teenager" and showing that only a decade has elapsed between the past and the present the story takes place in. It's compounded by the fact that the costume department didn't make a single effort to at least style her to look like she's in her 30s or even 40s and always put her in clothes and hair styling that made her look very middle aged.

Her character is also like an emotionally volatile doormat, it would have been nice to see her have some smarts and effectively save or stand up for herself and her loved ones from time to time. Her version of acting cute was really off putting as well with the over the top laughing as she covers her face and violently hits whoever is in front of her. The romance plots of all of the adults were the least interesting parts of the story. None of them had chemistry and it would have been better to keep those as brief as possible. The teenagers were more interesting, I like how the two boys actually developed a friendship despite being love rivals.

For a single mom with younger man romance that also includes a serial killer plot, I recommend watching When the Camellia Blooms instead of this drama.

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Intro to resisting systemic corruption

Every strike Yun Ga Min lays against a variety of bullies is a cathartic release of power that we all wish we had to defend ourselves. The beat down scenes are very well set up in each situation. It's so funny how he accidentally became a martial arts savant on his path to do everything to boost his chances on finally getting good grades. The only muscle that is the most resistant to strengthening in the poor guy's body is his brain alas. He may not be smart, but he his heart and tenacity is inspiring to the people that he cultivates a supportive circle that inspires them to stand up to the corrupt school and bully system they are trapped in that also goes beyond it. It's also important to note that Yun Ga Min comes from a middle class background in comparison to his economically disadvantaged schoolmates. Their financial insecure status is a key point that is taken advantaged of by the rich kid Pi Han Ul who is a rotten apple fallen from the rotten violent rich businessman gangster tree.

I like that teacher Lee acknowledges that violence is a legitimate self defense reaction to when the student is facing violent behavior and detective Na acknowledge the limitation to how much he's able to help them. Ms Lee has zero fighting skills and knew from the start her mentor was stabbed to death and she still went to this school and took a stabbing to protect her student from a murder charge and faced down many attempted murders. She went into her personal mission with eyes open to the danger. It does seem she healed from the stab wound really fast. It's also good that the Study Group doesn't just have Ga Min as the only protector, Ji U and to a lesser degree but better than Se Hyeon and Hui Won, though Se Hyeon is a pretty quick study, able to to swiftly follow both Ga Min and Ga Min's mom's direction to fight bullies. Se Hyeon might be an all rounder in brains and brawns with more training. Hui Won has potential as well, knocking down a bully american football tackle style. If there is a season two, it would be nice to see the group train up in all stats, both grades and fighting. Sun Cheol just wanting to study and his grandfather learning something new until he died are both very moving stories.

It's eye rolling that of Ga Min's mom, the director of the Tae Kwon Do association would be knocked out with a severe injury despite so many other characters getting worse hits and just shrugging it off. This was ultimately unnecessary as it didn't change Ga Min's character trajectory in anyway and she recovered just fine anyways. The drama leaves some dangling threads like Ga Min's master that his mom banned him from meeting anymore and possibly more to do with Han Ul's father and of course the kids who are only first and second years getting into college. I hope Sun Cheol who is already a senior gets into college as well. I hope this show gets another season to finish out the story.

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Loses steam half way and dragged on too long

Han Joon is very entertaining as solves crime in the guise of a shaman with his own sharp deductive skills augmented by his misfit team comprising as his computer savvy sister Hye Joon, his brawler buddy barista, and pretty boy cafe host who kinda disappears as the plot gets serious. He's the best part of the show with the range to balance comedy with heartbreaking angst. The few scenes that he had with the late prosecutor best friend Jae Jung that was murdered showed a million times more chemistry than any of the scenes he has with the female lead love interest Jae Hee/Jangmi who is woefully miscast as she does not have the acting skills to either be funny or be serious let alone traverse the tone in between and it doesn't help that the writing for her characterization is atrocious. She's just violent and refuses to think with any kind of reasoning even though supposedly she closes a lot of cases. She just beats gangs up with brute force, with no detective problem solving skills. Her best relationship is actually her friendship with her sunbae that she is the superior of with them finding mutual respect for each other.

People saying the drama is not meant to be taken seriously sound like they are watching a whole different show, like a best friend being burned alive before their eyes haha? Victims of rape and murder, haha? They have the comedy moments which work best in all the dynamics outside of the chemistry-less romance that grinds the pacing down to a halt and serious subject matter as well. 18 episodes drags on for way too long for the show which should have been 12 episodes max. The writing for even the best character starts getting messy like Han Joon's either being very good at fighting to suddenly not being good whenever the plot needs it. Han Joon not knowing Jae hee was Jangmi is really nonsensical too with how he can read people and Hye Joon can dig up dirt with her tech skills. The casting for the characters with age gaps make zero sense either. Jae Hee's actress is the same age as Han Joon, but she looks a lot older even though his character was an adult when she was a kid. If it's just to make it so he wouldn't recognize her, they could have been both around the similar age as kids instead. The shaman auntie Im is supposed to be older being an adult already when her goon and her boss were kids, but they look way older than her as adults.

The twist on who the true serial killer is was nicely done having telegraphed it all the way when Prosecutor Cha ignored Han Joon's witness statement regarding the scar. He had better chemistry with the female lead which led to the disturbing reveal of his affections for her due to seeing her flounder in her search for her brother's killer and relying on his seeming kindness in helping her. He was otherwise the prototypical good guy drama character other wise. I think it would have been even more devastating if a friendship was played up with Han Joon and the others more too in the superfluous 18 episode runtime.

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Alternate near present issues that are just set dressing

The show takes place a year or two from the air date with some technology that's quite a lot more advanced than what's commercially available presently, both in terms of software/hardware, as well as in biological advancements with artificial food and artificial replacement organs. The core or rather who should have been the core is Blood Free CEO Yun Ja Yu who is under constant threat by people in the meat and fishing industry who feel their livelihoods being threatened by her company. She's wary and shrewd, rightly suspicious of ex-military bodyguard Woo Chae Woon whose constant presence and connection to the recent events is way too many to be coincidental. The tiring romance trope has her brain cells evaporating in his presence with him easily gaslighting this brilliant woman out of her suspicions despite not knowing him at all. The show pays lip service to how she has protocol of switching hotels until her state of the art safe house is finished, but in the end she just chooses to go to Chae Woon's house at his suggestion which was already shown to be easy to be infiltrated with her own Blood Free security team breaching it and waiting for him while petting his cat Minshik. Chae Woon also is gone for long stretches of time with no mention of what arrangements of care made for his cat. Ja Yu is the one who is thinking of the cat's wellbeing more than he does. It's shown in flashback that she went to the same university as her co-founder On San as students of Dr. Kim, but she's never shown participating in the science portions. The show is so unwilling to let her take some kind of forward momentum of her own and when she does, she's instantly punished physically for it and spends the entire finale passed out with her organs exposed.

The show has a problem with giving their characters connection as well. They characters Ja Yu and Chae Woon would be having a conversation and you think they're finally going to get to the core of who the other person is, only to have them only show the audience, but all the pertinent information is just being thought of in the character's head and not being shared with the other character. It was so weird that they show us Ja Yu, Chae Woon, and the late bodyguard Ho Seung having a conversation and bonding in Chae Woon's yard after he's already dead, like the show suddenly remembering oh yeah, we need to form some emotional stakes. If the show doesn't want to explore the characters, it should at least explore and address the concerns that are brought up with the new technology that the farmers are concerned about displace them are protesting, but that's just back drop and everything in the show is basically centered on the characters searching for who bombed the former prime minister. Surprise, it's the current Prime Minister who wants Ja Yu's organs, his political maneuverings. The top secret area where the organs are stored look like a space ship in an unintentionally funny design choice kind of way. The best scene that takes place in there is Dr. Hong strangling the Prime Minister's goon with an intestine. The poor doctor had gotten kidnapped twice by traitor colleagues twice and she became tougher with every violent encounter. Her jumping out of the car that second time was smart too. If only Ja Yu got to do that. Her bodyguard driver did that, but she didn't jump herself. If's pretty sad that despite having a female writer, the female main character still gets the shaft in moments of agency to save herself or to outsmart her oppositions. I hope if there is a second season as it seems to imply, that it will be better.

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Humanity over Political Agendas

Moving is like a full season of western broadcast shows of yore like Heroes with 20 of 40 something minute episodes, except with possibly a bigger budget and better fight scenes. Heroes was allergic to the big fight scenes, closing the door when the fighters finally meet for it to happen off screen, but that's a whole other review. Han Hyo Joo is put to great use here as Lee Mi Hyeon, way better than Happiness where she was pushed to a back seat to the male lead once the romance entered the story. I'm always glad that she shifted to action based roles because she both humanizes her character with great acting while making her characters cool with great fight scenes. It's so fascinating that even with the no make up make up to give flaws and pores to her face to age her character to look older as her actual age difference with the actor who plays her son is just 11 years with her playing older and him playing younger, she still looks stunningly gorgeous. I really enjoyed how her character uses her supervision and hearing in conjunction with her top secret agent skills and quick thinking to eliminate her foes. The trick shot with the reflective surfaces and her rapid fire snow balls on the security cams were great. It's kinda sad though her son Bong Seok had inherited both his parent's powersets of flight and the super vision/hearing, he did not inherit his mom's survival instincts, though part of it could be due to her not teaching him what to watch out for and just to hide himself and keep himself down. He got lucky Frank was momentarily called off.

The drama does not take a position that any political entity that are using superpowered individuals are in the right, all of them are either complicit or the same in using these people as expendable pawns in their political ploys. The enemy combatants who were soldiers or agents needed to be stopped but they aren't allowed to be a one dimensional villain. Frank is assassinating the super power retirees who mostly have either complicated or very loving relationships with their children, on orders from the CIA, but he's show to feel bad when he goes to the funeral service of the woman he murdered to track down and kill her child, but finds that she's a great mother to many adopted children who felt just as loved by her as their sister that was her biological child. Frank was also technically and adopted child having been taken and trained through inhumane treatment by the CIA. Doo Sik thought he was sparing the North Korean soldier's lives by shooting them in an area that gives them the greatest chance to recover from if they get medical attention in time, but the soldier that was begging him not to enter the North Korean leader's room was not to protect the leader, but to protect all the soldiers from the consequence, which was execution which was what happened to all the other soldiers that survived. He then is tasked to cruelly brute force suspected superpowered individuals to awaken their powers by forcing off a cliff, to use their powers or die. If they manage to survive, they are forced to serve their country or their family's would die.

Some of these people were from the prison holes who would form a comraderies including one with Doo Sik who was caught in his second attack on North Korea that would lead to him finally being able to escape to reunite with his family. It's pretty ridiculous that he didn't bother to mask or do anything to hide his identity or country of origin, especially when he intended to leave a ton of witnesses alive during his first attack. He always showed a hubris in bucking his agency's protocols like not bothering to hide his identity to even his partner by only using code names, but he really though that would be fine on an assassination assignment in a foreign country. Absolutely ridiculous. Doo Sik was released by a fellow superpowered flying person. The variety of powers being limited to flying, strength, electricity, super hearing/vision is interesting, fast healing is interesting as well. It seems to be confined unless the off spring is from two super people thus giving them a combo. I'm shocked non of the agencies had breeding programs and they didn't know that the super abilities could be passed down to offspring until they saw toddler Ganghoon toss toss the swat team out of the apartment. Maybe that will be in the alleged season 2. Even though Ju Won lost an eye in the fight against the North Korean agents still adopting the big healing powered guy after that guy lost his only friend and was found sobbing by Hui Soo was sweet. Maybe Frank will eventually join their self healing family too. It's part of the ending which felt very rushed including Doo Sik killing director Min, Frank being alive, and other things. I respected it though because it has all the vibes of a show that found out it got cancelled and won't be getting further seasons and wanted to close off some plot lines the best it can like Pushing Daises.

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Sampler bites of zombie survival personalities

The film certainly does feature action, but most of it are snapshots of how regular people would fare or do when suddenly trapped in a building during a zombie epidemic and a straightforward tale of survival. The pov character is a random guy Joon Woo who very unfortunately slacked off on getting the groceries at the worst time. No particular special skills, but very online. The one time where the penchant to post personal information online works out as it turns out to be extremely important to the outcome of his survival. Also helping is that he's very lucky to happen to be living across from an outdoorsy woman Yoo Bin who still has all her gear despite the trauma she suffered from a fall three years ago. That's pretty much all we get to know about her aside from seeing her cleverly save Joon Woo from suicide with a laser pointer and tenaciously barreling through the zombies to get to him. The third and final resident survivor is a desperate husband in denial stage Bae Soo who drugs and tries to feed Yoo Bin to his zombie wife. That's a huge blow to the two of them who consider euthanasia and suicide by gun before the helicopters really show up despite them thinking Bae Soo was just lying to them. The government broadcast implies that Joon Woo's social media posts was what saved them as it was how the rescue copters knew which roof tops to look for them. It's unwittingly about a balance of hobbies, the gamer guy and the hiker girl, working together to get to safety.

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Art University Coming of Age Story

I love how the cinematography captures the air and space of the various settings. The best kind breaths life into every shot without overtaking it, it's harmonious in the storytelling with the characters who are at the center of them. The tension and the chemistry between the main characters works really well because beyond just the physical attraction, they are navigating learning about themselves through their interaction with each other. I really love that the women in the series have sexual autonomy and aren't shamed for it nor is it exploitative. Both the women and the men get to be three dimensional people exploring life experiences of young adulthood. I really like how their art major is actually part of the story, they go to class and work on their art projects.

Nabi is pressured into sex by her older boyfriend that is a teacher at an academy and is implied to be a mentor if not her teacher at some point who is also controlling and uses her as his model for an explicit art that depicts her completely exposed in every way during an intimate act with her real name attached to it without her consent or knowledge for any part of it. She finally dumps him when another student clues her in that he's also cheating on her with his other academy students. This is her first relationship and a toxic one that she survived to be more wary. She enters a casual relationship with Jae Eon with eyes open as to his preference of not putting a label on their time together. She is fully aware and she gave it a try with consent. Ultimately she wants wants a relationship that is more concrete. I like that she goes out on a date with the freshman and recognizes while it's the regular feeling she enjoys she doesn't have the spark. It doesn't work out because he immediately chooses the girl he's had a crush on for years. Nabi realizes she's a rebound and it stings. He knew that he was her rebound too though when they went on their movie date and she rejected his kiss by laughing. Her high school bestie has the worst timing of everything, he didn't tell her his feelings because she was already with someone, which could be her creepy older first boyfriend. Maybe if he had confessed earlier, a romantic relationship between them might have had a chance. I like that Nabi comes to life in friendships with people and she has kept that spark despite what she had endured. She is no pushover either, when Seol Ah, one of Jae Eon's ambiguous non girlfriends girlfriends comes to campus to be territorial, Nabi tells her not to cut her hair because Jae Eon likes to do it with the hair tied up, that was spicy.

Jae Eon has always had a distant relationship with women beginning with his own mother who is a successful dancer always on the road. He's effortlessly charming and straightforward, but withholds giving away too much of himself which eventually becomes off putting to them women who were initially attracted to his looks. He's always had an obsession with butterflies, keeping a walkable terrarium of them in his apartment. Both Nabi and especially him are very middle class well off, being able to afford being art students with nice apartments provided to them without the struggle that their female TA has to find affordable living quarters. He first sees Nabi when she's in the agony of public humiliation at the exhibit of her creep ex-boyfriend. By chance he runs into her again at the bar and then at the school that he transferred to from a different major because he's legitimately talented in art. He's by all means attentive to her. He learns that his feelings for her is different that when he's with other people, he can't keep her at a distance, he wants to be with her and wants to put a label on the relationship for her. He's not a perfect guy, his jealously seeing her high school bestie show up near her apartment being the partial reason to lead him to this epiphany. When she's not ready, he does his best to help her to reassemble her final project that was smashed due to a freak accident at school, and tearfully keeps his word to leave her alone. That was a beautifully heart wrenching scene. They run into each other at the final project exhibition long after everyone has left. Jae Eon is there to see their finished work with out bothering her while unknowingly granting her wish to see him again. She acknowledges that there will be pain in their relationship. She doesn't idealize him or their relationship, but she's going to be with him.

While they were the most intense relationship in the show, they are partly mirrored by Bit Na, a free spirited person enjoys friendships with attractive men and casual dating as well who is akin to Jae Eon, so it's ironic that Bit Na was the one initially warning Nabi against him, while Kyu Hyun is like Nabi who wants to be treated as more than just a sex partner. Jae Eon asks Kyu Hyun's perspective to understand more of Nabi's point of view. While it's fair that he deserves to be treated better than just for sex, the show could have done a better job showing that he's not in the right to tamp down the rest of her personality. The relationship of the the TAs were very typical kdrama fare with co-habitation to development of romantic feelings. The lesbian storyline with the best friends to lover relationship would have been great if they had gotten even a measly romantic kiss. I really like that their gender was never in question and their realization was developed organically. They should have gotten that kdrama kiss.

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Messy motherhood messaging

The majority of the drama is painting a very three dimensional portrait of Young Soon who endured loss her entire life and to cope with the trauma of her husband's mysterious suicide after they had been abandoned by everyone they trusted, she raises her son to be a weapon of revenge without a specific aim at a person, but rather at the entire Korean justice system, which is a lot of weight on the shoulders of a man let alone a little boy. Instead of filling her son with warmth and understanding, she isolated him from finding joy with her, within himself, or in anyone or anything else, so he'll be single mindedly focused on becoming a powerful prosecutor. She's very lucky that Kang Ho is a born artist who is empathetic and observant and can see the glimpses behind her abusive parenting tactics and realizes the true targets he needs to hunt down for justice for his family who he played in a long game. Those are his true strengths that kept him from hating her for her behavior, which he has every right to no matter her intention as he still carries the emotional scars she inflicted on him. She herself realized the harm she had done only when she was forced to reflect on them after his accident left him with the mindset of a seven year old and he refuses to eat because she always forced him never to be full at meal times so he can stay awake to study. It's shocking he got to grow as tall as he did without much food. The majority of the drama sees Young Soon trying to fast track his physical and mental recovery before she herself succumbs to her stage four stomach cancer. The drama misses out on showing Kang Ho finding himself through his interactions with various people and memories. It was so disappointing that the memories from his 18 year old self when he kissed Mi Joo after saving her from the creep who was harassing her at the hair salon did not move up his mindset from 7 to 18. It's creepy that Mi Joo kept kissing a man with the mind of a 7 year old and he was able to be taken advantaged of by the village thief and loser Sam Sik. Instead of organically unlocking his memories in a meaningful way, of course Kang Ho recovers them after more severe head trauma from saving his mom and Sam Sik from the burning pig farm. Lee Do Hyun did a fantastic job portraying both the Kang Ho who is suffering from the mental regression and the pained adult enacting the 35 year revenge plan which required some difficult to outsiders to understand methods including keeping innocents in jail to save their lives and to cozy up to the company chairman.

He got to experience agency and happiness during his college years with Mi Joo who volunteered to help with the household chores and expenses while he studied. He broke up with her because there's something he can only do himself and offered to tell her why as he reached the time when he had to start his revenge plan, but she refused and kept her pregnancy a secret from him so as to not interrupt the plan that she didn't want him to tell her. She trusted that Kang Ho is doing something so important that he would leave someone he loves to do it. That's an intense trust level that she has with him, but also partially learned behavior from her mom in staying the man she loves no matter what. Sadly her mom's situation was staying in a toxic relationship with her abusive, cheating husband until he died just so her daughters wouldn't be fatherless, a insult that is levied at Kang Ho and also his seven year old twin children Ye Jin and Seo Jin who Mi Joo lies to that their father is a nail salon owner in the US. The twins are the creepily precocious kind, but Ye Jin is smart enough to tell Mi Joo to just get divorced from the man who clearly doesn't care about them and they'll live a good life without them. It's really awful that the drama makes this smart observant 7 year old man crazy and spending the majority of the time obsessed with marrying the guy she doesn't know is her biological father. That's not cute, it's just weird. It's also a big misstep in not showing a scene of Kang Ho finally introducing himself to the twins as their father and Young Soon as their grandmother, having a scene of their family finally formally together before they have the final celebration with the extended village family. There was time that rightly showed the love hate sibling like bond between Young Soon and all the villagers, but shortchanged the bond between the direct family members. Lion the pig also disappeared even though the pig was in the main opening sequence for every ep and was part of the story for so long. Could have shown her giving birth to the piglet that Kang Ho uses to propose at the end or something. Kang Ho also loses his job as a prosecutor and it looks like he becomes a pig farmer like his parents, with no mention of Mi Joo settling her major financial problems after being scammed by her former work best friend. They could have even thrown in a line to tie that up.

The tone of the series is really all over the place. It would go to very dark desperate places like Young Soon contemplating murder suicide to hanging herself to motivate Kang Ho to stand to then the annoying antics of Sam Sik and the bumbling goons who bumbled their way into becoming cabbage farmers. The more serious of the goons becomes a major whistleblower for Kang Ho. Yet again the show was missing a scene where the goon hits the final straw with a hit ordered on him to get him to the whistleblowing point. It was at least a little amusing to see that they found their calling as cabbage growing savants, but Sam Sik was just awful the entire time. A spoiled son that ends the drama having transferred his obsessive infatuation to Ha Young who is serving time for having incriminated herself in order to bring her father down. She's an interesting character who was also spoiled and haughty but melted to Kang Ho's seeming care for her. She does have a soul being haunted by her role in Kang Ho's attempted murder and seeing how corrupt and murderous her father is. She doesn't deserve to have Sam Sik being foisted on her though. The gag that the village chief's wife always covered her face with sheet masks and face masks because she is a Japanese mob boss's daughter didn't go anywhere. Her skills and resources was entirely unutilized and her character was just used as a sight gag the whole time.

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Family fantasy that's also about individual growth and change

It's difficult or impossible to root for the leads of most kdramas to reconcile because the writing simply does not do the work to allow them to learn and confront the core problems that drove them apart in the first place, just skipping through romantic moments and calling it a day. This drama thankfully does have the main characters fully separate so they can gain a new point of view and move forward in their lives before finally understanding and see eye to eye. Da Jung delayed her schooling and working in her dream job in reporting/hosting while Dae Yeong completely abandoned his childhood dreams of becoming a professional basketball player in order for the two to become teen parents to twins. They both aged from still looking like their teen selves through their 20s to looking like they are in their 40s (as their actors are) even though they are supposedly 30s. within a few years (like John and Mary from Supernatural). At least she's pursuing her dream despite, while he's deeply embittered at his dead end job that he turns to drinking away his sorrows and saying the most unforgivable thing he could to his wife in public at their school reunion, blaming her for how his life turned out and forgets about it while being black out drunk. It takes two to conceive and was contraceptives even involved? This snowballs with his other bad behavior into being served divorce papers by Da Jung.

Dae Yeong caches in all the good karma he accumulated in his life both when he get given some magic tea that's implied to be perhaps a mix of science and magic by an mysterious elder that turns him back to his young charismatic handsome self and he has a very rich best friend Deok Jin who can house and pretend to be his father. All the scenes with him makes me wonder if this show was partially sponsored by Disney/Marvel. Deok Jin keeps pursuing Ms. Ok despite her constantly saying no until she agrees to date him at the end. It doesn't matter if she's also a fellow nerd, this is just awful. This storyline is awful when they did the other ones pretty well. Ji Hoon the baseball player was always respectful of Da Jung's space and wishes from beginning to end, being a fantastic friend to her even when she doesn't return his feelings. She in turns gives him observant and experience advice to raise his niece/adopted daughter. He was always the mature adult when ever Dae Yeong was being jealous territorial too and only got stern with him when Dae Yeong looked to be getting inappropriate and violent with a fearful Da Jung. He also had to learn that he can't force people to become parents when they don't want to. Him forcing his daughter's unwilling bio mom to meet her was cruel to both regardless of what she chose to say. It turns out that he had been looking for Dae Yeong as well as he was the one who was able to save the niece's life with his handyman tools by breaking the car window and taking her away from the car before a big truck careened fatally into her father and Ji Hoon's brother's car. It's pretty convenient that they are connected this way, but I'll chalk it up to part of Dae Yeong's magical karma.

Dae Yeong initially self serving wish to become young again to do what he missed out on became a way to understand his estranged family members. He finally sees all of his negative behavior towards them while his loving actions as Woo Yeong makes them think of Dae Yeong's caring side. His twins Si Ah and Si Yu seem to have zero interest of ever looking at his photos or videos of him when he was young, while in contrast Si Ah's boyfriend who has fond memories of Dae Yeong stepping up to race with him when he was young does and is the only one other than the adults to figure it out. It took Dae Yeong to transform into the body of his former self to stop yelling so much and be a more communicative person, finally getting to know his children fully as the people they have become. His stereotypical macho father outrage at boys being interested in his daughter was awful though, as Si Ah is more than capable of handling herself on that front. I hope both his kids are fully informed about contraceptives though. It's really lovely how the parallels were done between Da Jung and Si Ah's personalities. Da Jung was actually a bad ass that kicked a girl gang down to save the girl that bullied her, turning her into a life long friend and continues kicking ass with further self defense classes with Si Ah. Si Ah is a bit too old to learn the hard way to avoid dark alleys and picking fights in alleys no matter how good a fighter she is, but better late than never.

It was really interesting the way the drama dealt with the various bullies. Both the lawyer and the young anchor were saved by Da Jung fighting people that picked on them like the other bullies and the upskirt filming producer creep. The coach that bullied Deok Jin in high school took bribes due to his father never believing in him and paying his way onto the team. He became an example used by Da Jung to compel the parents to whistleblow together for their kids. This actually made the parent of Ja Seong that was bullying Si Yu for witnessing the bribe become a better dad and so his son becomes a better person too. Dae Yeong's dad didn't give into the bribe because he believed his son's abilities speak for itself. This storyline connects to the all the characters so well. Deok Jin appearing on the news and the anchor describing his incoherence in speaking as evidence of how badly he was beaten up by the coach was so funny. Dae Yeong reunites with his father who also turned to drinking and hitting him after Dae Yeong's mother died. With time and distance, his father had recovered from his grief and was able to change as well. Dae Yeong watching the back of his aged father, both sitting in the senior seating on the bus to driving the bus for work was heartbreaking. He interacts with him a for a few times, before finally revealing himself to his father through the sign language they both learned for Dae Yeong's mother. It's the most moving scene in the series.

I liked that Da Jung got to date Dae Yeong in his young form for a bit. The chemistry between the actors is very nice. Because there was so much change between the characters, it wasn't too disappointing that he switched back to true age after he made the decision to abandon a basketball career a second time, reaffirming what he wants is just life with Da Jung and their family. He even becomes her manager for a while before he becomes a teacher to little kiddos once his own kiddos have gone off to college. I assume it's because she made enough money in her flourishing career to afford to hire a team. The series is only a about 1hr4m most episodes, but each one feels longer than that, but in a good way. It packs in a lot of interpersonal connection and growth than dramas with episodes over 90minutes long. This is why years later when Da Jung and Dae Yeong have found their identities and have learned healthy ways to communicate after disagreements, it makes sense for them to tie the knot once again. Their guests include the mysterious magic elder who also offered Da Jung who helped him across the street a wish, but she didn't take it. I wonder if he offers everyone who helps him a wish, there might be a whole connected universe of magical mayhem stories because of him.

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A thriller of Culpability

The story kicks off with a mystery of all the teens being forced to play Mafia and is propelled with fear of death and bullying at every point. The deaths themselves become spectacles. All of the head hits are impactful, as are the ones where they throw themselves over the railing. The self strangulation one was too silly, they should have rethought that one. Selfish bullies push people to the edge just as much as the assigned Mafia do. Everyone is forced to be complicit participants in someone's death by voting. Friends turn against one another. Kids blame themselves. The selfish flourish until their time is up. Intrepid asthmatic Yeon Seo analyzes the crime scenes and tries to find clues out of this giant, murderous Mafia themed escape room. Aside from her observational skills, she's also special in that there is a force who wants her to see beyond the code.

Jung Won turns out to be this force, a character designed to win the game and causing discord and murder in the wake of it, decided to lose it to save the two players who became her friends instead. She's the virtual stand-in, the virtual ghost of Se Eun who took her only life from bullying. The intense loneliness being targeted everyone around you is truly suffocating and it may be hard to understand by those who have not experienced it themselves. It doesn't matter what type of reason was used to bully her, it mattered that it was the people's attitude and actions or inactions towards her. Her parents took it upon themselves to kidnap her entire class and use them to mentally and physically hurt each other. There is no legal recourse that would give them justice for the daughter they lost. Yeon Seo gets to see the set up she's trapped in so the parents could find out what made Jung Won go against her programming to help. They are unwilling to see that Jung Won/Se Eun has found the feeling of friendship and loyalty that she didn't have before. Jung Won found a catharsis in the game that the parents are not willing to embrace yet outside of it even though they have engineered the repeated suffering of the key perpetrators and bystanders. Jung Won is reset along with the rest and she was not able to free Yeon Seo by letting the citizens win as Yeon Seo is only able to awaken when the parents allow her to. The kids aren't there to learn a lesson, they are just to suffer indefinitely. I wonder if aside from Jung Won, the other roles are randomized? If Yeon Seo is put into the mafia role, what would she do? Ultimately her morality doesn't matter to her jailers. Even Se Eun is trapped in this virtual hell until her parents can find their way out of their grief.

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