K-Drama 
2
Not that good at all.
Despite all the hype, I couldn’t feel any chemistry between them. The cinematography is beautiful, and I really liked the message behind the story, but the characters just didn’t work for me.
The ML felt incredibly one-dimensional. Even with all the plot twists, his tragic past, and everything we’re eventually told about his struggles, none of it really landed because what we actually got to see from him was such a simplistic character that he almost came across as childish at times. I simply couldn’t see him as someone who could have a meaningful romantic connection with her, which made the lack of chemistry between them even more noticeable. It felt like his tragic backstory was mainly there to give him the depth that the writing itself never managed to give him.
The FL frustrated me for similar reasons. I understand grief, but the way hers was written felt, again, one-dimensional. Instead of simply letting her be a person who is grieving, the show constantly has her explicitly announcing it. At one point she literally yells at him “I can’t be friends with you.” Like... what? Someone going through grief doesn’t need to constantly declare that they don’t want relationships, don’t want happiness, don’t need anyone. They just... are. You should be able to understand what a character is going through by watching them, and not because the script keeps screaming the character’s inner state at you.
And that’s really my biggest problem with the writing: it seems to have absolutely no trust in the audience. It keeps spelling everything out instead of allowing the characters to have subtlety, contradictions or actual layers. The result is that what should feel like complex grief just comes across as exaggerated and almost performative. She’s supposedly incapable of letting anyone into her life, yet she’s perfectly functional and successful at work. There’s no nuance to the contradiction; the script just keeps telling us what her trauma means and how she is supposed to behave because of it. Shows shouldn’t treat the audience like idiots who need every emotion and motivation explained out loud, so that’s exactly what made this drama feel so empty to me. There was so much telling and so little actual substance or characterization that, by the end, I just couldn’t believe in these people or their relationship. Nothing felt organic, and I think that’s ultimately why I couldn’t see any chemistry between them.
Overall, I felt like both characters were given tragic backstories in an attempt to create layers and depth that the writing itself never really managed to develop. I wanted to care about them and their relationship, but I just couldn’t. Of all the things I expected from this drama, the complete lack of chemistry between the leads was probably the biggest disappointment, especially because I really like both actors. I went into this excited to see them together, so it was frustrating that the writing gave them so little depth to work with that I never actually believed in their relationship.The parallel storylines didn’t help either, only one of them really mattered to me, while the others mostly felt like unnecessary screen time and extra plotlines.
The ML felt incredibly one-dimensional. Even with all the plot twists, his tragic past, and everything we’re eventually told about his struggles, none of it really landed because what we actually got to see from him was such a simplistic character that he almost came across as childish at times. I simply couldn’t see him as someone who could have a meaningful romantic connection with her, which made the lack of chemistry between them even more noticeable. It felt like his tragic backstory was mainly there to give him the depth that the writing itself never managed to give him.
The FL frustrated me for similar reasons. I understand grief, but the way hers was written felt, again, one-dimensional. Instead of simply letting her be a person who is grieving, the show constantly has her explicitly announcing it. At one point she literally yells at him “I can’t be friends with you.” Like... what? Someone going through grief doesn’t need to constantly declare that they don’t want relationships, don’t want happiness, don’t need anyone. They just... are. You should be able to understand what a character is going through by watching them, and not because the script keeps screaming the character’s inner state at you.
And that’s really my biggest problem with the writing: it seems to have absolutely no trust in the audience. It keeps spelling everything out instead of allowing the characters to have subtlety, contradictions or actual layers. The result is that what should feel like complex grief just comes across as exaggerated and almost performative. She’s supposedly incapable of letting anyone into her life, yet she’s perfectly functional and successful at work. There’s no nuance to the contradiction; the script just keeps telling us what her trauma means and how she is supposed to behave because of it. Shows shouldn’t treat the audience like idiots who need every emotion and motivation explained out loud, so that’s exactly what made this drama feel so empty to me. There was so much telling and so little actual substance or characterization that, by the end, I just couldn’t believe in these people or their relationship. Nothing felt organic, and I think that’s ultimately why I couldn’t see any chemistry between them.
Overall, I felt like both characters were given tragic backstories in an attempt to create layers and depth that the writing itself never really managed to develop. I wanted to care about them and their relationship, but I just couldn’t. Of all the things I expected from this drama, the complete lack of chemistry between the leads was probably the biggest disappointment, especially because I really like both actors. I went into this excited to see them together, so it was frustrating that the writing gave them so little depth to work with that I never actually believed in their relationship.The parallel storylines didn’t help either, only one of them really mattered to me, while the others mostly felt like unnecessary screen time and extra plotlines.
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