irmar

Let's hope this time it's a decent drama. The previous one (Love With Flaws) seemed to be created by a writer/director who hated him and wanted him finished. I cannot remember any other drama where the main point of all the first part is to make the romantic main lead an object of ridicule.
I sincerely hope that with this new start he will also have a new start in his career and his life will be rosy henceforward.

What or who is MDL?

Ah, well, I understand what you're saying now. Frankly, I never felt the desire to do nothing. Even if I didn't like my daily routine or my job at some point, my wish would be to change it to something else, not do nothing. You say "a different life in a different city". That is relatable. But the heroine of this drama doesn't actively seeking something interesting to do. Apart from reading books in the library, that is. Which is fine, but as a sole occupation it would also tire me in the long run.

Or at least, she could be like that in the beginning and then slowly change.

Ah, I can see why readers of the webtoon would be angry, then.

It has the same basic skeleton of a plot (disillusioned urban girl finds healing and love in small seaside town), but then all the details and the execution are different. But it's useful to compare them, to see how Cha Cha was so much better.

So she wasn't doormat-y in the webtoon? That's interesting, I wonder why would they make such a change.

Well, the start was not very promising in my opinion, when they showed her become wasted at every occasion and disgracing herself in front of strangers. That alone for me was a big turn-off.

Not to mention that she never put a proper lock to her door, every cow and dog can come and go as they please!

Exactly. He doesn't give the impression of being a pushover. His discourse to Ji Yeong was a masterpiece of diplomacy: very considerate, polite, friendly, but yet decisive, leaving no room for further discussion, giving a clear message "let me decide about my own life".

Now I'm curious. Why readers of the webtoon would be angry? Because it's not faithful? Did they change a lot of important features?

How could the small town people do nothing? How would they live if they didn't work? She can afford it because she has saved money from her office job. Not much, but still enough to live a year, carefully. But a whole town idling off? If the farmers and fish people didn't produce food, how would everyone eat?

I agree with you. But you know how Koreans are about their "beauty standards".

Who cares? Rival country would mean battle scenes, and those bore me to death, plus they must be extremely expensive for production companies to film. The THREAT of other countries like China or the Northern Tribes is present in many sageuks. For instance diplomatic relations and the uneasy power dynamics between Korean and China, with the Chinese envoys acting like masters are in Faith and in The King Loves (and many others, those two just out of my head), the Northern Barbarians (as they called them) were in Bossam and so on and so forth.
As for the Second Male (or Female) Lead, it's not only in historical or pseudo-historical dramas, as you probably already know. It's in two out of three k-dramas of any type that has a love line, be it modern or historical. It seems that Korean audiences love it, so of course writers put it there. Question of demand and offer. Same as the "knew each other as children". I often see in comments people who say "aw, how sweet, they were fated together" and invariably the commenter's name is Asian. And if it's not an Asian name but a neutral username, when I ask, it turns out they're Asian. No matter how much we the Western public loathe those tropes, as long as the main intended audience loves them, there's no hope of them disappearing any time soon.

I'm happy for him. As he didn't have conventional good looks, he didn't have much of a career when he was young, but as he matured, he was given some really good roles, like Misaeng and Memory. And he was even somewhat sexy as the leather-clad thug in Miss Korea!

Not "let's say". It WAS a Joseon custom. Because the king had to have the full choice of all potential brides. Of course 7 years is an exaggeration, but then this is fantasy.

When she said "I'm an adult inside" I screamed internally "No you're not!"

Oh, I love, no I adore Lee Sung Min. If his role is big here, I think I might give the drama a chance.

So you're saying it's not worth watching? I was half-thinking to start it.

Exactly my sentiment.