kestonis

I feel for photographer character. In what a mess he got himself just by doing right thing and donating blood. What is coming for him.. I would be so interested to see realistic character how would cope in this situation.

So she coldly dumped him even in flirting phase for another guy. For what is worse, everyone knew that it was bad guy, straight trash, but still she made her decision. For good guy, as photographer is, it should hurt twice as much. Because deep down he knows she will never love him no matter how situation changes. He is just not her type. BTW gratitude is not love..

And future came with tragedy no one could predict. He will have to help her to overcome huge trauma and following depression, as good guy he is. He will have to fend off the ex who is planning to go into pitbull mode. Her pathetic parents will see their own daughter as damaged goods and panickingly will cling to any guy in their sight especially for pushover, as photographer is. Also cousin/best friend who has no regard for other people feelings will push them together just to spite the ex. He will be pushed around by these people like a meatball with a label 'saviour'. And in epicentre is she, not in right state of mind, who got a blow that usually people not recover from in their whole life, not talking about just 8 episodes.

I am quite intrigued by writers attempt to write XiaoYu's character as a protagonist with Chinese censorship in play. Usually such character in Chinese dramas are on other side - as antagonists. It is my first time seeing otherwise. What are they planning for such unusual character? I cannot read what is her character arc is and moral of hers story. I hope they will not change her into different person, who unexplainably stops being materialistic and have rosy glosy happy end with photographer.

About knives I liked that part because it is quite realistic situation about doing startup business then smallest details become stumbled block.

They did not mixed knives, but sandwich has both cooked and raw food so they cannot use either knife to divide that sandwich in two parts.

Thank you very much for clarification. Now I understand situation better. It depicts Jihak having quite smart response in given situation.

But why Jihak seemed surprised when reporter showed the same photo and pointed to the reflection written "NOG" or something. At first he seemed did not saw what was in reflection. If he explained to Annie situation, nothing should surprise him, what was in the photo. Many years later he seems surprised. Or he should be surprised that reporter has photo?

I understood that did something happened. At first she refused but then she tells that later "she gave in to the pressure". Therefore Omega-3 did have debut. It was cancelled but still it was planned.

Also they threatened with Eunjo career, that they will remove him unless she agrees. So she chose to sacrifice for him. So also Eunjo was planned in comeback debut.

And in last moments of call she tells sorry for Eunjo for bad things she did. That means she did some bad things.

I understood from English translation that writers do not tell straightforward, but gives the hints that they eventually manipulated her to sleep with these investors. Maybe who speaks Korean can correct me if I am wrong.

@nimwoo by your explanation would mean that TeaParty manager showed these pictures to Annie and it was the last straw for her. It would paint him as a bad guy and one of responsible people for Annies suicide. But seems he is not the bad guy in the story. I understood that he did not accuse her of anything, did just asked some questions. He never takes himself into consideration as responsible for Annies suicide.

It is sickening. But silence, under guise of reputation, is not the right solution. Let's be realistic, Korea and most of rest of world is decades behind to be able to charge someone for this whether there were names or not. Maybe 50 years in future, but definitely not now. Because to charge you need "evidence", and for that you need to destroy infrastructure. Entertainment is built like mafia cartel, therefore it is impossible to collect evidence. Law is toothless against mafia like structures, therefore battle was won more or less only by attacking on culture. For Hollywood it took almost 70 years to see improvements.

These things takes time. Why? Because it needs to change thinking of on-surface-innocent people involved in this. Did nobody drove Sunny, did nobody served drink, there was never security guard, nobody knows which brand hotels, restaurants visited? Really nobody knows nothing? Everybody is silent under guise lets not ruin reputation and continues living comfortably and collecting paychecks, because they were innocent in situation and did not know what happened for sure.

Silence is not solution in no matter what argument is. People should tell their stories and let other be the judge. People should be able to tell (no repercussion of losing the job) I was invited to spent time in informal setting and refused. Now if someone would tell they would be called as bad teammate by co-workers and public. It should be rude for investor to ask for drink, to ask for entertainment after closing deal. Not otherwise. Now it is rude to refuse benefactor.

Only when whole society changes, these rich CEOs and managers will become criminals. Now they are just using opportunities of thousand people working in these industries and helping for circumstances to arise.

To be devil's advocate, characters of this drama in the end chose to stay silent and sweep everything under the rug. They pretend they do it for the noble reason, what it will save dead girls reputation. That pretence is disgusting and brainwashing guilt-trip. They only did because of the money. The money could loose their teammates by implication. They shed some fake tears and will make song because they feel "empathy". If they felt empathy with girls pain you would do everything in your power to expose and prevent another future situation.

Seems show sends message to idols to stay silent because your innocent friends can get hurt. This is right thing to do in our culture.

Well it is nonsense. It is brainwash and guilt-trip. To make societal changes innocent people should burn. I mean, when some assistant's assistant will lose his life income, just because he booked hotel room even though he knew nothing and was innocent in situation. When people by third or fourth degree of implication will get burn you will see real changes. Because then people who do menial work will start leaving the ship to prevent future implications. Then
higher-ups will start looking other ways do the business because it is no more profitable and time consuming.

The attack should be not on perpetrators but infrastructure that empowers them. There were perverts and it will be, it is impossible to prevent that. But these restaurants with enclosed rooms and secret passageways, luxury ktvs, hotels, construction companies, architects which do these things, people who work at these companies such as drivers, cleaners etc. This is there real evil resides. Also culture of nepotism, drinking with investors. These things should be called out.

Well from my experience all dramas (with defined episode count) and movies first half focuses to protagonists and second half shifts attention to antagonists. F.e. in mystery murder dramas, murderers starts exposing themselves in second half and explains motivation behind their behaviour. In romance dramas in second half second leads starts behaving badly and explains motivation why fallen in love with leads.

After watched more than few dozens of Korean dramas I cannot remember any drama which had different pattern.

To predict second half drama is easy - look at how antagonists were written. Here at the end of second episode SML is already dead and in the cast list he is as main role, therefore his face will have much more screentime even after he is dead. Whether he has twin or some other nonsense will be. Here antagonist does not have clearly defined role.

It did make sense in first episode. Till she started dating guy who was attention seeker and tried to be extraordinary every minute he was with her.

I think using tales in first episode had many good points - intrigue, deeper understanding of character etc. It seems that mother helped her break spell of tales and make her become adult faster, see reality of life. It seems it should help her grow up with strong character. On the contrary as adult, we see that FL is wishy washy, undecisive, does not know what she wants from love partner etc. Definitely does not seem the person who grow up with motto of black cat in that tale.

Thank you for comment. As I said it has tale signs not deal breakers. Overall quality is good, but between scenes - color schemes, ceiling height (from outside floor is normal ¬2.5 meters height, inside reception ¬4 meters height) it shows that production team is not details oriented. I highly doubt they did any research what psychiatrist does and it is cornerstone of their story.

From surface everything is done in quality - scenography, music, actors, etc. But I am not confident it will connect to one story. My question is whether producers are genuine to tell story with some message or they are just too commercially oriented to produce drama with many selling points (mysterious psychiatrist - check, serial murder- check, vulnerable woman as potential victim AND perpetrator - check). Do these selling points are necessary for the story, and do they connect together?

From my personal opinion that first half - 8 episodes will be really good, and when time will be to reveal mystery it will have disappointing second half.

BTW, reference of black cat was wrongly used in second episode. It should mean if there is black cat in their future, there is something wrong with their relationship. SML agrees to that, just because he is not sincere and it should be red sign for FL. Rather here producers used it as a simple joke not as reference at all.

First episode has tale signs of bad boyfriend and FL could not escape terrible boyfriends in her past. But what are tale signs of cheap drama? First episode had many of them.

The first thing that caught my eye how building looked smallish from outside, but clinic and cafeteria are extremely huge inside, especially ceiling. Disparity is too big to feel continuity scene from scene.

Then it is not how patient-psychiatrist confidentiality works. First of all psychiatrist can refuse patient at any moment and confidentiality stops from that moment. Secondary he can warn close people that person is bad and he knows him without disclosing that he is his patient or details of their session. It is impossible for ML to loose his license. Seems build up is for cheap drama, ML will not be able to tell things to FL because of some unrealistic confidentiality. This is just insult for psychiatrist speciality.

There are many more little ones:
- psychiatrist at first shows off rather than maintains conversation
- dialogues feels force fed rather natural
- we should feel 'wow effect' that he is super smart but I just could not
- using an adult view on children tales feels like copy from drama "It's ok not to be ok". Here it is not a backbone of story like it was there. Probably black cat reference will never be used again after first episode.

This drama is mix and match copy from past good dramas and lacks genuinity to tell it's own story. I will put on hold and see comments after its finish.

Pathetic..

They put a lot of work into cinematography, put right mood. They have everything in line, except writing. It is so terrible.

The first case they chose is child raped by paedophile stepfather. Writers wanted to make it as big plot twist and viewers would have huge emotion. Who would not cry at child's misfortune? And after everything is revealed everyone is happy and police is hero, Everyone is happy, even mother, whose child was raped, is smiling at the end of episode 2. Like wtf?

Let's turn on a little bit of logic after 2 episodes. So mother gets to know that her husband filmed raping his stepdaughter. As she works in law firm, makes a plan, to kill a husband year later. So she planned to let him continue raping daughter for year, just so she could get reduced sentence, because she will have time to fake domestic abuse and husband affair.

Yeah it seems very reasonable behaviour, it seems very logical writing.

It is just terrible.

By unwarranted I mean all cdramas "fail" seduction scenes because of their culture, and here FL did not do much worse than other cdramas in last 3 years (I watched) or so. Here FL did above average comparing to other cdramas.

You gave good examples from different era and different culture. If you could give good example from same era and culture then you critique would sound "warranted".

Unwarranted critique. Different eras, different people, different seduction. In todays age, when people are always in smartphone screens, always distracted, emotionally distanced, Marilyn Monroe type seduction would be viewed as too vulgar. Being too cocky while trying to seduce rightly represents current young generation.
FL did her part by the book, as seduce=get zeroed attention and breach personal space. You need to understand ML character too. In these particular scenes they did great job.
As overall about Cdramas and seduction. It is cultural thing. Their historic view on romance is very different from neighbouring regions.

Though drama is really bad. Especially production, writing etc. Acting is also terrible, because nobody can maintain character. But if you go scene by scene main actors did decent job.

Well she said true. His parents are dead.

Surprisingly this drama is really good and refreshing. Must watch. Many characters are funny and have complex very unique distinguishable personalities. Production team did amazing job to highlight positive traits of every minor character.

Bad part, villains are one dimensional and very boring. At least they could make them comically bad, but they chose make them melodramatic bad and feels they are out of place for this drama and are just necessity to make trouble. As usually second part in dramas concentrate towards villains so quality of drama definitely will drop. Also subs are quite bad and hard to follow business conversations, so I skipped many scenes.

Contrary, here writing is exceptionally well for a fluffy romance drama. First of all it is explained in excerpts on hers relationship with mother, that lies are cornerstone of their life and how it brings positivity for them. As an habitual liar her logical reasons for portraying as fiancée where 1. She wanted his unconditional trust as only significant other could have it. 2. She wanted mini revenge on him.
I watched 16 episodes, so far she came in zero episodes as stupid. She is habitual liar and all success till that day came by lying. In relationship with her stupid boss we clearly see what she rather lie and brush off people than explain herself even in simplest situations. So in that hotel scene rationally her first choice will be to cover lie with lie rather choose on surface "smarter choice" and explain very complex situation.

Drama itself is stupid and unrealistic as almost all light romance dramas are. But here FL character is written spectacularly well and to my surprise it is quite consistent for half drama.

Compare FL character with ML, how his character is inconsistent. Autistic or emotionless psychopath suddenly by miracle car crash becomes healthy person capable of experiencing full range of emotions. Whatever writer reason will chose later, actor and production did disservice in first episodes.

examples of terrible:
car blows up from charcoal?

Police: "Girl you tried to murder someone, ok, never mind." After that: "Girl you are responsible for smashing some windows. Now you are going down. This is serious crime."

There was no misunderstanding between leads. But writers: "Oh, let's just use grandma as annoying-person-who-was-adamantly-against-their-relationship-at-first-gets-to-reconnect-them-in-last-episode-by-clearing-misunderstandings cliché".

And many more examples.

Last episode cliche after cliche. It is just funny how bad it is.

Biggest mystery, how same person can write quite original first two episodes, but then for next two just use copy-pasta from kdramaland without any logical thinking? Or it is done by different people (someone stole someone's work)? But it is just 4 episode drama. Why they are doing this? Does it really saves the costs for production?

Setup was amazing, but delivery was meh... First two episodes I liked everything. Intrigue, mystery, music, humour, personalities. But when was the time to reveal, connect all the dots it flopped. Last two episodes were disappointing and boring. Actors acted their parts, there was chemistry, great emotions. But writers were too lazy or tired to deliver another two great episodes, so they just reused clichés from past dramas without thinking. It is just terrible.