lord_varvara

fantastic analysis! Extra kudos for Love Alarm roast. And great example with Woo Do-Hwan. KTEM was the worst drama I've seen til then but he was excellent in dual role. So yes, it isn't always writing to blame. Many actors overcome bad writing while other ruin good writing.

This actor went from "I want to see more" (Sweet Home) to "please take a long vacation with some extensive soul searching (translation: acting classes)" thanks to overexposure, poor choices of dramas and poor performance. I thought he was a breakout (with LDH) in Sweet Home, which was the first time I saw him. However, Love Alarm (terrible drama, terrible acting across the board), Navillera (terrible drama, ridiculous ballet pouting in close up with headless stuntman jumping in every 3 seconds, old guy blew him off the screen despite a nonsense role) and Nevertheless (terrible, boring, bad acting across the board) were trash. And since they were released one after another that created an insta Song Kang fatigue here.

Ironically, I really wanted to see what happened to his Sweet Home character after THAT ending but he reportedly isn't coming back and it's all going to be about 2 female characters that I didn't particularly care about, and the new gang. So the only thing on his resume that I was hype for is nixed. Talk about bad luck.

don't worry. my scathing review didn't attract pitchforks and if it did I would know how to use them against the wielders. so maybe that's why no one dared ha ha. Post the review. It's great and different opinion from the usual "OMG 10/10 Love It ML is the best evah so pretty OMG plz plz happy ending 4 my OTP AAAAAH" fangirling crap, that somehow passes for review here, should be heard.

I absolutely agree that bad acting has an effect of that dramas are viewed more as guilty pleasure (I know it's bad but I'm entertained) than something to be an openly fan of. Squid Game, which had very strong acting not just for drama standard but overall, is a global hit and I wager that acting that is up to standard helped a lot. You'll see that actors who are good on dramas (for example Yoo Ah In) broke into real movies where standards are much higher, while idolcrap actors did not.

AHS studied blind people like Song Kang studied ballet. Means: lol no. Absolutely no blind person acts like AHS. Maybe he wasn't aware that he was studying a blind Japanese android which explains why he is so robotic unlike any human being with disability or without. Perhaps his agency thinks they could get some Hollywood money off him since he's Canadian and speaks accent-less English but lol no. his acting is too terrible for American standard even for Razzie awards.

ha ah so true. I hate flashbacks in dramas. it's as if they don't know what purpose a flashback serves in a story (newsflash: it isn't to remind the audience of something that they didn't forget since it happened literally 10 minutes earlier). but peachback takes the cake. there's repetitive and then there's peachback.

Brilliant review! You should post it (including addendum about romance).

Yes, this was a terrible mess and I dropped it before it got even messier as I see from your review.

I haven't seen AHS in anything before this crapola but he's the worst actor I've seen in a drama. Which is a high bar cause I find most drama acting by idols and idol lookalikes to be bad, both men and women. It's completely incredulous to me that he has such rabid fangirls who basically dictate the course of the drama, which based on your review sounds like AHS show with KYJ existing solely to swoon over him and everything else to just give AHS a chance to be the smartest, badassest, etc. Just terrible actor. Laughably bad. I've seen some bad depictions of disability in Hollywood movies too but AHS as a "blind man that sees everything" is truly a horrific sight. Just unfathomably bad performance. He should be ashamed as should be the director for not replacing him with an actual actor, and critics who I assume praised that trash of a performance. Fans can be jaded and they aren't professionals so I give them a pass but the industry should have put a stop to this nonsense. He's beyond terrible. I'm sure he's a lovely person but his acting is an abomination, a true stain on acting profession.

Hey now! They met once but he picked peaches for her! That's substitutes for years of growing a relationship! It's peaches! What else do you need? :) :) :)

ha ha thanks!

Great article and idea, terrible dramas, absolutely LOVE that you fixed True Beauty's endgame by turning these 2 into the OTP! :standing ovation:

This was so much fun! I totally want to meet Muranishi! Best drama performance ever!

yep. it's terrible and the main reasons for its awfulness are a) terrible ML probably the worst I've seen which is saying something, b) total ML-centrism at the expense of FL who now exists solely to swoon over him, c) pandering to shippers which has b) as direct result - all they want is more ML aka visuals (though I say that oily skin of his needs Clearasil) and FL to swoon over him. Everyone who even unwittingly stands in the way of ML-thon 24-7 is an enemy and worthy of ML's nonsensical revenge.

I will not touch on completely rule-less fantasy world cause I would get lost. These characters do things at random and have random powers. Ugh.

it's a very good editorial.

Crossdressing is one of main reasons why I hate sageuk. That genre is full of most cringe tropes but cross-dressing is just stupid and beyond unconvincing in general. It's tolerable in movies where everyone knows it's stupid and unconvincing such as in White Chicks and Some Like It Hot. But it's the worst in dramas that take themselves too seriously and have melodramatic actresses flailing around like headless turkeys trying to convince us they are oh-so-talented to pass for men. LOL, no sweeties, you are not.

I watched 2 J dramas - Naked Director and Alice In Borderland - and loved them. Naked Direvctor's season 1 is superior to any drama ever. It idn't keep the quality in season 2 but I don't regret watching the whole thing. I'll check your lists/reviews! :)

ha ha same. had to read spoiler posts below cause I couldn't remeber. Super small role, no wonder. Good for her for going on bigger things.

Very annoying!

you were definitely smart to drop Navillera and TOTNT. The fomer one was boring and then became so ridiculous you had to see it to believe it, while the latter went off rails after ep 9 (its best) and the finale is the worst thing I've ever seen and trust me I've seen bad finales.

I like consistency too which is why it's hard for me to find dramas that I stick with. So I mostly end up liking Netflix made ones rather than Korea made ones. The reason is that Netflix drops the whole season at once so it's a fixed story, you either like it or dislike it. But Korean-made drama that airs twice a week weekly, film first 4 episodes before airing and then ep 5-16 are filmed weekly as the drama airs, and are heavily influenced by audience demands. Which is why such dramas start as one thing but turn into something else and always worse after 5-6 episodes. Especially when shippers start to meddle it becomes a boring trainwreck where there's nothing but pandering to ML with FL swooning over him 24-7.

Squid Game cast is on the roll!

ha ha yes it's bad but Lost was worse for me. I was really hoping it was a K version of US show Lost minus unresolved mysteries and WTF finale.

I also laughed when I found out there's an old drama Thorn Birds that has nothing to do with the famous book/series.

Thank you! I see what you mean. I watched Twogether with LSG and Jasper Liu and really liked it. It's a travel show that highlights countries they visit but also is designed to help their economies. So 2 stars spend their money to help small businesses and stuff like that. Very nice idea.

that's a good explanation. Thank you! Mkes a lot of sense.