In some ways the show with the thinnest plot ever. Episode 1: we don't like each other. Episode 2: we're making a cup of coffee. Episode 3: we're comforting a teenage girl. (Indulging in extensive(!) flashbacks by the second episode reinforces this impression.)
I think the writing really lacked originality here, and it didn't go into details about all the stuff I kept waiting…
For a start, the whole "omg fated from childhood" cliche and how everybody is everyone else's relative, neighbour, and two people keep running into each other in a city part with a few hundred thousand inhabitants: This is super basic K-drama fare and then it only gets worse with the primary villain being the ML's father, and the father of FL having known him for decades, and so on. It's no better than birth secrets or amnesia plots.
We get teasing epilogues about their childhood friendship, but the dead brother of the ML never really appears, and we learn very little about his personality. We effectively learn nothing about the accident he dies in. If it was a real accident, or malice. We don't really learn about the aftermath either, except that it was what made his father enter politics, though we also don't know what he did before to afford a fancy-looking home. Their mother never appears, we never learn what lead her to leave the family (was it the villain-father becoming a politician?), how she did, or anything else. We never learn what the primary evil / corrupt deeds of the villain ultimately were. He's taken down by his own son, but again we aren't told what exactly he says.
There's a character that dies, and their death isn't really cleared up. The story keeps teasing this as something important, perhaps his death is related to the ML, or perhaps it's a killing orchestrated by his sometimes-omnipotent father, but ultimately it fizzles out into nothing.
I think the writing really lacked originality here, and it didn't go into details about all the stuff I kept waiting for. (The screenplay apparently had won a 2018 contest.) Like other comments note, there's a lot of funny camera shots, and also some nice production ideas. The actors also all do decent jobs in their roles. However, the story becomes lots of stereotypical K-drama stuff that doesn't really fit the creativity shown elsewhere. In retrospect, I would say the length made it drag on quite a bit – there's not enough content for sixteen hour-length episodes.
If you watched Crazy Love and thought the whole 'crazy' thing was straight-up false advertisement: that, at least, you get here.
Dunno what is missing/censored in the Netflix version, besides that there is a karaoke room scene in which a totally irrelevant song (no actor singing) is replaced by some generic Netflix music, 24 minutes into episode 5 of 16.
Watched this for the second time and I have to say outside of the amnesia storyline, it was a solid k-drama. I…
I think the parents are the often-repeated K-idea of "by the time you are down a very wrong path, it's too late to turn back; you can only do worse deeds on the same trajectory". I've seen this in a bunch of dramas, though I feel naming them would be spoiling their plots.
He has a psycho-neurological problem and it's not an act (obviously I mean the character Do HyunSoo, not Lee Joon…
A lot of the last episode is him not knowing which memories to trust, like if he had real feelings for his wife or not – that didn't really need months of soul-searching but just five minutes of his sister explaining that, while he once said he never loved her, she clearly saw the opposite with her own eyes. It's established many times that she has a real gift for understanding him, and he too surely knows that, especially as he's "rebooted" to a much younger age when he had only been separated from her for some 3-4(?) years.
I can handle dramas with sad endings. I actually love when a drama ends dramatically with a main character's death…
The whole "look how incompetent they police are, they even threw a cocked gun to a downed serial killer" scene was so very, very unnecessary – just like the whole amnesia trope.
However, what I hate much more than amnesia is the "our no-feelings psychopath must die by the end of the story because it's bad for society to idolise him" law/trope. So I'd have given it a 5.5 or 5.0 with the ending you suggested. :)
The law of "every episode must start with a flashback" really backfired once they ran out of ones that move the plot forwards or show you anything you didn't know anyway.
Last episode definitely felt rushed. The entire amnesia plot was crap...at the very least they should have given…
"Also for all the Kim mi-sook drama, we never saw her meet with her family."
Her family is her jailed (murderer) husband. But yes, it feels like it lacks closure, while for example the evil Baek getting to "imaginarily meet his son" and give him candy was a type of closure I could really have done without.
Because I really wanted to love this drama I thought about it some more. Here are some other questionable points…
- I hated how the serial killer basically buys Eastern European mail order brides to kill, from a same-day delivery human trafficking Amazon shop, while himself supposedly being an "expert hunter" who "lays traps". And then he's killed in the most unspectacular way too. - We never find out what happened to his wife aka the mother of ML and SFL?
- All characters were inconsistent messes (meaning several separate contradictory characters), not just ML. For the last half or so of the show, FL just existed to cry. It's like she had a contract clause guaranteeing at least one big crying scene every episode. And yes, ML couldn't decide if he's a master manipulator (car ride in ep16) or a loving husband and father, either.
- All the bonus lies from ML to FL are really unnecessary and could have cut the whole plot by 2-3 episodes. Jung Mi Sook is alive? The killer called me and lured me out? Nah, can't tell you those two, gotta abduct you first. Start a nationwide manhunt. Make your mother faint from the shock.
Episode 1: we don't like each other.
Episode 2: we're making a cup of coffee.
Episode 3: we're comforting a teenage girl.
(Indulging in extensive(!) flashbacks by the second episode reinforces this impression.)
We get teasing epilogues about their childhood friendship, but the dead brother of the ML never really appears, and we learn very little about his personality.
We effectively learn nothing about the accident he dies in. If it was a real accident, or malice. We don't really learn about the aftermath either, except that it was what made his father enter politics, though we also don't know what he did before to afford a fancy-looking home. Their mother never appears, we never learn what lead her to leave the family (was it the villain-father becoming a politician?), how she did, or anything else.
We never learn what the primary evil / corrupt deeds of the villain ultimately were.
He's taken down by his own son, but again we aren't told what exactly he says.
There's a character that dies, and their death isn't really cleared up. The story keeps teasing this as something important, perhaps his death is related to the ML, or perhaps it's a killing orchestrated by his sometimes-omnipotent father, but ultimately it fizzles out into nothing.
Like other comments note, there's a lot of funny camera shots, and also some nice production ideas. The actors also all do decent jobs in their roles. However, the story becomes lots of stereotypical K-drama stuff that doesn't really fit the creativity shown elsewhere. In retrospect, I would say the length made it drag on quite a bit – there's not enough content for sixteen hour-length episodes.
If you watched Crazy Love and thought the whole 'crazy' thing was straight-up false advertisement: that, at least, you get here.
Watched it because of all the "healthiest relationship in dramaland!!" comments and can't say I agree.
Dunno what is missing/censored in the Netflix version, besides that there is a karaoke room scene in which a totally irrelevant song (no actor singing) is replaced by some generic Netflix music, 24 minutes into episode 5 of 16.
https://www.soompi.com/article/1422955wpp/flower-of-evil-screenwriter-talks-about-her-inspiration-for-the-drama-and-explains-meaning-of-title has an "official" explanation, but a very brief one.
However, what I hate much more than amnesia is the "our no-feelings psychopath must die by the end of the story because it's bad for society to idolise him" law/trope. So I'd have given it a 5.5 or 5.0 with the ending you suggested. :)
Her family is her jailed (murderer) husband. But yes, it feels like it lacks closure, while for example the evil Baek getting to "imaginarily meet his son" and give him candy was a type of closure I could really have done without.
- We never find out what happened to his wife aka the mother of ML and SFL?
- All characters were inconsistent messes (meaning several separate contradictory characters), not just ML. For the last half or so of the show, FL just existed to cry. It's like she had a contract clause guaranteeing at least one big crying scene every episode. And yes, ML couldn't decide if he's a master manipulator (car ride in ep16) or a loving husband and father, either.
- All the bonus lies from ML to FL are really unnecessary and could have cut the whole plot by 2-3 episodes. Jung Mi Sook is alive? The killer called me and lured me out? Nah, can't tell you those two, gotta abduct you first. Start a nationwide manhunt. Make your mother faint from the shock.