A good story destroyed by bad writing and direction
When I started this drama, I was hooked instantly. The first 10 episodes were an absolute blast to watch. I thought I finally found another 9/10 rating worth gem. But....sadly as the episodes went by the quality degraded considerably. While the first half was super fun, the second half became a nightmare to watch. Romance became scarce and main leads chemistry suffered a bit too. Totally lovable characters became horribly flawed. Plot became uninteresting. New sub plots kept on appearing which were out of place altogether. So I will rate this drama accordingly by rating the episode groups themselves.First 10 episodes (1 - 10): Engaging story, good romance, great chemistry, lovable characters especially FL, sensible decision making, really good character development. Overall easily 9/10
Next 10 episodes (11 - 20): Still interesting story, okay romance, good chemistry, questionable character ethics, questionable character decisions, abysmal character development or maybe a little bit character regression itself. Overall 7/10
Final 10 episodes (21 - 20): Absolute mess of a story, scarce romance, lacking chemistry, boring and badly written characters, idiotic and flawed decision making, total character regression save for the ending. Overall 3/10
And thus the final rating, since we can't just rate this based on the good parts alone, is 9 + 7 + 3 /3 = 6.33 or better rounded off at 6.5/10. To summarize, I would say this was a really good story with major promise but got destroyed by very very bad writing, pacing and direction.
P.S. Would like to commend the OST though, absolutely wonderful.
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Weirdly bad...
This is a really hard one to rate. It started really really good with the first few epsiode, actually upto episode 6. ML was the communication king! ML and FL had real good chemistry and their acting were top notch too. The plot, though simple, was quite interesting. The characters were also smart, especially ML. Every single one of his actions felt smart and realistic given the situation. FL showed steady character development. Despite the bad production I thought I found a hidden gem in lakorns and was going to rate it 9/10 just for plot, characterization and chemistry itself.BUT!!!
This show suddenly becomes a totally weird mess after that. A misunderstanding happens which continues till end and never gets cleared iirc. FL becomes the dumbest person with negative character development. ML turns into some weird different persona which doesn't at all match with his old personality. He also becomes dumb too. The 2 2FLs become unbearable to watch, with motivations totally unclear. The 2ML/Villain becomes the instant skip target, he was a pisshead before anyways. Plot turns into absolute madness, long lasting misunderstanding, timeskips, twotimings and whatnots. Chemistry between main leads remains good thankfully though.
So as you see, I'm really conflicted on how to rate this. This had real potential and it got wasted hard. Such a disappointment. To rate it I will have to summarize.
Positives
+ Likeable ML
+ Good Chemistry
+ Weirdly bad but engaging plot
+ Acting
+ Characterization in first half
Negatives
- Production
- OST
- Weirdly bad but engaging plot
- Characterization in second half
Sensible Overall Rating 7.5/10
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Skip, skip, skip until the main leads scene
Besides the main leads nothing worth watching, so skip skip skip until its main leads scene. And this IS one of the controversial ones, so if you can't digest that don't watch it.I, for one, actually like watching controversies and contemplating character decisions in those situations.
Now coming to drama itself, production is bs as is in most lakorns, acting is okayish, OST absent or badly placed, character development abysmal, only thing worth watching here is the relationship and angst between the main leads.
The characters themselves, besides main leads, were not watch worthy so skipped all of them and that's my suggestion to anyone else too.
As for main leads, I actually found the FL literally annoying. She caused herculean amounts of misunderstandings and miscommunication just by not giving the guy a single chance to explain himself or even talk. A super one dimensional character who can either love or hate someone and once she starts hating she won't stop no matter if the hell bent over. ML, as pointed in summary and tags, is possessive and obsessive and by a good amounts too. He is lacking in communication department too, but, then again, the angst can't be created so I kind of understand storywriter's perspective here.
The relationship in itself, is like this, confused -> love -> hate -> hate -> hate -> confused -> confused -> confused -> love. As you see, the relationship progression is not actually bad but the event that lead to change in progression are weird to say the least. Like how suddenly "love" converted to "hate" just because of one reveal that ML is interested in her money. She didn't even give him a chance to talk, she just went from "love" to "hate" in an instant! And then she stays in that "hate" phase for quite long. That's why I'm calling FL one dimensional. How "hate" converted to "confused" is another story altogether, it was quite fun to watch. And how "confused" converted back to "love" was rushed beyond reason, it happens in 3-5 mins only, I think?
Anyways, overall....ummm....its a rather unique watch, only a very few people could actually like this and there are not very many things to like here. I rate it 6/10 for the uniqueness. That could've been lower though if I didn't skip a lot.
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A characterization catastrophe!
First thing first, great chemistry between ML and FL but.....WHAT NONSENSE DID I JUST WATCH!!?Characterization is an absolute mess here. Such annoying characters are rare to see literally. Let me start, one by one. The most annoying of them all, 2ML is an insecure obsessive possessive piece of shit loser who coerced the FL into marriage by hiding a major fact about ML. This shit should be beaten to a pulp at first sight but on the contrary he is getting apologies from everyone?! JUST WOW! Every other single supporting character surrounding FL, be it her mother or mother in law or who the fuck ever, should learn to mind their own goddamn business stat. I would have slapped each one these the first chance I got, hypocritical toxic nonsensical shits all of them. Coming to ML, he is an idiot and a massive one at that, learn to communicate more please.
The only two characters I actually liked were the FL and 2FL. FL was likeable and her decision making, though flawed, was actually due to coercion by others so we can't actually blame her. On the contrary, 2FL was the best part about this drama, such a supportive, devoted and helpful character. She remained a gem throughout and awesome performance by Yoon In Young.
Plot had potential, acting was good, OST okay...but with this bad characterization I can't give this a good rating at all. 3.5/10
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Watch for romance, not for plot. Be ready to skip a lot.
Going for romance? Go for it! Romance is done really well, main leads had real good chemistry and fluff moments were just so sweet to watch. I liked secondary couple too (Han Chuan and Ming Zhu not that good for nothing Ying Dong), although bittersweet their story was just so heartfelt. Still be ready to skip some unnecessary drama.Going for plot? You will be frustrated. This drama like other C-Dramas will test your patience with plot. Plot is a utter mess. Forget logic, you would find it hard to even find basic common sense here. Characters will prefer taking the most idiotic possible decision possible instead of the more natural and sensible ones. Direction is also nothing talk-worthy with real bad editing on top of that. If you can bear with all that or can skip that, go ahead, this drama will be fun to watch.
As for character development, its there but not nearly enough. FL is annoyingly dumb and fickle at times but becomes likable later. ML is okay, watchable. The good for nothing character "Ying Dong" is given too much screentime and that becomes annoying fast, I would have preferred if they skipped that character altogether. On the contrary, character of "Han Chuan" projected so much depth that all his scenes of relation dynamics with "Ming Zhu" were attention sinks, phenomenal performance by Gardner Tse.
Everyone acted good, so no issues there.
Music...can't remember at all, and that's immediately after completing it...that says a lot.
I watched this after "Lady and Liar" and honestly this is miles better but still not upto mark. I liked the FL here more but I liked the ML in Lady and Liar much more.
Overall a fun watch, though had to skip some parts. Good, decent, 7.0/10
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