Wonderful performances. Terrible script.
Mixed feelings about this show. First the positives:
Kim You Jung as Jeong Saet Byeol was absolutely phenomenal. This is the first show I'd seen her in and I think her acting was incredible. Her character was simultaneously ferociously brave and strong and joyful and yet also so fragile and tragic. And she delivered that complex character brilliantly. I also loved the performances by Kim Sun Young (Day Hyeon's mother) and of course Ji Chang Wook as Dae Hyun. Overall the talent of the cast was excellent at delivering the characters of this story. Also, the production values of this show were top notch. Sets, wardrobe, cinematography, music - everything was well done.
Now the negatives: The script. How do I put this nicely? It sucked awful in three aspects. First and most obvious is in the nature of the characters the script included. Above I said the performances of the actors was great and it was. But some of the characters were just absurd and offensive. As many have already mentioned, the cultural appropriation represented by the Dal Sik character was jarring. And his various antics were only occasionally funny but mostly just waivering between annoying and offensive. His character could have been written completely different, avoiding all the problems that he represents and the story could have been the same. Better actually. Also, we have to talk about the Male Lead. Again, Ji Chang Wook was wonderful at portraying Dae Hyeon ... but Dae Hyeon was not a wonderful leading man for most of this show. His character was simply not someone that was easy to root for as the leading man through the first 9+ episodes and it wasn't until maybe episode 12 or so that he really started to feel like someone worthy of Saet Byeol's total devotion. From that point on, yes, his character was great. But seriously, he was mostly pathetic and irritating for over 3/4 of the show!
The second major problem with the script is alluded to in that. The pacing was just awful. It took way, way too long to move the various plot tracks forward and it felt like a LOT of time was wasted on silly stuff such as poor attempts at humor as the camera spent large amounts of screen time on Dal Sik's antics.
And the 3rd problem is that the script leaned more and more on obvious cliche' plot tropes as the show progressed culminating with one of th worst ones, the classic, "Noble Idiocy" trope, as the final plot conflict to be overcome.
All in all, it's a heck of a credit to the actors to pull off the performances they did with such a crappy overall script. There were some incredibly emotional scenes - both happy AND sad - performed in this show and the actors pulled them off brilliantly. But the script really dragged the overall quality of this show down.
Kim You Jung as Jeong Saet Byeol was absolutely phenomenal. This is the first show I'd seen her in and I think her acting was incredible. Her character was simultaneously ferociously brave and strong and joyful and yet also so fragile and tragic. And she delivered that complex character brilliantly. I also loved the performances by Kim Sun Young (Day Hyeon's mother) and of course Ji Chang Wook as Dae Hyun. Overall the talent of the cast was excellent at delivering the characters of this story. Also, the production values of this show were top notch. Sets, wardrobe, cinematography, music - everything was well done.
Now the negatives: The script. How do I put this nicely? It sucked awful in three aspects. First and most obvious is in the nature of the characters the script included. Above I said the performances of the actors was great and it was. But some of the characters were just absurd and offensive. As many have already mentioned, the cultural appropriation represented by the Dal Sik character was jarring. And his various antics were only occasionally funny but mostly just waivering between annoying and offensive. His character could have been written completely different, avoiding all the problems that he represents and the story could have been the same. Better actually. Also, we have to talk about the Male Lead. Again, Ji Chang Wook was wonderful at portraying Dae Hyeon ... but Dae Hyeon was not a wonderful leading man for most of this show. His character was simply not someone that was easy to root for as the leading man through the first 9+ episodes and it wasn't until maybe episode 12 or so that he really started to feel like someone worthy of Saet Byeol's total devotion. From that point on, yes, his character was great. But seriously, he was mostly pathetic and irritating for over 3/4 of the show!
The second major problem with the script is alluded to in that. The pacing was just awful. It took way, way too long to move the various plot tracks forward and it felt like a LOT of time was wasted on silly stuff such as poor attempts at humor as the camera spent large amounts of screen time on Dal Sik's antics.
And the 3rd problem is that the script leaned more and more on obvious cliche' plot tropes as the show progressed culminating with one of th worst ones, the classic, "Noble Idiocy" trope, as the final plot conflict to be overcome.
All in all, it's a heck of a credit to the actors to pull off the performances they did with such a crappy overall script. There were some incredibly emotional scenes - both happy AND sad - performed in this show and the actors pulled them off brilliantly. But the script really dragged the overall quality of this show down.
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