metrikfire

I feel like strange pacing and weird plot movements are kind of the standard with most Korean dramas. It's rare to have a tightly written kdrama. So I'm just gonna leave it at that. The plot does come around eventually but the middle arc is janky with a lot of important elements happening off screen. If we take the general purpose of a drama, which is to entertain as its core intention, then Dear Hongrang is one of the more successful dramas I have watched in the last year or two.

I'll get my gripes out of the way with the biggest issue that I had after finishing the whole series was that Lee Jae Wook, as beautiful as he is and insanely talented he is to watch, is not good at showing his simp self for female characters who are, let's just say 'soft'. I loved his dynamic with the female lead(s) in AOS because the women were largely self motivated with a lot of agency and interior agendas that did not revolve around the main lead.

LJW absolutely rose above and beyond in ALL other aspects of his acting. Action? Absolutely kicked ass. Jealousy over other potential love interests? A+++ Trauma? Love it. But Jae Yi's softness is very very nuanced. I think softly melancholic emotional strength is where Cho Bo Ah's acting shines. It encompasses a lot of flavors so when the time came for Hongrang and Jae Yi to build a hopefully tragic lead up to the final arc, it did not really land emotionally for me.

This leads me to talk about the show's strengths. Dear Hongrang is by far the most beautifully put together show in aesthetics in the past few years. There is great thought put into the production design, costume design, cinematography and sound design. The whole watching experience was sublime, if you tune in mainly to the emotional key points. The asian gothic flavors are absolutely my jam and I eat it up like a greedy little piggy. It served me the emotional highs (until the end, as you know) with incredible audio-visual finesse and I was okay with that. This is probably why I was disappointed with the end, because the final arc could not be snazzed up with design alone, it really sat on the actor, director, editor team to pull that emotional gut punch off.

Anyway, all in all, I had a really good time and after a long day at work, I can say I could look forward to my evenings just so I could sit down and get served some excellent feelings.