I've seen well over 100 dramas, and this is the first time I've ever muted the entire show because the dubbing was just THAT bad. This is a pretty direct takeoff on Twilight, with some variations (for example, this vampire has blue colored blood). The story is very bare-bones and simplistic. Nothing particularly stood out about it, although it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen. Not a lot of romance and the spice-levels are virtually zero. I didn't hate it and I didn't like it.
Same! I love the total absence of shame. ❤❤❤ She's my K drama hero! Finally a FL who isn't a frickin virgin…
It's impossible to know. She said she dated a hundred men, but dating and sleeping with are not the same thing. However, if I were the ML, i'd definitely be wanting to see the results of her STD test, that's for damn sure.
I'm going to try to explain why I gave this piece of crap 9/10. Okay here goes:
If you ever wondered what it's like to be in love with a sexy crazy person, this drama WILL take you there... better than any other show I've ever seen, hands down.
Don't get me wrong, this was a technically bad drama. How was it bad? Let me count the ways. Dubbing was atrocious. Continuity problems all over the place, both large and small. Soundtrack and music was completely schizophrenic, ranging from excellent, to cringy, to confusing, to completely absent altogether. Production value was so low it looked like a 90's k-drama (same feel as What Happened in Bali, ISWAK, or Coffee Prince for instance). Direction was amateurish and lacked style or vision. Storyline was so highly improbable as to be preposterous.
However. If you willingly suspend your disbelief, and let the story just flow over you and take you where it's gonna take you... you will be taken on a journey into what it's like to be in love with someone who has mental illness.
Now they call it "Paranoid Personality Disorder" (PPD). But I believe it accurately portrays Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I would know, because I have been there, baby. I've been to hell and back on that rollercoaster in RL.
Now, I've never been abducted at gunpoint, put under interrogation for a month, starved and let loose in the woods. I've never had my FIL try to kill me. And yet, I empathized so strongly with the FL that many times it overwhelmed me and left me in tears. I knew how she felt and I could relate to her through much of the story... even though it's just so over-the-top and fantastical. The plot is exaggerated from RL, but the FEELINGS it evokes are the same.
You wanna know what it's like to be head over heels in love with someone who has BPD? It's being scared and unafraid at the same time. It's being terrorized and frightened. It's being loved so strongly that it makes you feel elated and blissful and excited. It's being so hurt by things that you turn unresponsive for days. It's being told everything you want to hear, being made to feel safe and protected and cherished like no other... and then hours later wandering aimlessly barefoot in the road at night, utterly crushed and alone. It's being so patient and so giving that you don't know if you're being strong or being the victim. It's losing yourself completely in another person's madness. It's being pitted against your family, against his family, being isolated -- sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally. It's being told things that are so sexy and romantic that they sear you right down to your core like no other person can do to you. It's being on fire for that person, feeling like you can't breathe without them, like you'd die without them. It's having your self esteem brought up, and then taken down, over and over again. It's breaking up with someone 50 times, telling yourself you won't take them back, but then melting right back into them every time you see them. It's crying all the time, and laughing all the time. It's like knowing your partner inside and out... and then feeling like you don't know them at all. Not knowing if you left, if you'd be stalked, or abandoned. It's seeing the beauty in another person that most people are too afraid to get to know. It's being the only one who can get them to calm down, and the only one who can drive them furiously crazy. It's the most hot, epic romance you'll ever have, and you will get burned by it, but you will stay no matter how much pain it puts you through. It's being too shellshocked and exhausted to even react normally and appropriately to things anymore. It feels like its just you two against the world, and everyone is out to take you down.
All that is REAL.
The acting here was so good, and the ML and FL so well cast. The dialogue is so on point. People say the FL is a doormat. That's because when you're in love like this, you can lose yourself in it. You can get so wrapped up in the other person that you don't even know who you are anymore. She openly asks herself at one point if she's getting Stockholmed. I've been there, girl.
I won't give the plot away, but there's part in one of the episodes where she can't dress herself, so he has to arrange for her to get cleaned up and in clean clothes. He puts her in a sweet white dress with fringy puffy stuff that makes her look like a little angel. It was so sweet it made me cry. It's just the little psychological thoughtful details like that that made this far more subtle than it lets on.
A psychologist says to the FL at one point "I treated a kid once who carried a teddy bear with him because it calmed him down. He took it with him wherever he went. After 20 years, that teddy bear was so worn out it was unrecognizable." This is the most profound quote in the drama. It shows that the writers have to have had some firsthand personal experience with crazy-love.
The ML's reaction to waiting for his first psych eval... as the FL soothes him and tries to calm his restlessness... this took me right back into that relationship I had with my BPD s.o., it was so real and so accurate. They do NOT want to be seen or treated by anyone. They have no trust in doctors of any kind. They are like wild tigers in waiting rooms, pacing with that dark look on their face, vulnerable and frightening at the same time. You feel like a wild animal handler everywhere you go with them. You are the go-between, between them and everyone else. You are the only one safe around them... well mostly safe ;)
These people do have a scary side. They own and carry weapons, they're not afraid to beat the crap out of people, they are unpredictable and calculating. They are obsessive and passionate. And YES, they sometimes kidnap or seriously ponder kidnapping people for various altruistic reasons. Sometimes they set up situations on purpose to provoke your jealousy, or to provoke your tears, or to provoke your anger. They lie. They are guarded and evasive. And they are devastatingly sexy.
I cried so many times during this drama because of various moments I could completely relate to, the good moments and the bad. Which is crazy because this drama's plot and storyline is truly beyond belief and absurd. But y'know what... not as absurd as you'd think. I've even had my child kidnapped by a relative before. Yes. (I got her back, it took a year, long story, everythings fine now) So I can relate to how the FL is acting in that circumstance. She seems disconnected from the pain, in a way that's so strange that if you didn't know better you'd find it laughable. But that IS what happens to a person in unbearable pain. At some point they go numb and detach from it so they can even function at all. It looks on the outside like they don't care. But that is masking pain so deep it could make you crazy so you can't afford to experience it.
People put this drama down, disregard it as worthless or ridiculous. Just like how if you're in one of these relationships, people put you down, criticize you and don't understand your love or the craziness and what it's like to really live with.
This is like the complete opposite of "Kill Me, Heal Me." -- which had a good production value, good soundtrack, well-crafted slick storyline, good aesthetic, and appeared to treat the topic of mental illness with respect and sensitivity.... but which actually on the deeper levels trivialized and romanticized mental illness in a way that's fundamentally not-cool. Whereas this drama had terrible production value, terrible soundtrack, a disjointed and frenetic storyline, and appeared to treat the topic of mental illness like a joke..... but which actually on it's deeper levels, is the only drama i've ever seen that DOES respect mental illness, for what it really is.
People thought the ending blows. But the ending leaves you with 2 questions. One: "If you could change the ML you love so much, to not be mentally ill anymore, would you do it?" Two: "If the ML you loved so much ended up changing, would you stay?"
It's so beautiful, I'm teary-eyed just typing all this out. This is not just some dime-a-dozen, cheap trashy "Thai-slap-kiss-abduction-love" story. It's easy to laugh at this drama if you've never been there. If you've never deeply loved someone with this kind of mental illness. But despite the directors/producers best efforts to ruin this drama, it is still a legitimate work of art that IMO, is totally underappreciated.
One of the worst k-dramas I've ever seen. For so many reasons. Firstly and most importantly, this was one of the most toxic relationships I've ever seen. ML and FL are horrible, absolutely horrible. After episode ten, the main plot device is "misunderstanding". Which is a cheap low-effort way to string a show along. ML is sadistic, cruel and childish throughout most of the drama. FL has a rock-bottom EQ and a selfish streak.
One of the most used thematic background songs, has elements from Lykke Li's song "possibility" which plays in the second Twilight movie when she gets ditched by Edward and loses her mind with depression. It's rather disorienting to be continually reminded of this song when watching Goong.
I've seen plenty of old school dramas out of korea, and I like their sense of style. But in this drama, some of the outfit choices were so ridiculous i just cant even. It was realllly bad.
I have seen and reviewed 140 dramas, and I have never had a huge problem with an actors looks... until now. The FL is just so ugly in a way that's a little hard to define. I don't know if she's had any work done, but her lips look like they're so full of botox they're going to burst, with a large dent in the center of the lower lip that causes it to resemble a butt. Her teeth are just bucky enough to be distracting. She has that accent some Korean actors have where they think its cute to talk with a pout. The back of her head is very flat, and the hair stylists did nothing to try to compensate for it. This - combined with the fact that the character she's playing is ridiculously childish and oblivious and occasionally downright mean - made the whole thing incredibly hard to watch and finish.
Yeah yeah, I know she was in coffee prince. I found her barely tolerable in that show, and in this one it's just so much worse.
There was next to no side plot action. There are side stories they pass up the opportunity to develop, just skipping over them and plowing ahead with a pretty boring plot (if this plot had been the focus of a 2 hour movie it would have been fine, but it doesn't justify 24 episodes at all).
I gave this drama one of the worst scores I've ever given a drama. To be fair, I gave this a 4.5, and I gave the k-drama "Blood" like a 2. So it's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but I wish I had my time back that I spent watching this nonsensical garbage.
I had just finished reading the webtoon and had to watch the drama. I get these type of dramas aren't for everyone…
ok, i was hoping to find someone who read the manhwa and saw the drama because I have some questions...
I watched this drama about a third of the way, and was so confused that I was missing something, so I dropped it hoping to read the webtoon first or read more reviews. When I did, I heard about the ML's mistreatment on the set, and him being written out of later episodes, and that cooled me on wanting to watch it at all.
But as time went by, I noticed many people are dedicated to this story and think its a brilliant masterpiece. So I went to look at the webtoon. I only read the chapters I found were free to read, and that's up to episode 7. The manhwa I thought was going to have answers for me, still confused me. Now I'm re-watching this drama (im on ep 3 rn).
Here is my question.... I don't see him acting like a snake or a psycho. Seol was tipped off to his "strange" behavior by how he "accidentally" spilled beer in that girls lap and then kind of smiled about it.
Ok maybe I'm a dickish person, but I don't see what's so psycho about that. The girl was aggressively trying to flirt with him, i think what he did was funny. And the other stuff he did, also seems like either a sense of justice or like he's doing it to be near Seol because he likes her.
I had a VERY hard time following the manhwa... but it seems like from the drama and the webtoon, that he's not actually doing anything that psycho or weird. He's a little manipulative, but so is that bitch girl that told Seol that class had been moved to later on a test day... isn't that more psycho than what Jung does?
I have no idea where they're going with this ML, but it seems like maybe he's going to be a yandere character that does all kinds of things for Seol behind her back to protect her and make her happy...? I read somewhere that what really happens is that Jung hears Seol talkin smack about him, and catches her outside the restaurant smoking a used cigarette butt off the street (iirc, after puking everywhere as well, so double gross). And this makes him intensely dislike her at first, and want to get a revenge (later on slowly coming to like her as he goes about his revenges). But like... WHAT revenge, all he's done is buy her dinner, sign up for her classes, find who changed her class schedule, help her on the stairs when she trips, get her a friggin scholarship.... that's not revenge on someone you don't like.
Idk, i guess I mean in the universe of ML's he hasn't done anything anywhere near as psycho as some ML's. I mean there's ML's who tell FL's they have cancer when they dont, ML's who get together with FL's as gambling bets, ML's who sneak under FL's bed at night and listen to her sleep, ML's who literally kidnap the FL.... all sorts of psycho things. But this guy dumped beer in an annoying girls lap and somehow that makes him not right in the head?
I'm hoping someone can help me understand the right mindframe to go into this drama to see what about it makes people fall in love with the story. Because so far I just see Seol as like a rude bitch for putting him off so shamelessly all the time and acting like a jerk to him.
Contrary to the apparently popular opinion, I didn't much enjoy this drama. It's talked up a lot, and it's been sitting on my "plan to watch" list for like a year, I was looking forward to it. But imo, it was formulaic, viewers emotions are crudely manipulated by cheap plot devices and tropes, there's not much kilig or chemistry. I had been told there would be chemistry, but i'm not seeing it. IMO this drama has way too much tired predictable romance, and not anywhere near enough spice and excitement.
Yea, I know it's kind of old, I know it's Japanese... but that doesn't excuse this drama's shortcomings.
On a positive note, while the dialogue is often uninspired, there are times where it is very intelligent and deep. It also has these kinky incestuous undertones of a man with a mommy-complex, if you're into that kind of thing, which I am not.
Just finished... FL and ML give good performances, but despite this the romance was lackluster. The story of the two of them is a fun story that I don't think the writers did enough to capitalize on. The plot outside of the romance was a snoozefest for me. The music/ost was sometimes pushy, and sometimes used to bolster scenes that didn't have enough emotion on their own. The aesthetic was nice, but lacked true vision. The martial arts scenes were slightly cheesy. This left am impression on me of "classic wuxia", a standard story, a standard romance, standard fight scenes, standard ending.
I think the biggest mistake this series made was missing opportunities to take the story in certain interesting directions that opened up as the plot unfolded. For instance there are several opportunities for a "Big Reveal" type of moment, and yet these reveals are massively underplayed for some reason I don't understand. Many of the characters have pretty good rapport with one another, and yet there's a distinct lack of cute, fun-loving scenes (like the kind that made CLOY so re-watchable). The ML/FL are supposed to be portraying soul mates with an intense relationship, and yet never did they scorch the screen. There's an adorable kid in there with an interesting story of his own, and yet he only gets a few scenes towards the end where he is treated as a loose end that needs to be tied up at the end, when he was cute/badass enough to hold up his own little mini side story, really.
This was a strange combination of kilig and cuteness that really worked. First episode I didn't understand what was cute about the FL, but she won me over quickly because she's funny and sweet and unpretentious. The ML is so fire. Their chemistry was palpable, all he had to do was stand close to her and you could just feel it emanating off of them. If this show had any fault, it was that it was too trite and superficial. But since I was using this as a recovery from a wuxia binge, I found it lovely and captivating. The spice factor was pretty low, but the kiss scenes were good and there's several kilig moments to sigh over. And that soundtrack was so choice I really loved it. The way every time there's a serious medical emergency they play this jazz music, it just cracked me up. I gave it an 8, but I think it's rewatch value is low because nothing in the drama was nuanced or complex or spicy enough for a second watch.
I can see from comments I don't hold the most popular opinion, but I thought this drama was wholly mediocre, with the exception of two things: One, Lee Jong Suk turned in a very solid performance. However, this wasn't enough for me to be hooked, because I find LJS's plastic surgery very disconcerting and jarring to stare at for any length of time. And two, Kim Won Hae who totally nailed his performance. I was really surprised he can do drama that brilliantly.
Everything else was meh to me, the one or two kiss scenes were unmemorable and decent at best, the ost and soundtrack were incredibly intrusive, the plot twists and devices were recycled from other shows and very unoriginal, the pacing was off, the aesthetic lacked vision and was bland. I gave it a 7.
I can understand your disappointment. But at the core this is a xianxia, hence the ending. The comedy is the cherry…
continuity of tone: The Love Between Fairy and Devil TMOPB & ELOD Ancient Love Poetry Till the End of the Moon
In each of these there is a continuity of tone throughout. You'll notice that I never once said "comedic tone", it's what you are inferring from my words. I said "continuity of tone". Something that begins lighthearted and has levity running through the show should end on a lighthearted note. Something that begins with a serious tone, and has gravity and angst running through the show should end on a serious tone. If a show has "comedic tone" running throughout, that's called a "comedy", and we aren't watching the genre "comedy".
This is a basic element of cinematography, btw, this idea of continuity of tone, and that a film or show, much like a song, should begin and end on the same theme/emotion/style.
But honestly it seems like theres just people here who feign obtuseness in order to attempt to belittle others' opinions when they don't match their own. Especially when it comes to recent c-drama releases.
I finished this and thought about it for a while, and figured out why this drama is so unsatisfying. It starts off beautiful and interesting, and goofy. There's good comedy in the first half of the drama, all over the place. Almost cartoonish but not quite, and what's meant to be funny, is actually funny. The drama gets you used to a pattern of obstacles, and then those obstacles overcome in an exciting and heartwarming way.
And by the last episodes, the comedy is long gone, and it's like the show switched genres in the quarter/third of the show. You get invested in a certain tone and pattern that the show moves along with, and the later episodes are a complete changeup. It feels like being cheated out of the ending you had invested in.
The actors were awesome, all of them. The sets and characters and costumes were also awesome. OST was awesome. That ending though. I knocked my final score down a lot because of it.
I just finished The Long Ballad, and Liu Yu Ning just slays in it. SO HOT omGGGG... his intensity sets the screen on fire. His facial expressions are exquisite, and his performance was captivating. I had trouble paying attention to the scenes he wasn't in because he's so hypnotically hot.
Wow this was such a good drama. There is no spice in this show, but that is the only downside to it at all. The performances were all pitch perfect. FL was absolutely incredible. Pacing was perfect, plot was engrossing and never got bogged down. The funny parts were funny, the touching parts were touching, the ending was satisfying. The backdrops and costumes were beautiful. The music was top notch. I am extremely picky about what I think is worth a rewatch, but I would absolutely rewatch this.
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If you ever wondered what it's like to be in love with a sexy crazy person, this drama WILL take you there... better than any other show I've ever seen, hands down.
Don't get me wrong, this was a technically bad drama. How was it bad? Let me count the ways. Dubbing was atrocious. Continuity problems all over the place, both large and small. Soundtrack and music was completely schizophrenic, ranging from excellent, to cringy, to confusing, to completely absent altogether. Production value was so low it looked like a 90's k-drama (same feel as What Happened in Bali, ISWAK, or Coffee Prince for instance). Direction was amateurish and lacked style or vision. Storyline was so highly improbable as to be preposterous.
However. If you willingly suspend your disbelief, and let the story just flow over you and take you where it's gonna take you... you will be taken on a journey into what it's like to be in love with someone who has mental illness.
Now they call it "Paranoid Personality Disorder" (PPD). But I believe it accurately portrays Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I would know, because I have been there, baby. I've been to hell and back on that rollercoaster in RL.
Now, I've never been abducted at gunpoint, put under interrogation for a month, starved and let loose in the woods. I've never had my FIL try to kill me. And yet, I empathized so strongly with the FL that many times it overwhelmed me and left me in tears. I knew how she felt and I could relate to her through much of the story... even though it's just so over-the-top and fantastical. The plot is exaggerated from RL, but the FEELINGS it evokes are the same.
You wanna know what it's like to be head over heels in love with someone who has BPD? It's being scared and unafraid at the same time. It's being terrorized and frightened. It's being loved so strongly that it makes you feel elated and blissful and excited. It's being so hurt by things that you turn unresponsive for days. It's being told everything you want to hear, being made to feel safe and protected and cherished like no other... and then hours later wandering aimlessly barefoot in the road at night, utterly crushed and alone. It's being so patient and so giving that you don't know if you're being strong or being the victim. It's losing yourself completely in another person's madness. It's being pitted against your family, against his family, being isolated -- sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally. It's being told things that are so sexy and romantic that they sear you right down to your core like no other person can do to you. It's being on fire for that person, feeling like you can't breathe without them, like you'd die without them. It's having your self esteem brought up, and then taken down, over and over again. It's breaking up with someone 50 times, telling yourself you won't take them back, but then melting right back into them every time you see them. It's crying all the time, and laughing all the time. It's like knowing your partner inside and out... and then feeling like you don't know them at all. Not knowing if you left, if you'd be stalked, or abandoned. It's seeing the beauty in another person that most people are too afraid to get to know. It's being the only one who can get them to calm down, and the only one who can drive them furiously crazy. It's the most hot, epic romance you'll ever have, and you will get burned by it, but you will stay no matter how much pain it puts you through. It's being too shellshocked and exhausted to even react normally and appropriately to things anymore. It feels like its just you two against the world, and everyone is out to take you down.
All that is REAL.
The acting here was so good, and the ML and FL so well cast. The dialogue is so on point. People say the FL is a doormat. That's because when you're in love like this, you can lose yourself in it. You can get so wrapped up in the other person that you don't even know who you are anymore. She openly asks herself at one point if she's getting Stockholmed. I've been there, girl.
I won't give the plot away, but there's part in one of the episodes where she can't dress herself, so he has to arrange for her to get cleaned up and in clean clothes. He puts her in a sweet white dress with fringy puffy stuff that makes her look like a little angel. It was so sweet it made me cry. It's just the little psychological thoughtful details like that that made this far more subtle than it lets on.
A psychologist says to the FL at one point "I treated a kid once who carried a teddy bear with him because it calmed him down. He took it with him wherever he went. After 20 years, that teddy bear was so worn out it was unrecognizable." This is the most profound quote in the drama. It shows that the writers have to have had some firsthand personal experience with crazy-love.
The ML's reaction to waiting for his first psych eval... as the FL soothes him and tries to calm his restlessness... this took me right back into that relationship I had with my BPD s.o., it was so real and so accurate. They do NOT want to be seen or treated by anyone. They have no trust in doctors of any kind. They are like wild tigers in waiting rooms, pacing with that dark look on their face, vulnerable and frightening at the same time. You feel like a wild animal handler everywhere you go with them. You are the go-between, between them and everyone else. You are the only one safe around them... well mostly safe ;)
These people do have a scary side. They own and carry weapons, they're not afraid to beat the crap out of people, they are unpredictable and calculating. They are obsessive and passionate. And YES, they sometimes kidnap or seriously ponder kidnapping people for various altruistic reasons. Sometimes they set up situations on purpose to provoke your jealousy, or to provoke your tears, or to provoke your anger. They lie. They are guarded and evasive. And they are devastatingly sexy.
I cried so many times during this drama because of various moments I could completely relate to, the good moments and the bad. Which is crazy because this drama's plot and storyline is truly beyond belief and absurd. But y'know what... not as absurd as you'd think. I've even had my child kidnapped by a relative before. Yes. (I got her back, it took a year, long story, everythings fine now) So I can relate to how the FL is acting in that circumstance. She seems disconnected from the pain, in a way that's so strange that if you didn't know better you'd find it laughable. But that IS what happens to a person in unbearable pain. At some point they go numb and detach from it so they can even function at all. It looks on the outside like they don't care. But that is masking pain so deep it could make you crazy so you can't afford to experience it.
People put this drama down, disregard it as worthless or ridiculous. Just like how if you're in one of these relationships, people put you down, criticize you and don't understand your love or the craziness and what it's like to really live with.
This is like the complete opposite of "Kill Me, Heal Me." -- which had a good production value, good soundtrack, well-crafted slick storyline, good aesthetic, and appeared to treat the topic of mental illness with respect and sensitivity.... but which actually on the deeper levels trivialized and romanticized mental illness in a way that's fundamentally not-cool. Whereas this drama had terrible production value, terrible soundtrack, a disjointed and frenetic storyline, and appeared to treat the topic of mental illness like a joke..... but which actually on it's deeper levels, is the only drama i've ever seen that DOES respect mental illness, for what it really is.
People thought the ending blows. But the ending leaves you with 2 questions. One: "If you could change the ML you love so much, to not be mentally ill anymore, would you do it?" Two: "If the ML you loved so much ended up changing, would you stay?"
It's so beautiful, I'm teary-eyed just typing all this out. This is not just some dime-a-dozen, cheap trashy "Thai-slap-kiss-abduction-love" story. It's easy to laugh at this drama if you've never been there. If you've never deeply loved someone with this kind of mental illness. But despite the directors/producers best efforts to ruin this drama, it is still a legitimate work of art that IMO, is totally underappreciated.
One of the most used thematic background songs, has elements from Lykke Li's song "possibility" which plays in the second Twilight movie when she gets ditched by Edward and loses her mind with depression. It's rather disorienting to be continually reminded of this song when watching Goong.
I've seen plenty of old school dramas out of korea, and I like their sense of style. But in this drama, some of the outfit choices were so ridiculous i just cant even. It was realllly bad.
I have seen and reviewed 140 dramas, and I have never had a huge problem with an actors looks... until now. The FL is just so ugly in a way that's a little hard to define. I don't know if she's had any work done, but her lips look like they're so full of botox they're going to burst, with a large dent in the center of the lower lip that causes it to resemble a butt. Her teeth are just bucky enough to be distracting. She has that accent some Korean actors have where they think its cute to talk with a pout. The back of her head is very flat, and the hair stylists did nothing to try to compensate for it. This - combined with the fact that the character she's playing is ridiculously childish and oblivious and occasionally downright mean - made the whole thing incredibly hard to watch and finish.
Yeah yeah, I know she was in coffee prince. I found her barely tolerable in that show, and in this one it's just so much worse.
There was next to no side plot action. There are side stories they pass up the opportunity to develop, just skipping over them and plowing ahead with a pretty boring plot (if this plot had been the focus of a 2 hour movie it would have been fine, but it doesn't justify 24 episodes at all).
I gave this drama one of the worst scores I've ever given a drama. To be fair, I gave this a 4.5, and I gave the k-drama "Blood" like a 2. So it's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but I wish I had my time back that I spent watching this nonsensical garbage.
I watched this drama about a third of the way, and was so confused that I was missing something, so I dropped it hoping to read the webtoon first or read more reviews. When I did, I heard about the ML's mistreatment on the set, and him being written out of later episodes, and that cooled me on wanting to watch it at all.
But as time went by, I noticed many people are dedicated to this story and think its a brilliant masterpiece. So I went to look at the webtoon. I only read the chapters I found were free to read, and that's up to episode 7. The manhwa I thought was going to have answers for me, still confused me. Now I'm re-watching this drama (im on ep 3 rn).
Here is my question.... I don't see him acting like a snake or a psycho. Seol was tipped off to his "strange" behavior by how he "accidentally" spilled beer in that girls lap and then kind of smiled about it.
Ok maybe I'm a dickish person, but I don't see what's so psycho about that. The girl was aggressively trying to flirt with him, i think what he did was funny. And the other stuff he did, also seems like either a sense of justice or like he's doing it to be near Seol because he likes her.
I had a VERY hard time following the manhwa... but it seems like from the drama and the webtoon, that he's not actually doing anything that psycho or weird. He's a little manipulative, but so is that bitch girl that told Seol that class had been moved to later on a test day... isn't that more psycho than what Jung does?
I have no idea where they're going with this ML, but it seems like maybe he's going to be a yandere character that does all kinds of things for Seol behind her back to protect her and make her happy...? I read somewhere that what really happens is that Jung hears Seol talkin smack about him, and catches her outside the restaurant smoking a used cigarette butt off the street (iirc, after puking everywhere as well, so double gross). And this makes him intensely dislike her at first, and want to get a revenge (later on slowly coming to like her as he goes about his revenges). But like... WHAT revenge, all he's done is buy her dinner, sign up for her classes, find who changed her class schedule, help her on the stairs when she trips, get her a friggin scholarship.... that's not revenge on someone you don't like.
Idk, i guess I mean in the universe of ML's he hasn't done anything anywhere near as psycho as some ML's. I mean there's ML's who tell FL's they have cancer when they dont, ML's who get together with FL's as gambling bets, ML's who sneak under FL's bed at night and listen to her sleep, ML's who literally kidnap the FL.... all sorts of psycho things. But this guy dumped beer in an annoying girls lap and somehow that makes him not right in the head?
I'm hoping someone can help me understand the right mindframe to go into this drama to see what about it makes people fall in love with the story. Because so far I just see Seol as like a rude bitch for putting him off so shamelessly all the time and acting like a jerk to him.
Yea, I know it's kind of old, I know it's Japanese... but that doesn't excuse this drama's shortcomings.
On a positive note, while the dialogue is often uninspired, there are times where it is very intelligent and deep. It also has these kinky incestuous undertones of a man with a mommy-complex, if you're into that kind of thing, which I am not.
I think the biggest mistake this series made was missing opportunities to take the story in certain interesting directions that opened up as the plot unfolded. For instance there are several opportunities for a "Big Reveal" type of moment, and yet these reveals are massively underplayed for some reason I don't understand. Many of the characters have pretty good rapport with one another, and yet there's a distinct lack of cute, fun-loving scenes (like the kind that made CLOY so re-watchable). The ML/FL are supposed to be portraying soul mates with an intense relationship, and yet never did they scorch the screen. There's an adorable kid in there with an interesting story of his own, and yet he only gets a few scenes towards the end where he is treated as a loose end that needs to be tied up at the end, when he was cute/badass enough to hold up his own little mini side story, really.
Everything else was meh to me, the one or two kiss scenes were unmemorable and decent at best, the ost and soundtrack were incredibly intrusive, the plot twists and devices were recycled from other shows and very unoriginal, the pacing was off, the aesthetic lacked vision and was bland. I gave it a 7.
The Love Between Fairy and Devil
TMOPB & ELOD
Ancient Love Poetry
Till the End of the Moon
In each of these there is a continuity of tone throughout. You'll notice that I never once said "comedic tone", it's what you are inferring from my words. I said "continuity of tone". Something that begins lighthearted and has levity running through the show should end on a lighthearted note. Something that begins with a serious tone, and has gravity and angst running through the show should end on a serious tone. If a show has "comedic tone" running throughout, that's called a "comedy", and we aren't watching the genre "comedy".
This is a basic element of cinematography, btw, this idea of continuity of tone, and that a film or show, much like a song, should begin and end on the same theme/emotion/style.
But honestly it seems like theres just people here who feign obtuseness in order to attempt to belittle others' opinions when they don't match their own. Especially when it comes to recent c-drama releases.
And by the last episodes, the comedy is long gone, and it's like the show switched genres in the quarter/third of the show. You get invested in a certain tone and pattern that the show moves along with, and the later episodes are a complete changeup. It feels like being cheated out of the ending you had invested in.
The actors were awesome, all of them. The sets and characters and costumes were also awesome. OST was awesome. That ending though. I knocked my final score down a lot because of it.