pomegranate

If I ever get around to giving fair ratings according to my view then it’s going to be when I get bothered to type up a review justifying that and what exactly I appreciated or what put me off. But that’s too much energy and I’ve forgotten a lot over the years of watching. Also it would require me to figure out some arbitrary scale to stick to and define what each number means. (Why is it such a wide scale ?? 5 star scales is hard enough… but 10 ?)

It started with me seeing something like Heirs having a very unjustified high rating (which was only brought down in recent years I think?) and then seeing some drama I like not getting enough love or some drama that isn’t overall so bad but getting super bashed because people tend to just on the bandwagon, popular drama = forgive all flaws, otherwise only remember the flaws lol.

Anyway, atm I’m just sticking to 1 or 10 ratings or otherwise refraining from rating and sometimes deleting those ratings if I consider some other views and change my mind. The ones I rated 1 aren’t exactly all dramas I hate but either something about them really ticked me off (like people calling Seo Ye Ji’s psycho character a badass “strong” FL -she is the definition of a weak person- and the drama pretending all she needs is to date ML to solve her heap of mental health issues) or it’s my attempt to balance the response a drama has got (like calling a only decently acted cookie-cutter romcom like Business Proposal a masterpiece, not to mention the power imbalance + lack of respect of boundaries- non-consensual sex? and— it’s a stale cookie basically).

Sorry this post has gotten unwarrantedly long. If you read it, thank you for coming to Ted Talk ㅠㅠ

I reckon the ratings aren’t going to drop wildly for a long time, particularly because it’s not exactly a hate inducing drama and since Kdramas have turned to darker, somber plots these days and stopped churning out easy Wattpad romances with well-known actors that appeals to the good majority of the Kdrama audience that is female and who are mostly watching to live vicariously through the cute hot characters on screen.

P.S.
Have you given When the weather is fine a try? It is a slower slice of life/healing drama also set in a village but has a lingering aftertaste. Has the metaphors, stories, wit, complexity that you were hoping to find in this drama.

It’s a clearly not a problem of them not liking the genre when they have enjoyed other healing/slice of life’s and village setting dramas. Also they said nothing about villagers being judgemental and that being a flaw?

The drama is an alright light watch for fans of the leads (until the last minute dive into a rushed angst) but it doesn’t offer any depth and the character writing is questionable overall.

Aunt writes the confessional novel, ML delivers it, FL gets upset at aunt, leaves, returns two months later in May when the weather is ‘fine’ (it’s supposedly snowing for some reason). When she sees the ML she asks him to smile, he’s sad so can’t, she realises he’s more heartbroken than expected, tells him she came to see his smiling face, he asks what she will do for him if he smiles for her, she promises to kiss him one last time in a 100 years and until then they will stay together, he finally smiles and they share a romantic kiss ‘in the snow of spring’.
The end.
(FL’s mom makes her first appearance in the novel version in only the ending, having taken over responsibility of Hodu House and revamping it for customers again after the aunt has left to go live her own life, unchaining herself from her self imprisonment at the village).

In ML’s private blog posted on Jan 3, he talks about the FL greeting him Good Morning, his heart beating like the morning sun saying Good Morning after many Good Nights, the landscape growing distant and only the FL shining in that moment and mornings being a beautiful thing. Ends his private blog with a Happy New Year and Good Morning (instead of the usual Good Night), saying it is the end of his diary because he’s now going to be busy kissing the FL.

I dropped the first season by end of episode one because I despised the way the main characters started their relationship and did not care to watch for upcoming romcom moments or their relationship struggles. (She had a boyfriend! and he seemed to intentionally aim for someone that his friend liked, not so much because he had feelings for her yet + the love alarm app just screamed trouble already)
The characters themselves were nothing unique either. (typical poor Cinderella FL, typical rich entitled ML, typical nicer SML who doesn’t do anything and an endlessly stretched love triangle between these stock characters)

I gave the second season a try because it had a different endgame, because although Song Kang’s character irritated me throughout the season he thankfully did not “win” the girl, the main couple may not have been spice and nice but appeared to be maturing adults unlike the ex who was bordering on obsessive possessive behaviour at some point, and the FL’s family/cousin appeared nicer and interesting as well.

Since I skipped season 1, I wasn’t particularly invested in the characters, romance or relationships as many of you no doubt. But I did like the touch on social issues, privacy issues and relationship struggles that occurred to due the app and people’s tendency to fanatically rely on it. If such an app came out and became popular it would definitely do more harm than good in the long run.

Overall the pacing, plot execution and acting was not the best but acceptable for a light watch and I was satisfied with where we left the characters. FL stopped tying herself to an application/third-party confirmation of her own feelings and decisions, the main couple decided to go for analogue over digital breaking the over reliance on the love app, the ex stopped obsessing over the FL and started to look at the happiness around him, and pay attention to the relationship he was actually in at the time and the app was probably going to die out soon enough iirc.

Thus no, it didn’t strike me as “the wOrSt drama” out there, although I’m sure disappointments may have been high due to higher or certain expectations from viewers. And atleast part of the ratings is due to ship wars and salty SK fans, who would have given higher ratings if their ship sailed/character wasn’t dragged in a love triangle regardless of ‘plot quality’.

It seems that with shows that are super low rated or super high rated there’s an aggressive crowd mentality. Like how dare you like anything in this show or how dare you dislike anything in this show. And you’re treated like your opinion is invalid and you have no brains (actual comments on mdl) if you don’t agree with the crowd.

Many low ratings do tend to come from hate levels of disappointment, rather than actual overall quality of the drama. Also 1-10 is a really big arbitrary rating scale, not sure why this site doesn’t have the more common 5 star scale.

Reasons TO Watch:

You dislike Song Kang and/or his character in this series

You care more about the love alarm concept than you do about the romance

You dropped or haven’t watched season 1

You don’t care about mdl ratings and want to form your own opinion

He looks like one of those actors who although don’t have much hype around them but are seriously good and versatile enough to last a lifetime if they are motivated enough and have good attitude.

Still I would like to see him as a lead in something substantial soon and a lot while he is young enough to be the ‘main lead’.

Projecting are we?

I suppose so. It’s just actors have such an unfortunately short peak time and on top of that Korean male actors get stolen— ahem- by the military for two years

Lmao

Deleting your abusive comment to me

Then editing your original comment to the OP

Then acting like you did nothing wrong…

Sigh

Go ahead and troll reviewers. And ofcourse you care, that’s why you bothered at all to bash the reviewer for voicing their opinion.

I guess I’m one of those rare few who had no problem with FL’s acting? I’ll take over-acting over wooden fish faces any day. And this drama is so crazy wack in general that it doesn’t really matter. The only problem I had with this show was the plotline of the SML crushing on his sister (doesn’t matter if she’s adopted, it’s still WTF)

Can we pretty please bring back multiple personalities in Kdrama? This was simultaneously so utterly hilarious and emotional. I guess a new drama in the same line would get compared to death with this one…

This review really is a genius! 😂

Was it worth the time ?
Time doesn’t flow afksgsikeks

There was no reason for you to be offensive or come harshly on the OP. They simply admitted to sharing their own opinion of the show - which is what this site is meant for.
There was no insult made to the production or crew and even a compliment was paid to the actors skills.

My heated response was in reaction to your offensive language.

I understand feeling disheartened to hear people talk unfavourably of something you personally liked, but that does not make their thoughts invalid.

I don’t know if this is just the culture of this site or what. But I find this gunpoint mentality of the fandom I see on this page disturbing. It’s an either you bend over and like this show and everything about it or “fuck off and die” because “you are too stupid”.

That is the definition of a toxic fandom.

And frankly I dislike this show More because of people acting like you than I did when I watched it.

It would be nice certainly if creators understood their responsibility themselves without need of government intervention. But sometimes they don’t or rather don’t care, as people with poor intentions also produce ‘creative content’. On other hand, sometimes governments can also be the same.

I’m not much of a fan of characters that I can’t root for depending on what values they hold and/or whether the drama is romanticising them. Also many dramas, even if I liked them, I’ve just forgotten. But of what you’ve got on your lists already, there’s plenty of grey characters.

PS. It was great discussing with you too. Haha my ratings :) Some of them I will likely reconsider in the future.

As long as the general channels don’t turn to senseless vulgarity, gore and low key porn and lose all sense of values and emotional connection of relationships, I’m good. Oh and as long as Kdramas don’t turn into a drag with endless seasons in greed of ratings and subscriptions.

Extracurricular is far from the only morally ambiguous protagonist around even if uncommon and this drama is darker in tone than others.

As for what censorship rules the Korean government decides, I’ve no interest in opposing for what would be a minor inconvenience to me as an international audience, but deemed important to their culture and economy.

😂 thought I was alone in wanting him to be the lead there

I’ve been waiting for this guy since 2O18. Since discovering him in 30 but 17 then shortly stalking his admittedly short filmography. Why did he debut so late if he switched career to acting fairly young? :(
Well he’s signed with a big agency now, so hopefully we’ll get to see his potential achieved.

Oh good lord that… yeah please stay away from my Asian industries and furthermore Asian cultures

Squid Game and Extracurricular gave me high key American vibes so I dropped those.

Shows likes Strangers from Hell - from normal Korean cable tv are also pretty dark. And K-films have been bolder since long before Netflix.

Censorship isn’t the bane of creativity like people to propagate. Even film/drama creators hold a responsibility as what they produce is a direct huge influence on society.