ponnu

they had to rap it up... so i was fine with rang getting reincarnated almost immediately but i am not getting why some are saying it had a bad ending just because lee rang died and didnt get to live with yuri, shinjoo and the kid... he got way more than he deserved...

dalmi also conveniently forgot that she was able to manage a company all thanks to injae recruiting her at injae company... basically noone else would have taken dalmi after getting kicked out as a ceo because of her own fault...

i wasn't interested in watching this drama when the trailer or the initial episodes came up but gave it a try just to know what is this obsession with the second male lead and why this drama has such a proactive comment section in MDL... this were literally the only reason for me to watch this drama...
from the first episode i got my answer on why everyone is getting obsessed with han ji pyeong... from his background story, his onscreen charm to the acting of both young and adult HJP were spot on... the drama had a really good start and the first 4-5 episodes were well made but then it all went scrambling down... the show couldnt even hold on the first half of the drama...
this was supposed to be a youth motivational drama but we have a male lead who made the female lead his DREAM... wow what a motivation for the youth...
the drama has a lot of loopholes and the female lead's characterization suffers a lot due to an unwanted forced love triangle...
dosan as a character was quite adorable at the beginning but then he literally had no quality that made me root for him after the first 4-5 episodes.... dalmi started off as a very energetic go-getter kind of character but after a while as a viewer you dont get what she likes, who she likes, why she likes, what she wants... the acting of suzy didnt help either... dalmi is just there so that 2 guys can fight over her just because she is the FL...
this drama without a doubt has one of the lousiest written main leads in kdrama history and one of the most well written and well-acted second lead in the kdrama history...
on the business side of the storyline... there isnt much to talk about either but its set in a fantasy world where if the female lead wants to make a flying elephant, the male lead will make a flying elephant...

like i forgot to mention the second female lead the makers also forgot to show her onscreen... she is like an extended cameo... had great potential... she seems like she belongs to the search www drama but sailed without a map and landed up in the world of fluffy startup where business is seen in a rose-tinted glasses... she was supposed to be the younger sister of bae taemi but god messed up and she became the older sister of seo dalmi... poor girl...

what i liked about the drama
1. KIM SEON HO as HAN JI PYEONG... he is such an amazing actor... audience can understand his feelings and emotions even without him uttering a single dialogue... his every single expression was on point and didnt overdo a single scene
2. GRANDMA AND HJP - they share one of the warmest relationships in kdrama world... prepare a box of tisues every time these two share the screen
3. the first 4-5 episodes

what i dont like
1. EVERYTHING ELSE... normally kdramas only have 1 or 2 irritating characters and rest of them will be nice but in startup you will only find 2 or 3 characters that you want to root for and the rest irritating af...


now coming to acting i already talked about how amazing kim seon ho is... kim hana didnt had enough screentime for me to talk about her acting... from whatever she got she did a good job...
nam joo hyuk as dosan was really good in the first 4-5 episodes but after that he acting suffered due to bad writing... its not his fault... the last i saw of him was in the bride of habaek and compared to that he improved drastically but he still dont have great screen presence and can easily get overshadowed by a better actor....
suzy, as dalmi was only good at scenes, where she has to convey her emotions through dialogues... she literally has a blank expression when she has to convey emotions through subtle expressions... she was pretty decent in screens where she has to cry and express her feelings through dialogues... dalmi could have been played by literally any female actor in her late 20s... like dosan, dalmi is also a victim of lousy writing...

the lead couple lacked depth in their love story and we dont even know when,how and why dalmi started liking the real dosan over the dosan from the letters... their chemistry is also flat... i guess if the actors atleast had strong chemistry i would have rooted for them forgetting all the flaws in their characterization...


overall i dont regret watching startup simply because it made me love kim seon ho... it had potential like almost all other kdramas but got ruined by a forceful love traingle and a forcful love story...

i hated the fact that they showed dalmi more successful than injae at the end... injae is what she is today because of her own hard work and her own intelligence not because some crazy genius boy made her his dream and was there to make her every dream come true... she is the real strong independent headstrong girl... she didnt wasted her time from obsessing over a penpal and then over a geeky boy...
are they trying to show that people who makes emotional and irrational decisions will go higher than people who makes professional and rational decisions?

i dont get when people say lee rang deserves more happiness than lee yeon and jiah... of course i enjoy watching lee rang and ugly cried when he watched yeon's message and when he died but it was obvious that he will die... he did too many bad things... did people forget the bus scene from the first episode? he killed people just because he can and he did that only because he had abandonment issues and was too immature to grow up...

good boys finish last... thats the theme of the drama

Totnt is far away from a bad ending... Even the entire show was far better than startup

it was dead ass boring but we can still understand why some characters did what they did if we try to... thats not the case for startup... even the breakup was justified... she can no longer invest so much in a relationship at that point of time so she broke up with him... but startup breakup looked like they brokeup for the sake of it...
i have only seen park bo gum in love in the moonlight which i dropped after ep 7-8 because it became so boring and reply 1988 which also i dropped but not because it wasnt a good drama... it is a really good drama and i already knew who she ends up with but i felt bad for the 2nd guy so i stopped watching it around ep 6 or 7...

lee yeon is too powerful and smart to get a weak point for the villain... so it made sense why the villain was inside jiah...
until he got to know the main part of imoogi was inside jiah he defeated the imoogi like a pro in everything else... he fooled and killed that dream selling lady like a boss and gave a direct warning to imoogi...
also unlike most damsel in distress that makes dumb decisions and screws everything up for everyone, jiah was literally helpless... there was nothing she can do to solve anything... she cannot even kill herself to save others... even lee rang with powers couldnt do anything against imoogi because imoogi has the power to manipulate and control everyone... jiah helped yeon as much as she can... she never screwed up any of his plans by acting on her own... she got out of the dream trap on her own because of her mental strength...

lee rang has done too many evil things to just move on and have a happy ending... he got the best deal considering he reincarnated as a human with a loving mother right away and get to start a new life with clean slate...

how to appreciate average drama? - what below average dramas...
record of youth makes much more sense after watching startup... it was boring but realistic and logical for 80% of the time... it didnt had much loopholes and the behavious of the main characters were understandable...

there are amazing actresses like gong hyo jin, bae doona etc but they dont have that hallyu star status... with such a long list of successful dramas gong hyo jin should have been having more star power and hype than some of the hallyu actresses...

the funny part is its actually the international fans that over-hype some of these young actors because of their looks...

it did? i didnt know... i thought startup and do do sol sol overshadowed it...

with startup they should have cast a lesser known male lead and went with a strong love traingle then decide the ending based on audience reaction... this drama would have done so much more better...
i find half of the hallyu stars are overrated and over-hyped... there are only very few whose acting is at-least half as good as their popularity...
i agree that only acting skills are not the criteria to be a star and he/she should have this immense screen presence and charisma as well... i only find just 2-3 hallyu stars like kim soo hyun, park seo joo and ji chang wook to have decent acting skills, great screen presence and that x-factor and aura to be stars as well as considered to be good actors as well...
out of the female actresses i only find son yeji and jun ji hyun to have that superstar aura...
i think gong yoo is the perfect hallyu star... does amazing movies and dramas and have wide range of acting skills as well...
actors like jo jung suk, yoo yeon seok, jun ji hoon, lee jung gi, kim nam gil deserves more stardom... they are such amazing actors...

the writer and director are veteran in the industry and its hard to believe that they got clueless on how to move the story forward...

a lot of dramas would have done better if it wasnt for the big names attached to it... big names automatically brings bigger expectations...

i guess the makers were actually planning to make dalmi feel conflicted about her feelings for both dosan and hjp but they changed the story after the immense popularity of hjp/ksh because they knew they will have it harder if HJP gets more scenes with dalmi...
in the initial episodes they clearly indicated that hjp still had a shot with her... they showed dalmi saying she will still like the old dosan more and then showed hjp nourishing the plant... then just in few days the letters meant literally nothing to her and she didnt even care to get proper answers from anyone...

pshyco but its okay aka its okay to not be okay(iotnbo)
su - start up

i havent watched tkem and dont even intent to in the neat future but i guess vfx and elaborated sets will cost them more and kdramas are good with rich camera works and expensive wardrobes( esp for male leads)... kdrama is the only place were i see male characters dressing better than female characters...

netflix also had dodosolsol, private life and uncanny counter with no hallyu stars... i think do do sol sol created some buzz at the start and uncanny is doing well... i guess nobody knew when private life started and ended...
shows like flower of evil, 18 again and tale of the nine tailed deserved to be on netflix... totnt had its flaws but its way better than startup and record of youth...