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What??? Lee Soo Hyun is acting in this? That cute girl with a gorgeous voice and charming on-stage presence who stars in AKMU and many of the Begin Again episodes? (e.g. singing "Into the Unknown" while skating around an ice rink) How is her acting? To find out is enough reason for me to watch this drama!

I totally support you on this; kudos for writing this article and I hope you have myriad readers. We always have to remind ourselves that dramas and movies are to varying degrees constructed of our fantasies, even ones which purport to be realistic or based on real life. We need to understand the purpose of our favorite fantasies in coping with the difficulties of real life. And we need to realise when our fantasies and coping mechanisms are impairing our fulfillment and growth, rather than empowering us. e.g. apparently researchers have found that many women have fantasies of being raped, but this must be understood within a toxic masculine culture that represses women's sexuality. Having a fantasy is different than actually wanting it to occur in real life, but some people can't tell the difference. Given that many young people are learning about relationships and sexuality from movies/dramas/ pornography, this is a huge problem. If media is going to depict the worst of human behaviour, it should also show the consequences of such behaviour, and offer realistic solutions and admirable role models.
To quote from my review on Before We Get Married:
This drama is seriously messed up in matters of consent. She repeatedly, clearly and emphatically says "No", but we're supposed to believe that actually she wants him. He repeatedly, clearly and emphatically is told "No" but he keeps harrassing her, even forcing himself on her physically, and maybe we're supposed to admire his persistence as masculine.
To quote from my review on Love O2O: Whenever he wants to express his affection for her, he jams her up against a wall and chews her face off.

I haven't watched the series, but I just looked up the video after reading this post. The lead singer has a powerful husky voice, and she looks familiar - is she a well-known actress too?

This is a grim and violent movie about an ordinary family trying to survive extreme circumstances, and they barely succeed, and not by honorable means. Don't watch this if you're wanting an evening of light-hearted escapism.

Well that's interesting to hear. My understanding is that in parts of the North, especially in the countryside, there's a lot of poverty, much worse that in the village in the drama. And I find it hard to believe that principled soldiers could survive in the army and rise to high rank (such as Jung Hyuk's father). And I don't recall any reference in the drama to the Kim family dictators, whose presence is everywhere.

http://proxybb.com/black-school-rules-2019-1080p-nf-webrip-x264-ngp/

Interesting idea for an article. The only one I've seen is Woo Ri (Because This Is My First Life) and I found it quite annoying that each time he appeared, there was a dubbed cat meow that always sounded the same, and played even when the cat was in view and clearly wasn't meowing. This was cat as cliche rather than cat as character.

Set in the brothels of Shanghai in the late 19th C, this claustrophobic movie - every scene is set indoors in lamplit rooms without windows - consists of a series of chapter vignettes, each named after one of the "flower women", who only have their rivalries for customer's favour (i.e. money) and opium to while away the tedium until their few short good years have been used up. I had neither, and couldn't make it past 40minutes. What else could you expect in such a patriarchal society?

I'll wait for your final conclusions. As we all know, so many dramas fail on the endings.

Looks like some people with an extremely limited budget made a little drama series, and had a lot of fun, and I wish them well. I think with such production restraints, the story has to be strong, and unfortunately too much of this happened in the human's narration, not in actual action. I found the story confusing anyway, which is a problem given that the limited time meant there wasn't much to keep track of. The GL part was implied more than actually happened, but of course any more diversity in relationship types like this is welcomed.

Am enjoying your comments (sorry, I suppose that amounts to schadenfreude)! We are constantly in search of the perfect drama, to recapture the magical experience of when we watched one of our favorites. So often the excited expectation gives way to disappointment and resentment. I'm glad you didn't yield to your urge to slap yourself.
It's fascinating how different people's tastes vary, and so we also search for reviewers who seem to match our own tastes and standards. Talking of bad behaviour by couples, I've almost given up on Before We Get Married, and wrote my critique there just now.
What's next on your queue?

Yes we saw that brief scene when mother got a bad impression of Chuchu in a random encounter in the caff. Given that mother already has a bad reputation with his women, it's not going to be pretty when they meet properly. Not like the delighted welcome of Gyeo Wool by Andrea's mother.

This drama is seriously messed up in matters of consent. She repeatedly, clearly and emphatically says "No", but we're supposed to believe that actually she wants him. He repeatedly, clearly and emphatically is told "No" but he keeps harrassing her, even forcing himself on her physically, and maybe we're supposed to admire his persistence as masculine. "Lust' is definitely no excuse for this despicable behaviour, but actually I don't think he lusts for her. He gets a kick out of manipulating her, over and over again, and that's classic narcissism (notice how even when he seems to be praising her, he's actually talking about his own needs). Watch and learn: if anyone is treating you like he does, then get as far away as you can and absolutely cease all contact. If you are treating someone like that, then be warned you have no real friends, only the ones you manipulated, and you will eventually die lonely.
Maybe I'm taking this too seriously, but reading other reviews here indicates that watching this through is not going to provide any kind of satisfying conclusion to this sorry story.

There are so many good dramas out there, there's no point in wasting your time on one that makes you angry. Sometimes I've kept watching to try to give the drama a chance, but these days if it's not working for me after 2 or 3 episodes, I know by experience it never will.
BTW I dropped this after 8 episodes.

For the original of the noraebang song in the last episode, this seems to be the best link on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geggGtdjQZY

No, for a few moments she sang in tune, very nicely - through Ik Jun's adoring ears.

Imagine the siblings practising together way back when they were teens!

This mostly episodic gallimaufry has a mix of ingredients to please every palate: medical dramas involving threats to life and limb and tortuously challenging decisions; several playful romances mostly free of angst; the joy of making music with friends (but why don't they have an audience, even their various partners? they're good enough); hilarious rivalries and teasing amongst the males; an elderly couple growing old gracefully and still full of joie de vie; and no dastardly villains other than the relentless work schedule.
The production has been lavish with its medical scenes and procedures and evidently had a lot of medical advisor input. Too bad there are still frequent elementary mistakes and drama cliches (e.g. hanging masks around the neck; everyone on a drip when they wouldn't need it, waving vaguely at an X-ray when pointing out something) that kept reminding me I'm watching a drama, not a real-life hospital.
Anyway, it was plenty of fun. Another season? This show could go on forever until they all grow old and retire.

Bit part actors from all over Korea were auditioned and hired to play their part in this drama, crying buckets of tears on demand in cameo scenes.

They seemed to be deliberately tying up a lot of plot threads at end.