roddib

He's great to watch, effortlessly good acting. I also liked Unlock My Boss.

When the Devil Calls Your Name is a very character-driven drama. Quite untypical, since the devil (Park Sung Woong) is very sympathetic and continuously becoming more humanlike. Whilst the protagonist (Jung Kyung Ho) starts off as a very lacking human being but ends up growing to a decent one. I guess at this year (2023) of action-packed and character-depth lacking Disney k-dramas I wasn't at all bothered by the occasional draggy parts. There's a lot of philosophical content, maybe not all the time quite getting anywhere but still extraordinary. I give a lot of points for the sheer attempt at tackling moral and philosophical dilemmas. In the end, there's a clarity of what of main messages and takeaways are. That is also laudable. As for the OST, the musical style is quite unusual as well, since it's more folkish than I've ever encountered in a k-drama. It's not for me but I didn't skip any of it, either. As for the romance, it's mostly between Lee El and Park Sung Woong, and that was also a very unusual solution. Lee El is so fine in this drama and Park Sung Woong is of course a legend (in my book). Lee Seol and Song Kang are also very good in their roles.

factoid: this is the second drama for Song Kang where the plot is about people selling their souls to the devil. Just finished When the Devil Calls Your Name. It's a good one.

you're absolutely right. People must stop applauding weight loss or weight gain for a role. PMY was already seriously underweight.

It's definitely getting better. Yul is so funny. But why does Minseok nowadays have to be the villain? He used to have good romantic roles.

yes indeed, it would have been so much better if LJH's backstory had been revealed early on. And the reasons why Captain Gu agreed to a divorce when that decision was only his to make and not by Gil Chae. That needed to be shown. The survival of LJH was the most disturbing part, since Nam Yeon-jun had no status in the military at all being a scholar. That was so obviously changed from the original script. All this softening make the drama less a classic than it would have been otherwise.

Of course not, he's the crown prince and she's an old maid. With a low status without a father. She can't be the future queen. She must be married off before they can start planning the crown prince's marriage.

Would You Like a Cup of Coffee is very good. I don't think he had all the information needed to evade this mess. I really feel sorry for him.

This is real historical events. The main characters' fate was always tied to the king and the crown prince.

A quality historical drama but no masterpiece. I liked how the last episode was clearer about the actual history of the returnees from Qing and crown prince Soohyeon's fate. But from the beginning we were expecting the death in the beach and this affected the whole viewing experience. I'm fully okay with sad endings especially when real history is dealt with. Part 1: I haven't been so angered with drama lead characters ever before. In part 1 the main charaters were so incredibly frustrating. Full of vanity, pride and cruelty toward each other. Then in part 2 they suddenly become near-saints.I do like character growth but by this point I already didn't care about the ML and FL or their romance, at all. In the break between the parts 1 and 2, they decided to change the ending to cater for the romance audience. That's at least how I interpret this ending. That was so wrong, so wrong. It wasn't meant to be a conventional romance drama and only a sad ending would have been satisfactory to me. We went from actual history straight in k-drama tropeland with memory loss trope and irrealistic return from death trope. So f******* dumb.

as was the death in the beach. We knew from the beginning that JH is going to die in the end and then they went and changed the ending. So f******* dumb.

the last episode gives the answers about his past

They changed it.

I agree. I can still acknowledge it was a quality historical drama, but boy was it frustrating. I don't like how the main characters who were so superficial and full of themselves and downright cruel to each other miraculously became near-saints in the ending.

The prime minister. His daughter was friends with Ryang Eum and therefore helped Ryang Eum's friends.

very true and accurate. I also pointed out that Gil Chae's husband was a decent man who just followed the norms that everyone followed at that point in history. Someone said that these things should be watched outgoing from the norms of today. Some even had a hate campaign in their pages with posters of Gil Chae's husband as a wanted criminal. I hate how they changed the ending and brought in the amnesia trope. From the beginning we were led to believe this would be a correct portrayal of the tragedies of the Qing invasion and its aftermath. Ryang Eum was correct all the time when he said Gil Chae was not good for Jang Hyun. And Ryang Eum was also attacked as a villain here. I'm so disappointed that they changed the ending to cater for those who were only invested in the love story and not the actual history.

Who else is learning to do daily compliments to self? Am glad I watched this!

I feared that too but I got immersed. There are always lighter and hopeful moments. It's more healing than depressing, imo.

I liked Believer 1 (8.5) but decided to drop this after 20 mins. I watched the first part 3 months ago but still had to rake my brain to remember all the characters. And why was this even made when it's mandatory to remember the first part? It was just clear this would add nothing new compared to part 1 but be like a reheated dish.

He was great in Evilive. I didn't realize I had seen him DP 2!