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Has everything except for the plot
I really loved the first few episodes — there wasn’t much of a plot but the “city girl escapes to the countryside” premise promises comfort and I definitely felt that. There was the overarching plot of Samdal’s career, the yearning of an exes-to-lovers romance, and the three sisters providing the family aspect — all of which I loved.And then as the show went on it started to drag, and I found that there weren’t that much of the countryside vibes, and they introduced plots that were detrimental instead.
First there’s the love triangle, which is the most unnecessary part of the show, and I’m saying this as a love triangle trope defender. The love triangle where the second lead has zero shot, who the FL never once considers a potential love interest, and who has no plot other than the romance and standing in the shadows looking at the main couple steadily progress…we have to leave that behind because all it does is waste screentime.
And then there was the reason behind the main couple’s initial breakup: parental disapproval. It’s a common trope in kdramaland too, and one that I also think is really outdated and frustrating, especially for a drama like this where there’s really nothing else going on.
A third thing that got too much screentime was the gossipy old ladies, who were frustrating even if they weren’t completely horrible by the end.
In terms of the subplots, I think they started out strong but also fizzled out a little. The eldest sister’s romance with her ex-husband was really funny but I wish it was more serious at times rather than making it all so slapstick. The youngest sister’s romance and relationship with her daughter was the best part of the show, especially in connecting the theme of motherhood throughout the show. It’s a fantastic theme that I wish had a better throughline rather than coming in and out, because the mother-daughter scenes always hit really hard.
I also actually really like the focus on Samdal’s career and her adversary, and I wish it didn’t come so late in the show. I also wish they didn’t lean so much into one character being downright evil, and it doesn’t quite give you the satisfaction of karma getting her in the end due to lack of screentime. The plot line of Samdal rediscovering her love for her hometown and photography was really heartwarming still.
Another thing I wish got more screentime was the friend group. We had some at the start of the show when Samdal returned and some at the end when they were helping her, but overall the show leaned into the love triangle and other scenes instead and I felt like we never really got to feel how close they were the way we grow to love the friend groups in dramas like the Reply series.
Overall, it ends on a satisfying note and wraps things up in a neat little bow, but I feel like I didn’t quite get as many comforting vibes I wanted.
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I have no words to describe how problematic this was, from the relationship itself, to the way gender and racial stereotypes were portrayed.
Let me start with the quickest: there was a scene where the characters are in the UK, having fun with a lot of white people. Suddenly, they run into some gangsters, who just happen to be the only black people in the show so far. The racism couldn't be more obvious.
Second of all, the way that traditional roles are reinforced in this are subtle, but alarming. There's so much talk about how a woman is still worth marrying if she's infertile, and to me this topic was never addressed sufficiently. There's also a lot of romanticizing of "woman sacrifices career to be a wife." I'm overall really unhappy about the way women are portrayed in this drama—they're either gold-diggers, gossipers, dependent and overthinking, obsessed with a boy, or obsessed with fulfilling the perfect child-bearing wife role. There was honestly not one strong woman role I was happy with.
I hated the main male character. Aside from my superficially saying that he visually does nothing for me, I just thought his personality was one of the most boring and bland I've ever watched. Firstly, he has some creepy and stalkerish tendencies, and I'm sure a lot of things he did as a boss to his employee could be seen as an abuse of power. As the show went on, he honestly got worse (as a boyfriend)—he never seemed to try and see things from Shan Shan's perspective, and he became increasingly controlling. He kept trying to use his money to get her things without her knowing—as if he didn't trust her to make her own life decisions. He kept so many secrets and justified them saying it was for her own good. And worst of all, he completely disregarded her career and kept saying things like "that's my decision" and "it's not up for discussion" when it was supposed to be HER DECISION in the first place,
Add to that the fact that C-Dramas do this weird thing where they make the main characters initiate skinship and pair it with slow-mo and romantic music BEFORE I even had any reason to ship them, and all I got was a boss doing weird physical things to his employee when the extent of their relationship was him watching her eat through his office window.
I honestly wasn't a huge fan of Shan Shan either. This has something to do with the way the drama was filmed, but half of the entire show is her whining in internal monologues. So much of this show is advanced by Shan Shan "accidentally overhearing something," then overthinking it in a lengthy internal monologue while she pouts externally. As cute as she is at some points, I got SO tired of hearing her voice. MOST of the sub-plots are brought about because she needs validation from Feng Teng about their relationship, or that she needs to do something to "be good enough for him." And nobody ever tried to convince her otherwise, or argue that she was good enough. As the show went on, she also started standing up for herself less and less, and I almost ripped my hair out hoping that she'd say something about making her own life decisions, but she never did.
Overall, this was a tiring and dragging plot, filled with lots and lots of problems. The only character I never got TOO annoyed with might be Zheng Qi, who seems thirty times more fun to be around than the boring male lead.
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RELEASE THE SOLJIWAN CUT
The first half of this drama was actually really promising — I liked the idea of an unconventional relationship, of a drama that actually discusses toxicity, a lesbian slow burn, etc. Not to mention how beautiful the cinematography was. The second half of this drama, however, seems rushed and full of typical cliches, but without any of the build-up. There was a typical love triangle with a really annoying and irrelevant second lead, and there was a side couple that was even more irrelevant.Still though, there were some side couples that were great and I wish the drama dedicated more time to them.
But I just gotta say that Soljiwan carried this show. HARD. They were the perfect longtime friends-to-lovers and the yearning and just healthiness of the relationship was so beautiful. I wish so much that the drama had been braver with showing their scenes and had just dedicated more time to them because they were the best part of the drama hands down, and all the stars of my rating is for them.
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Low stakes and oversaturation of characters
Before going into this, it was already pretty clear that Strong Woman DBS, which had one of the most iconic kdrama couples ever, was a difficult act to follow. I'm going to try and get all the comparisons out of the way first. While I wasn't a HUGE fan of the humor in SWDBS, it knew well enough to take serious moments seriously, and everything else was strong enough to make up for it; I loved the leads and the murder plot was thrilling and high-stakes. This drama has the same issue with its humor, but its other aspects are either weak or worse.The humor just isn't my style at all. There's a lot of physical humor and over-acting; it might be fine if it was only used in select moments, but I felt like it permeated every second of drama, even big fight scenes and what should've been tense moments with antagonists. Overall it made the entire tone of the drama seem kind of off — as if nothing actually mattered because it was all for laughs.
The drug plot felt low-stakes not just because of the tone, but also just because of the way it was written. I don't think anyone going into this drama should expect any profound commentary on drugs or class issues in South Korea. The drama seems to try every once in a while with an offhanded comment, but it really doesn't go much deeper and it's even self-contradictory sometimes. There's parts where they touch upon it, but they also make its lead a "good billionaire" because she's kind with her money and because she pulled herself up by her bootstraps. It felt contradictory to any commentary, just so viewers could get some #girlboss moments.
In terms of characters — I'm not a fan of ensembles to begin with and this drama is a good example of why. It felt like there were so many characters and so many subplots that none of them got enough screentime to be complete, and less important subplots took over more engaging ones. The drama spent SO MUCH screentime on the grandmother's romance, which felt slapstick and unserious, while Namsoon and Heeshik's screentime began to dwindle. And as the drama went on it felt like more and more antagonists were getting introduced as random side characters, and because they served no purpose other than to trigger plot points and had no backstory or personality, they began to blur into each other.
The only antagonist that really had a good story was the villain Ryu Shi-O, but my bigger issue with him plays into my low-stakes criticism. He was just...a bad villain. He has physical abilities, sure, but his plans, goals, and motivations weren't that clear, and most of all I just can't believe that he couldn't piece together anything our protagonists were planning when they were being so obvious about it. I mean...Namsoon's acting...
With so many things going on, romantic lines didn't have enough screentime for good development. I'd already mentioned not caring about the grandmother's romance, and while Namsoon/Heeshik were the best in the show, it felt like they didn't really go deeper than both of them being cute.
Honestly, I think there's an audience for this somewhere out there — maybe someone who likes quirkiness and shenanigans — but it's not me. I'm giving this a 2 (and not a 1) just because it didn't utterly infuriate me as much as me just not really caring.
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Does the journey matter or does the ending?
Okay, if you're one of those people that think "how it ends doesn't matter, it's the journey that counts" then you'll probably rate this really highly and love it from start to finish. If you're the type of person who needs things to be wrapped up cleanly with closure — me — then the show will leave you with a lot of mixed feelings.To start with, the vibe of the show is pretty much perfect. I really loved Heedo's character and how the themes were incorporated into the show — dreams, efforts, happiness, friendships, different types of love, supporting each other from afar...it was all just really beautiful. I still love all the friendships in this, and for the most part the time jumps were done really well with us seeing how the characters grew into adulthood and went about their lives after growing and learning from each other.
It's the last few episodes (15 & 16) that really take a different turn. There were really multiple ways to write a "realistic" story and the writers picked the one that, to me, felt as though it went against a lot of the inspiring hope that we had gotten in the rest of the show. There were crazy time jumps in the last episode and the past and present timelines never felt like they converged with closure. The last episode was just kind of miserable, except for a few side characters that really saved it.
Speaking of which, I felt like present timeline was just really unnecessary from start to finish. The characters never felt like themselves (even if they were the same actors) and it really felt like it was included either to (1) show how time passed and Heedo's daughter Minchae was dealing with the same thing (to which I would say nobody really cared about her story and everyone only cared about the 90s timeline) or (2) to purposefully throw off the audience. Either way, it felt disjointed and unnecessary. It didn't provide closure either — the questions we started with still persisted, and we never saw the other main characters again.
Overall, this was still such a comfort show for me for so many weeks. There are some iffy parts that I wish it touched more on but overall I thought all the character arcs were thought out thoroughly. It just kind of sucks that the writers picked the route they did.
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Healthy but underwhelming
First off, I just wanted to say that I did like the progression of the romance in the middle of the drama, and overall the relationship between the leads was really healthy and fun to watch. They were both busy with work but understood, trusted, and respected each other.With that being said, I did feel the same criticism I felt for Love O2O, which is that the main characters sometimes just felt too perfect and too loved by everyone. Problems resolved themselves, and overall it just made the plot a little boring sometimes.
I also wish we saw more side characters — It felt like many of them just appeared and disappeared a few episodes later, without explanation. They didn't really have roles or personality aside from their associations with the main leads or just people working in the same industry. I wasn't that interested in their careers that much, though JJ's was a little more interesting to follow than YT.
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Big romantic gestures do not make a romance
It's a shame the plot turned out the way it is because I usually will eat up a college-setting romance, especially a reverse harem. And the first two episodes were extremely promising too, with some really amusing over-the-top scenes that seemed to be making fun of old tropes, and with a female lead that was a little cliche — bright and bubbly — but still ended up sticking up for herself. And I love the bright pastel visuals.As the drama went on, it felt like the show stopped doing tropes the fun way and just started doing them for real. I felt like I was watching something that should've come out in 2010. The manipulative ex-girlfriend plot device is especially tired, especially when paired with a male lead that just...doesn't communicate. And the way they handled the study abroad plot was so immature and frustrating.
Which is kind of a big issue throughout the drama that really made me stop caring about the leads. The show uses scenes of big romantic gestures to push the leads together, but the two of them pretty much fall flat in everything else. Maybe I'm old now but constant slow motion scenes of the leads saving each other from random situations, or running to each other to say "I love you" doesn't really mean anything to me if they're not going to actually talk to each other in between those scenes.
The side characters feel pretty underutilized. But props to Hong Min-ki for showing up to serve face for a few episodes.
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This review may contain spoilers
A quiet drama about how life goes on
Let me start by saying that I think the amnesia trope is one of the worst tropes out there — it's convenient, it's tired, and it's a lazy way of forcing characters to go through character development all over again. But there are some dramas where amnesia IS the plot, to which I have no choice but to just wait and see if it's done well.In this case, it's...okay? The event itself and the fallout immediately after it is almost laughably early 2000s drama cliche, but the entire drama somehow does a good job of staying grounded in its melodramatic vibe and I think that's the part that makes all the difference.
At its core, this drama is very nonconfrontational, which I kind of have mixed feelings about. On one hand, it feels like there are scenes missing, especially discussions between characters that I wanted to see but didn't.
On the other hand, it feels like that's part of what gave this drama its mellow, realistic vibe. There are some things in life that you don't say, some unsent letters that will never be read, some decisions you can never undo. But life goes on.
Overall, this was a comforting watch and I admit I'm partial to the younger timeline (as I expected) simply because of how innocent, fun, and full of life the characters were. There are some side characters that got more screen time than I would've liked, but the leads did the job and stole my heart, all to the the tune of a fantastic OST.
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Binge it if you can
I’ve never read the webtoon so this is based off this show as a standalone drama and not as an adaptation. I started watching this 4 episodes were out because I saw that hair-tying scene on my Twitter/X timeline and it completely convinced me. And the show proved me right — I binged all the released and couldn’t wait for next week. The main leads had amazing chemistry, the antagonists felt like actual threats, and I couldn’t wait to see how the revenge would play out.As the weeks came around, I still enjoyed the episodes, but I did feel like the show started losing steam.
First, the main leads’ screentime dwindled and we got more and more scenes of our antagonists (of which there were many). It added good tension to see things from their perspective, but it also added frustration. The leads had so much chemistry and tension and we only got to see a few minutes of that every week.
And as more episodes went on, we ran into a different issue: we did get screentime for our leads, but it didn’t necessarily feel like they were progressing. We’d get the same hugs and conversations where they talked about being there for each other and fighting together against the bad guys. These scenes were cute but it felt got sort of repetitive, especially now that we’d gotten all the tension-filled conversations out of the way earlier and it seemed like the next plot development wasn’t happening anytime soon. I still really enjoyed scenes where they cared for each other, but all the stakes felt a little lower by this point, and I started to feel like the revenge was almost too easy. Sides had been chosen, secrets were already revealed, and most importantly, the main antagonists had stayed quiet or had lost too many battles in a row.
Honestly, I was pretty lukewarm on the entire plot by then. Looking back, I don’t remember a singular satisfying moment where our main female lead got to face off against her mother in a moment where I felt like they were on equal footing, where the stakes were high and I truly didn’t know who was going to win. The revenge plot seemed to delve into smaller moments where they would address this one thing first and then that other thing, and I wasn’t sure there was a climax. Even the build-up to some other reveals and to the ML’s perspective felt overdue and a little underwhelming.
Episode 11 was a turning point. Things that needed to be revealed had been revealed, it felt like the revenge had been finished, and the antagonists had been out of the picture — most of which was off-screen, I might add, which made the story feel somewhat incomplete — long enough for The Time Jump to happen. Yes, the dreaded time jump. I’ve never been a fan of the time jump. It’s fine as an epilogue but I’ve never once enjoyed it done in the middle of the story and this was no different. It just felt kind of…weird. Like they didn’t know what to do after all the villains were put away, so they had to bring them back, but had to wait some time for them to be able to. Story-wise, it was a bit confusing to have it happen after everything was seemingly over, but ultimately I don’t think it was blown out of proportion, which was good.
I think part of the plot simmering down also had to do with the female lead, who was really proactive in the first half and then started being more aimless in the second half. Still, I liked the message the drama left us with — that the best revenge for her was having a happy marriage, a healthy family, and a good life. Despite the slowdown, I think this drama had a really good finale episode.
Overall, it was still a pretty good watch — this was my second favorite watch behind Castaway Diva during its runtime, but if I were to recommend it to someone I would suggest binging it rather than watching it slowly. You might be able to retain more momentum that way.
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Cute at first...but falls off
I had pretty much completely bought into this drama in the first two episodes — the main female lead was timid but not a pushover, bright but not stupid, and the main male lead was stoic but not rude, smart but not condescending. It was really quite a cliche dynamic but it was still enjoyable to watch especially because there were moments where they were equally hilarious and chaotic despite seemingly having such opposite personalities.As the drama went on it it did start to drag a little with the very typical "does he like me or not" and the "I'm going to step aside for my 'friend'" — but that wasn't my main gripe with it. In fact, I like a good slow burn and I never thought these misunderstandings got too extreme and frustrating.
One thing that did get increasingly annoying, however, was how the main male lead's "social awkwardness" manifested when he got jealous; the number of times he consciously CHOSE to sabotage the female lead's work...it got very frustrating and was neither cute nor amusing especially when it was played off as an inability to express himself.
I also found both of the side ships either boring or over-the-top annoying; one of them didn't have any stupid miscommunications but the side characters also didn't have any sort of backstory or personality. The other one had a female character who was very clingy, a male character who was essentially the same as the male lead, and just no sensible development between the two of them.
Overall it was kind of a light-hearted watch and there were elements of a healthy relationship and great communication, but it was also a drama that just felt very trope-y and average.
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Messy
In theory this had a lot going for it — but execution was super messy. It felt like characters were introduced haphazardly and it was hard to link all the subplots and backstories together. A lot of things just made no sense and I hated that the rules of the Abyss kept changing. It just felt too convenient and really made for a lot of plotholes. The same really goes for the ending, which is my biggest issue because a lot of the resolution just makes no sense.A plus is that the main leads are really cute together, even though there's some parts of their relationship that is just really confusing.
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Run-of-the-mill
I was hoping the show would have a quieter and slower touch, and that it would talk about movies more and have some references for film-lovers like me. It ended up being a little bit more high-level, a more general romance drama where the main characters just happen to like melos and movies. We don’t actually see much of the movie or the music our characters are working on. I think this would’ve been the perfect opportunity to reference a different song or movie in each episode.And so, while I think this drama is enjoyable as a romance, it did end up feeling very run-of-the-mill. Two romances, both second-chance trope, with the characters vaguely in the same industry to facilitate their run-ins.
The romance of the leads was interesting at first but ended up feeling a little flat once the original issue of him leaving her was “resolved.” I don’t think I felt their relationship take the next step after that.
Unlike most people in here, I actually really liked the second couple. They gave the angst that I wanted, though I think it could’ve been paced a little better and I’m not sure it gives me complete closure.
I think another thing that was missing was the feeling of friendship. We have a tiny bit of it, but I was hoping we’d get more of the four leads together, but everyone always felt very fragmented, especially the main female lead. Especially since one of her backstories was that she didn’t have friends because she was hard to get along with, I think the show could’ve focused more on giving her friendships despite how prickly she is. The tidbits we got between her and the second female lead were very fun.
I am also not sure if it's just me, but I felt like this show had an abnormal amount of narration, and once I noticed I couldn’t un-notice it. Oh well, it’s small potatoes.
Overall, this was just fine. It’s a sweet watch but I don’t think I’ll remember much.
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Potential lost in a jumbled mess
When I was a pre-teen, I LOVED writing fanfiction. And I especially loved the enemies-to-lovers trope because the angst that it delivered was impeccable. I wanted the arguing and the tears. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to actually get there. And so what resulted was a string of incoherent moments, the most random and petty arguments just to get to the angst that I wanted, and my ships jumped from “I hate you” to “I love you” but skipped the most important part in between.That was what watching this drama felt like.
I really think this drama would’ve worked much better as a character-driven drama instead of a plot-driven one. You have all the great archetypes in this cast, but instead of diving deeper into their motivations (Phukao’s loneliness, Plu’s desperation to help his grandmother, Kongkwan being associated with a murderer, Zo’s habit of hiding everything behind a smile) and showing growth, it was like the drama kept throwing conflicts (kidnapping, affair secrets, family death, a big scary mob boss, etc.) at the characters just to watch them react to it and be upset.
Speaking of which, a sidenote: nothing about the mob boss was scary. Random punches and gun-wielding minions are not enough to convince me of someone’s power and it felt more “cartoonish.”
Anyways, as the plot gradually unraveled it became clear that character motivations weren’t thought out and there was no hierarchy of conflict; the romance, which had been what I was looking forwards to most, had no logical progression beyond their childhood connection. And the murder and Lak’s “sacrifice,” which was supposed to be the big hurdle, faded into irrelevance both because its reasoning was nonsense and because everything else was treated equally dramatically.
With the situations so overblown, it felt like the acting didn’t live up to it and this is where I blame both the writing and skill/chemistry. Most of the acting (even the side characters) just felt like they were going through the motions, which is really unfortunate because this was a drama that really tried to sell every character’s pain.
Part of that is, once again, the lack of character motivations. But the other part is simple chemistry. Lak/Mai and Zo/Nink were one of the few duos with good chemistry — it was lacking with all of the parents and there was NONE between Phukao and Kongkwan.
Which brings me to my biggest character problem: Kongkwan. Her character was quite simply, pathetic. When she wasn’t crying she was looking depressed. She had no personality beyond that and honestly, Tu’s acting didn’t help — I can see her doing all the right facial expressions but I just never FELT it. Without any sort of character trait other than “I'm sad my life sucks so I need this doll” there was nothing to connect with.
My favorite character is honestly Lookzo, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s probably the only character without some sort of tragic backstory, which even most of the side characters were saddled with. Despite that, Zo had best writing out of the four mains; her happy-go-lucky, spunky personality contradicting the secret difficulty of how hard it was to be happy was very relatable and emotional, and I think View killed it with her acting. Her relationship with her father was lovely to watch. June was fantastic as well, and the chemistry between Zo and Nink was also good.
I also want to give a shoutout to the child actors for the main leads, especially Little Phukao, who got some of the most heart-wrenching scenes and actually made me feel every bit of it.
Overall, the OST is good and I still think the premise has a LOT of potential, but in the end it just felt messy. The love triangle was unnecessary and they should’ve just focused on the characters healing and digging up the past instead of focusing on new spectacles. It’s unfortunate because there are really great lines of dialogue and questions about family and forgiveness, but that’s all they are — separate moments that are few and far in between.
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A beautiful multi-generational story
Oh I sobbed so hard, especially in the last two volumes. The themes — both of the bravery of parenthood and of finding a romantic partner who supports you and your loved ones without thinking twice — are so realistic and moving, and I love the focus on womanhood.I think the drama did take a little while to pick up for me. While the first few episodes have some similar themes, it didn’t hit me as much as the “second gen” story in the later volumes. The romance between Ae-sun and Gwan-sik is cute, and the relationship between Ae-sun and her mother is touching, but it felt like were in “prologue mode,” whereas the parallels really start to shine after the halfway point.
The entire drama, ultimately, is really powered by the long timeline of the drama, and by the end of the drama I felt like I’d really lived a lifetime with these characters, and I didn’t want it to end.
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