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Strong start but gets muddy
After 2-3 episodes, I had the thought — this could potentially go atop my list of favorite dramas. I haven't watched many of the thriller/crime genre, but the set-up was insane, the acting was amazing, and I was just really invested in both parts of the story: Miho's hospital conspiracy and Changho's prison identity. There were already amazing twists and I also loved the balance we got with Miho and Changho's flashbacks — the tone bounced seamlessly between tension and light-hearted nostalgia.I felt like about halfway, the pace of the drama started to drop off and repetitive — many of the episodes had the "you thought the bad guys got the upper hand but actually we knew all along and played them" and after using this trope so much it really felt just like plot armor.
I think the vibes of the show continued to be really thrilling, but I definitely feel like the plot itself wasn't tied up too neatly. Even with the nice parts that came full circle, it was like there was one twist after another or just always more to the mystery the drama preferred to spend time on action and confrontations that would take place without actually clarifying what was going on in the backstory.
I also think that the main female lead didn't click so well with me; I think Yoona's acting has improved a lot since K2 but I still don't feel the same amount of immersion that I did with Lee Jongsuk's acting, which was really just top notch, as expected. But I don't blame the actress completely for this either — I honestly think that the FL's character was written very thinly. Yes, she is quote-endquote the typical "strong female character," but it really feels like that was all she was. Her entire character was standing by her husband and not giving up on solving the mystery, but there was never any personal character development outside of that.
Now, that doesn't necessarily bother me if I think about this drama this way: the only main character in this drama is Changho and the plot is the way he is harshly thrown into a situation where the disparity between the privileged and the unprivileged is extreme. If you watch this drama expecting to find a really twisted conspiracy theory — which is how the first few episodes present it — I think the story will end up feeling a little meh, with underwhelming reveals and confusing plot holes.
Overall, the ending is rushed but I'm pretty satisfied with it.
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Harrowing and heartwrenching
This was a really really heavy watch, but in the best way; I really felt emotionally invested in the main characters — both the adults who were doing the right thing against all odds, and for the children who we were watching learn to trust people again and actually act (and laugh) like kids should — and in the outcome of the legal process. In the end, it was a really bittersweet and realistic sort of ending, but it was the best I hoped for and I thought it was perfect.The acting was so good for all the characters, but especially the three kids. I could feel their fear, their pain, and their hope in every single one of their scenes.
There were some parts of the story — more side aspects of complacency — that I wanted to see more of because of the moral greyness, but I understand why it wasn't the focus of the movie and I think the movie did just fine without it.
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Could not connect with it
There were some good parts that I (objectively) could tell were good moments of build-up or touching moments, but for some reason I was never able to fully connect with (and distinguish between, tbh) all of the characters.For that reason it also just felt like the movie was a little longer than it had to be — a lot of it was about people I didn't really care much for.
I think perhaps I've just seen too many war movies and this one didn't do anything different, so nothing about it stood out to me (other than the fact that there was no plot armor for the main characters, one thing I appreciated).
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Boring and not thrilling
This movie was marketed as a thriller but upon watching it, I did not feel thrilled at all.The story was just really meh — nothing really stood out to me, and it was kind of predictable. The characters didn't have much depth outside of their stories and the pacing of the movie just felt really slow and boring. I didn't feel the stakes in anything, mostly because a lot of the decision-making was questionable; it just felt as if the characters were going through the motions in order to make the plot play out tragically the way it was supposed to.
I'll still watch the next few movies but hopefully they make me feel more emotions; I didn't feel any while watching this one.
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Heartwarming
If you're looking for a slice-of-life family drama, this is the best it gets. I must have cried every other episode, and it's rare to see a drama where every character gets a fleshed-out backstory that tugs at the heartstrings. There's a lot of struggle and tragedy but a lot of love as well — and it really felt like no minutes in this drama were wasted and no character felt left behind. This drama just gave me so many feelings, especially when it came to the two fathers.The romance was done really well too; it was hinted at early on and developed naturally — there was no annoying breakup and misunderstanding. This drama describes why I love friends-to-lovers, because they just know each other well enough.
The OST is perfect and powerful; listening to the songs afterwards isn't just like watching the show all over again, it was like seeing myself grow up in the last 20 years and feeling the nostagia of it all.
There's some comments about the ending feeling rushed and to a certain extent I feel that as well, but ultimately I think it was more of a feeling of not wanting it to be over. I'd seriously highly recommend this one.
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Thoughtful
It's been a long time since such a drama hit close to home and made me question everything I thought about career, marriage, and life in general. There was so much to love here and it's rare to see two characters that are just so respectful of each other's space and opinions.If anything, however, I wish the back end of the drama had the same oomph factor. It felt like the story gave up some of those life lessons that hit me so hard in exchange for the romantic plotlines, and as a twenty-one-year-old, questioning the institution of marriage just wasn't something I could relate as much to.
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Cute at some points
There's so much potential between the two leads — they started off really cute together. But the plot gradually lost steam and I just felt like this drama didn't have a strong plot going for it and I didn't feel like I was waiting to see anything happen.There are also some strong bouts of noble idiocy (expected in a 2011 drama) and very cliche characters with the warm female lead and terrible second lead. But I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't make the male lead a rude jerk so at least that was enjoyable!
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I was nervous to start the second half, fearful of it going downhill the way SITR did. But that never happened. I felt like the entire drama was paced well, and I loved the mellow atmosphere. There are some moments I felt were a bit repetitive — after all, how many times does a girl have to say "let's break up"? — but ultimately the slice-of-life feeling was calming.
The best of this drama for me was undoubtedly the sismance. It’s honestly rarer than it should be to see sismance in kdrama, and this one did it beautifully, with the way Jeong-in, Seo-in, and Jae-in all supported each other through everything. The mother was also great in this one, as was Ji-ho’s parents.
Because there was a support system around both of our characters, the drama wasn’t nearly as frustrating to watch, even if we knew there were social stigmas and other disapproving family members and annoying exes that would stand in the way of our main couple.
As a huge fan of friends-to-lovers, I bought into SITR utterly and completely because of how natural they were around each other right off the bat. And because of that reason, it took me a while to love Ji-ho and Jeong-in, who were just so awkward for the first half. As the show went on, they definitely started feeling more natural and I grew to love them. I still feel like the chemistry in SITR’s first half was more heart-fluttering, but OSN did an amazing job of portraying head vs. heart and highlighting the insecurities in a relationship that still exist even if you’re a 100% sure you want to be with someone. Jung Hae-in is amazing at acting "taken aback + in love" and it's adorable every single time.
Jeong-in's character development was subtle, but it was there, and I love the type of female lead that's strong, not in the "can do taekwondo" sense, but in the ability to sure in her convictions and decisions.
Despite that, I think my favorite part of this entire drama was the sub-plot with Seo-in trying to divorce her domestic abuser. It gave me all my crying moments, and doubled down on the sismance moments which gave me all the feels.
I do wish Jae-in got a stronger sub-plot too — personality-wise, she was my favorite out of the three. and it felt like she came back to Korea, said she would find something to do, and just never really did, even though as a sister character she did everything the show called for.
I know a lot of people complained about repetitive OST in SITR and OSN, but I honestly did not have any issue with the songs, which I loved. They added to the mellow mood of the entire drama.
Also: Eun-woo is the most adorable bean ever.
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Ultimately, though, I felt like the plot could have been more. The drama did a good job being subtle with all of the character's backstories, except for GDM's. I don't have an issue with that; in fact, I liked that we got flashbacks that gradually showed us what things were going on. But I felt very unsatisfied with the way they had everything play out. The conversations to explain things all seemed very vague and abstract, and she never said everything I wanted her to.
I felt like the side characters could be fleshed out more as well. The other flower boys also didn't get as much backstory as I wanted — think Shut Up Flower Boy Band, another drama in the Flower series that actually handled the family issues and friendship subplots really well for other characters.
The end of this drama also dipped a little. I felt like it started out very strongly, with a focus on GDM and her seclusion and about how characters grew individually, together. And then they started hitting us with noble idiocy and hurting each other and all the "romance" tropes and external factors to keep our main ship apart...and I just sort of stopped loving it.
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I did feel like the pacing was a little rushed at the end (to be expected for a webdrama) and I definitely liked the second half better than the first. Some of the characters were very hard to get to — as cute as Eun-Sol was sometimes, her perpetual aegyo and general preppiness was something I could not get behind, and her boy-craziness was something I knew I would DESPISE on someone I knew in real life. With that being said, though, she started growing on me when her story got a little darker, and I just wish this was explored more.
I loved Juwon and Yoonsoo as character types, but their background stories were a bit lacking.
Ultimately though, this drama was really not memorable. I can feel like it's kind of drama I'd forget a few weeks later.
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This review may contain spoilers
This had been a drama that I had put off watching for a LONGGG time because I had heard things about how it ended and how it made people cry buckets, and I just didn't think I'd be able to deal with that. Well, lo and behold, Weekly Binge on Reddit decided to do it and I thought that there was no better time for me to get through Uncontrollably Fond.The drama started off super promising—even though I'm not a huge fan of overdramatic backstories and melodramas in general, I really liked how they portrayed the history between Eul and JY and why they separated. The fact that it was truly tragic was much better than the "noble idiocy" plot that so many dramas go for when making characters separate in their youth. This drama is also undoubtedly the one with the most "secrets" between characters I've seen so far, and it really felt like every character was connected to each other in some way.
The plot for Uncontrollably Fond was honestly kind of slow. It seemed to meander a lot, with the main characters' love story being wishy-washy while the actual plot was at a standstill where all the antagonists knew all the secrets and the main characters knew nothing. It definitely sped up after the 15th episode, and I think episodes 16-18-ish were probably my favorites because the plot finally developed.
After those episodes, though, episodes 19 and 20 seemed to slow down a little more and I can't help but feel like something about the way everything was resolved seemed very anticlimactic to me. I liked that there was sort of justice, but after the plot was so messily built up, I never felt like it hit a climax. Even though it was anticlimactic and just inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the drama, I can appreciate how realistic things played out, without any deus ex machina or last ditch plot twist.
Overall, still a quite nice watch, but it wasn't nearly as heart-breaking as I expected it to be.
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Cliche, but not frustrating
Even though this drama definitely had some cliches, it wasn't frustrating to watch, and some scenes were downright hilarious.With that being said, I don't know if it's just me, but I've had a hard time getting into any of Jung Il Woo's roles—I've only seen him in this and Cinderella and the Four Knights, but in both dramas I found his tsundere character wishy-washy and annoying. This one was a little better because we got to see the story from his perspective as he flailed around trying to deal with his emotions, but from the girl's perspective, I found it downright annoying.
I'm surprised that so many people said they stayed for his acting, because I actually stayed for the main female lead, who stood up for herself and was strong without having to physically be. I loved that scene where none of the "gentlemanly" things the male lead did worked on her, and despite everyone saying that she was from the 18th century, her personality was strong and progressive. For this reason, I wish that the music video she filmed was more interesting than her literally just sitting in a chair and then walking around it once, but it was focused on Monsta X, so I guess that's understandable...
The HUGE amount of slow-motion falls, gazes, and wrist grabs was kind of annoying. I felt like they gave us so many—too many—even before I felt any chemistry between the main characters, and since the episodes were so short already, it was unnecessary to include one or two EVERY episode.
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This review may contain spoilers
I loved A-Teen Season 1 to death, and was super excited for Season 2. Even though I turned out to quite enjoy it, I don't think I loved it as much as the first season, for multiple reasons.Firstly, there was barely any Do Ha-Na! Even though romance-wise I didn't care about her plot that much, I loved her as an individual character, and without her, I felt like the series also focused a lot less on friendship and sismance.
Secondly, I felt like there were so many questions still left unanswered from Season 1! That girl that Shi-Woo used to know, for example.
Thirdly, I was honestly annoyed by Bo Ram's mindset and lack of support for Ki-Hyun at times—I don't think any of that was sufficiently addressed.
Fourthly, I liked Joo-Ha as a character, but I don't know if it's just because he's new and I haven't warmed up to him completely yet (especially since we don't know much about him at all, other than his parents being MIA), but I just didn't care much for the relationship between him and Kim Ha-Na.
Overall, though, I enjoyed the parallels to the first season, and that we got progress for some plots, like
I'll also admit that I absolutely HATED Ah-Hyun at first, but now she's become my favorite in the cast, and I'm praying for a Season 3 so we get more of her and Min.
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For the life of me, I can't figure out why everyone loves the male lead. He was boring and his first impression was that he was doing some creepy Edward Cullen stuff. Honestly I'm just tired of the "strong and silent" male trope, in general. It got really frustrating to have to watch him say stupid and hurtful things to TJZ over and over again, and she STILL chased after him. I liked the second male character, the police officer, a lot better.
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It's honestly so refreshing to have not one, but TWO nice male leads, even though I'm pre-hurting because I know I'll be sad for the other guy no matter who Song Yi ends up with. I loved how mature the three main characters were, honestly—even though there were some scenes where I wished the characters would just be more honest, their actions were understandable and I loved how there weren't really those huge and unnecessary miscommunications.
Ga Rin and Choi Hoon were fun characters as well, but I didn't feel too invested in their plots or as a ship. They were more there for comedy, and even so I found Ga Rin a little annoying at times.
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