Park Min

The story was unbelievably dry and dull. It was a bad setup from the get go. His son was diagnosed with a tumor in the brain and got a surgery, then a few episodes later the father got diagnosed with a tumor in the brain too. I don't understand what kind of writing is this. What were they trying to achieve with that. It didn't fit the narrative doing it this way. Probably because they had nothing prepared for the climax. The characters just didn't work together but the drama kept forcing them to interact. Which resulted in its own set of problems. The drama was a big mess with different problems, sure it had its moments with the ML's son but that wasn't remotely enough.

The casting choice for the sisters couldn't be any more perfect than this. I've always thought Ha Ji Won and Kim Ha Neul looked strikingly similar, you can even add Nam Sang Mi to the mix. The drama itself was a mixed bag. They did a poor job in establishing the sisters' relationship and even a worse job in shaping Ji Eun and her motives to play the antagonist. The problem further continued with the character Jun Ho and his initial relationship with the sisters. There were clearly glaring issues with writing the characters in this drama. The story was revolving around the secret but when it came time to address the secret it was a bit too late to do anything substantial with it.

I still haven't found a real answer to why most daily dramas convert their setting into a cyclical run inside a corporation despite their initial premise. Possible theory, it's easier to write while rehashing from its predecessors and to re-use the same materials and assets while building a set. Out of all the possible ridiculous tropes to ensue insanity, the psychiatric hospital trope is the only one I will never tolerate. It's the cheapest and lowliest insult to the medium and to any viewer. Therefore, this drama gets the stamp of shame for incorporating that once and attempting to do it another time later. The final resolution for these characters ended up being disappointing, they forced it to remain relatively soft and tame. Which took away from all of the angst and revenge. Park Ha Na picked up this project after her previous one Apgujeong Midnight Sun (2014) which was pretty good even for her first main role, in comparison, this drama was a significant downgrade.

To go, I must!

Might share the "traveler from the past on a musical quest" initial idea, but otherwise it's incomparable to Kongmin.

I think it's around episode 25 after they went to a village

What about him?

I downloaded it from AvistaZ, it's a private torrent tracker that usually have open signups every now and then. That's where I get most of what I watch. Join their Discord to get alerted for invites.

IT BECAME QUITE APPARENT RIGHT OFF FROM EPISODE 2 THAT THIS WAS A MASSIVE FLOP. THE DRAMA WOULD HAVE WORKED WONDERFULLY AND MASTERFULLY AS A MOVIE OR AT LEAST AS A 3-4 EPISODES SHORT DRAMA, OTHERWISE, IT'S ABSOLUTELY RIDDLED WITH PROBLEMS IN ITS CURRENT CONDITION AND FORMAT. THE UNIQUE SETTING AND SCENERY WEREN'T ENOUGH TO HELP ITS CASE. IT INGENIOUSLY TRANSFORMED THE ART OF STORYTELLING INTO A CHAOTIC, AVANT-GARDE MISHMASH OF DISJOINTED SCENES THAT LEFT ME PONDERING THE DEEP MYSTERIES OF LIFE, SUCH AS WHETHER THE WRITERS HAD EVER HEARD OF STRUCTURED NARRATIVE OR IF THEY WERE JUST OPERATING UNDER THE BELIEF THAT PLOTLINES ARE MERE SUGGESTIONS FOR LESSER BEINGS. EACH PLOT TWIST, IF ONE COULD EVEN CALL THEM THAT, WAS A TANTALIZING LEAP INTO THE ABYSS OF NARRATIVE INCOHERENCE, LEAVING ME ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT NOT IN ANTICIPATION, BUT IN A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO MAINTAIN MY BALANCE AMIDST THE SWIRLING VORTEX OF PLOT HOLES AND CHARACTER MOTIVATIONS MORE ELUSIVE THAN A UNICORN AT A CAMOUFLAGE CONVENTION. I CAN'T THANK THE CREATORS ENOUGH FOR THEIR VALIANT EFFORTS TO REDUCE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TO A CRYPTIC CROSSWORD PUZZLE THAT NOBODY ASKED FOR, BUT WE APPARENTLY ALL DESERVED, ACCORDING TO THEM. I WISH TO SEE BETTER ATTEMPTS GOING FOR A SIMILAR SETTING AND THEME FROM MORE COMPETENT CREATORS. IT'S HARD TO RECOMMEND THIS DRAMA UNLESS YOU'RE A DIEHARD FAN OF SOME OF THE CAST MEMBERS. JUN JI HYUN DISAPPEARING FOR ~5 YEARS THEN COMING BACK WITH THIS PROJECT WAS NOTHING BUT A DISAPPOINTMENT. IT MADE IT HARDER TO BE EXCITED FOR HER NEXT PROJECT "POLARIS (2023)".

I was worried sick that you might have missed. What a relief!

The silliness and the chaotic descension of old rom-coms remains unmatched. The improbable setup of their story was stretched too thin but it worked with their abrasive behavior. I found the highschool arc to be tolerable despite having the infamous "theater" episode trope just like most school themed media. The leads were a bit old to be passed as highschoolers but at least they switched the setting shortly after. The main conflict lasted for too long and the drama tried to take more serious tone during it which wasn't fitting for the story or the characters. This also forced the ending to be really short and quick. The main soundtrack with vocals was quite good. On the other hand, there's a certain type of soundtrack that always accompany Uhm Tae Woong across different dramas and I can't figure out how or why?

The drama was much better than what its synopsis, title, poster or cast selection might entail, the same can be said about some of the initial scenes. The drama itself turned out to be decent despite taking sometime to kickoff, it took over 3 episodes. However, it was a bit dry sometimes and was missing the necessary link to tie everything together. The romance was an awful addition to the mix, really wasn't needed. On the bright side, it was only half the length of a typical 16 episodes drama. Yet, the drama could've worked better in a 120-150 mins movie format with better production. Speaking of which, the production value was really rocky and barely serviceable.

Decent premise but it didn't go anywhere beyond that.

The entire thing was comically scuffed and somehow they managed to make the 2nd season even worse.

The entire thing was comically scuffed and somehow they managed to make the 2nd season even worse.

Imagine people with different opinions do exist 💀

The drama really needed a better introduction to establish itself properly, it took me a while before it captured my interest. Others may not have the patience. By the time the drama finished, I had no idea how many princes were there. Most of them barely got any screen time, yet had some small side stories. While the prominent ones didn't develop enough. Quality over quantity would've been the right approach. I found the ending to be too subdued, soft, and tame after spending 16 very long episodes of building tension through countless slow-mo shots, mean stares, and passive-aggressive empty threats. This was another area that was lacking, the drama needed more ways to build tension. The drama had some unjustifiable, unwarranted, and under-delivered preachy moments that yanked the viewers out and ruined the atmosphere. This seems to be a common trend with modern titles. Anyway, I see that "Comedy" is one of its listed genres, although it had relatively lighter moments every now and then but these didn't adhere to the comedy genre in any shape or form. I would remove the tag as it's misleading. Speaking of misleading, the synopsis's description of the queen's character was mostly wrong and didn't translate as such into the screen.

I much prefer Chinese and Japanese movies. Similarly to Jdrama, the Chinese drama format has its own set of problems.

Episode 52

The drama failed to establish a good hook with its premise or with its first episode in general. Most of the drama was spent with an awful repetitive cycle of whining from the hardships in their workplace.The writer realized this problem and started to bring the characters' personal stories and relationships more into focus with the workplace aspect becoming less prominent as the drama went on. The workplace challenges couldn't hold their own weight to service the drama. The weak and uninteresting tension it tried to create made the matter worse. Coming from the same writer who wrote Hyena (2020), this drama wasn't good in comparison.