Park Min

As per usual, such dramas start with abroad locations and a big budget just to serve us with whatever later on. While the drama had action later on but it wasn't on the same level of its earlier episodes. The plot itself couldn't compensate for that. There was a certain level of carelessness and ridiculousness in a non-comical setting from the director that's impossible to explain other than being intentional to maintain the dumb action vibes like a B grade action flick. It got progressively challenging to tolerate regardless of its "supposed" entertainment value. After what they had done in this 16-episodes runtime, they had the audacity to keep all threads as open as possible for a direct sequel, which will never happen! Was it some kind of a practical joke? Other than some of the action scenes and a handful of selected moments, I can't see much value in this drama.

I was reluctant getting into this drama when I read "the CEO of a top gaming company" in the synopsis. It's like an instant turn off, this kind of setting can always guarantee an unpleasant experience which was somewhat true in this drama too. This aspect of it and anything related to that was its worst part for sure. They went for the superstitions concept for this drama but it ended up being underutilized, as expected. I found the resolution for almost every conflict and point of tension to be quite disappointing. Gary's father, Su Ho's father, the main leads issues, the FL's sister and her superstitions were all given a half-hearted resolution.

The thing that bothers me the most with any plot involving twins is how they usually sideline one of the twins for most of the drama, only to bring them back around its last stretch. It's always a big missed opportunity to explore an interesting and enjoyable twin dynamic. Unfortunately, this drama wasn't an exception; it had one of the twins benched after only a few episodes. The twins dynamic didn't play out well, and their resolution was half-hearted. While Ryu Soo Young was fine on his own, his chemistry with Lee Da Hae was definitely off, with either twins if that even matter. On the other hand, the female lead's daughter brought a lot of enjoyable moments. I wish she had more involvement to keep the drama lively.

This was an unpleasant watch. The relentless barrage of abuse and animosity made it very hard to see them being together later on, regardless of their chemistry. The same thing applied with that loathsome sister. They went overboard and made it challenging for any of them to redeem themselves, the drama needed to put a lot more effort to rectify the damage done which it didn't. Despite having a very relaxed and lazy 16-episodes, somehow they managed to screw up the last episode by shoving every last minute thing into it. It didn't give enough space at the end to wrap up and gave an extremely comical and superficial ending to everything.

I liked the stories involving the female lead, her mother and her aunt, they kept you anticipating for more. However, the other side plots were really not that interesting to follow and ended up being just a white noise. From reading the synopsis and watching its earlier parts, we got to know what the female was going through and why she moved away from the city. Clearly, she had issues she needed to work on, however, despite her issues with trusting people and being hurt by others, her romance went against her character. She had a very easy and quick romance with minimum communication for a drama that meant to be driven by dialogue. She started a relationship in a short period of time before scratching the surface of her issues. It would've been much better to replace the romance with the people of her town, it would have had created a much better environment to work on her issues. In fact, the resolution and progress on her issues ended up being half-hearted, not much was accomplished by the end. On another note, I didn't like that the characters past stories were based in high-school, there was a gap that couldn't be translated to their adulthood life. If they were to switch the past events and have it be based in university for example, I think that would create a better connection, relatability and meaning to their adulthood issues.

The drama had an interesting and enjoyable premise. The first episode on the train, despite being an obvious green-screened and cgi mix, served as a good gripping introduction to the drama. However, the drama went overboard in forcing us to suspend our disbelief without needing to do so at all, subsequently, the writing got much weaker and lazier as the drama went on. Apparently all the involved parties were super hackers running an advanced intelligence agency that is able to pull anything and everything. At the beginning of the drama, we had actual real paparazzi work with risky and challenging shots, which I really liked, but later on the drama became a mix of a power play and high-tech game, ditching what made it good in the first place. At this point, I've became too used to watching shows ditching their original premise for something cheap and lazy. Anyway, this was another drama where the romance was really out of place and did more harm than good to the story. It just couldn't work in this setting. No matter how they might spin it, it wouldn't have been a successful romance.

Sub. Downloaded it from AvistaZ

With what OCN have done with the drama, I found it hard to justify adding the 18+ rating. There was a slight skinship and one quick 30 second vague intimate scene in the first 2 episodes and that was it. The usual bait and switch tactic. Admittedly, it was one of the better attempts from OCN when it comes to creating a mystery drama. However, it quickly went downhill. It felt like the writers were stuffing up the mystery to make it as big as possible, with twists and turns that were more like cheap thrills than actual surprises. It became too bloated to make something coherent. It was hard for the drama to juggle between all of the 4 main characters and their interconnected stories which also affected the dynamic between the four of them. You can notice who ended up being the fourth wheel.

What I said was substantial and clear, I don't feel like repeating myself through more examples.
I can see that we will keep going in circles so there's no point in extending this conversation any further.

Agree to disagree, but it's what it's. I can see some miscommunication going on here, I advise to re-read my comments if that helps.

Also, not every high-rating = favorites, that would be too many favorites to count.

Regardless of history, it's about how they constructed the narrative with these 23 episodes. The war section was way beyond what's considered an afterthought, more like a post-production afterthought. It was the equivalent of a cliche training montage that was added just to jump into the next progression checkpoint.

Regarding season 1, I liked the earlier episodes and I was looking forward to the upcoming ones but things didn't go as expected. They had a really poor mix of investigators and journalists/reporters working on the case. Not even the involved characters from that side were appealing to watch. You often hear in any police/investigation drama how they keep information away from journalists/reporters to not hinder the investigation, it turned out they were right. I liked how Oh Ji Hyuk didn't stand out as a main lead too much to allow those around him to have a space, he blended in nicely. Him and Do Chang had a nice dynamic but they started to drift apart a little bit later on.
Compared to season 1, the main case was definitely less interesting. The involved parties were boring. The investigation was slower and much simpler. There was barely any tension, not much action and thriller anymore. Most of the time they were slacking around. Less budget maybe? Throughout both season there was a very small side plot in the background regarding Oh Ji Hyuk and finding a meaning in living but the writer didn't allow for such development and, eventually, after 2 full seasons, everything boiled down that he found a meaning in life through being a workaholic detective. The way they handled that after 32 episodes was the most disappointing thing about the whole thing.

Regarding season 1, I liked the earlier episodes and I was looking forward to the upcoming ones but things didn't go as expected. They had a really poor mix of investigators and journalists/reporters working on the case. Not even the involved characters from that side were appealing to watch. You often hear in any police/investigation drama how they keep information away from journalists/reporters to not hinder the investigation, it turned out they were right. I liked how Oh Ji Hyuk didn't stand out as a main lead too much to allow those around him to have a space, he blended in nicely. Him and Do Chang had a nice dynamic but they started to drift apart a little bit later on. Moving on to season 2, the main case was definitely less interesting. The involved parties were boring. The investigation was slower and much simpler. There was barely any tension, not much action and thriller anymore. Most of the time they were slacking around. Less budget maybe? Throughout both season there was a very small side plot in the background regarding Oh Ji Hyuk and finding a meaning in living but the writer didn't allow for such development and, eventually, after 2 full seasons, everything boiled down that he found a meaning in life through being a workaholic detective. The way they handled that after 32 episodes was the most disappointing thing about the whole thing.

It's not really 2 seasons, there was just 3 weeks broadcasting delay in the middle because of Olympics. Otherwise, it's a full 16 episodes drama. However, it would have been really nice if they kept it to 8 episodes because the smaller side cases were really boring despite their relation to the bigger one. Both main characters Dong Joo & Hye Young had a good characterization but the remainder of the cast couldn't carry their own weight and ended up being bland. Although the plot was centered around tracing money but more often than not it deviated away from the tax evasion plot trying to be a different type of show. While the ending may have been acceptable but it left much to be desired. A drama with an interesting concept but it couldn't pull through to the end.

It's not really 2 seasons, there was just 3 weeks broadcasting delay in the middle because of Olympics. Otherwise, it's a full 16 episodes drama. However, it would have been really nice if they kept it to 8 episodes because the smaller side cases were really boring despite their relation to the bigger one. Both main characters Dong Joo & Hye Young had a good characterization but the remainder of the cast couldn't carry their own weight and ended up being bland. Although the plot was centered around tracing money but more often than not it deviated away from the tax evasion plot trying to be a different type of show. While the ending may have been acceptable but it left much to be desired. A drama with an interesting concept but it couldn't pull through to the end.

Even though there was a potential for diving deep into the complexities of modern relationships and societal pressures in Korea, the drama just ended up falling flat, tumbling into this muddy pit of aimless over-exaggerations and forced plot twists. This turned out to be as trashy as you can ever imagine. Every single character listed in the cast was despicable, no exceptions! This kind of set up would've only worked if the drama was a social commentary or satire but it wasn't and it did a very poor job in attempting to be a one. These character had little to no development by the end, they mostly remained the same since they were introduced. The trial over the kid's custody was one of the worst sights of judicial system to be ever portrayed in a drama. A complete joke through and through from both sides.

You'd think there was room for this deep dive into human desires and the messiness of relationships, but the drama just stumbled into this predictable mess of melodrama and characters you could barely see through. The characters were supposedly torn apart by the whole moral dilemma of their sneaky affairs but they did the bare minimum in that regard. Even the romantic tension felt somewhat forced and lacking. The drama would've benefited from only focusing on the main infidelity but here everyone was cheating on one another. Too much noise. In comparison, all the previous points also applied to the JP version except that they were even more drastic and detached in that one.

That was a really shitty sequel. The Japanese tried to be poetic but ended up being so trashy...

You'd think there was room for this deep dive into human desires and the messiness of relationships, but the drama just stumbled into this predictable mess of melodrama and characters you could barely see through. The characters were supposedly torn apart by the whole moral dilemma of their sneaky affairs but they did the bare minimum in that regard. Even the romantic tension felt too forced, superficial and lacking. The drama would've benefited from focusing on the main infidelity only. In comparison, all the previous points also applies to the KR version except that they were less drastic and detached than this one.

Although she knew about his feelings but they didn't get officially together until the last chunk of the last episode.
No break up because they only got together at end, but there was a slight friendship-breakup because she was gonna marry her ex.
Yes, love triangle, actually love square, with her ex involved and there's another girl who was hitting on ML.
Yeah, a happy ending after that shitty reality show wasted plot