Park Min

First impressions are important and this one didn't have a good one. The drama really needed a better introduction to better sell its concept, the first episode was just plain bad and it didn't serve its purpose. The drama definitely got better later on. While I appreciate the shorter runtime of 12 episodes that OCN usually offers with their thrillers but even in this case some scenes and episodes were obviously redundant. It didn't help its case repeating that one specific flashback of the night when male lead met Seo Kyung and lost his father about 20-30 times throughout the drama. The story had its usual plot holes just like most thriller/mystery of its kind but at least there wasn't anything outrageous. One more thing, it felt like it was the type of show that would benefit greatly from a custom made good OST.

It wouldn't have been a 2005 melo without some heavy spoilers as the introduction scene. It was meant to be a sad love story but it was more like a really sad man's story. It's expected to see such themes in melodrama but a better balance was needed. It went overboard with how much misery it inflected on the male lead, there were some false hope moments just to double and triple down on his misery afterwards. I liked how they incorporated the friendship into the mix, it helped recovering from the inevitable bad blood. Having 20 episodes runtime turned out to be too long, not enough attention on side characters/plots to keep it rolling. I didn't like what they've done with the character Park Hye In, ended up disliking her the most. Cha Hwa Jung was the one to kick start the snowball effect but the drama didn't do much with her or give her what she deserved. Regarding the ending, I've seen the exact same ending where the male lead took the same decision from another drama but I can't remember the name. Most people would disagree with the ending but it was done like that on purpose just like every heavy melodrama back then.

Eun Dong isn't a doormat because she was played by Park Ha Na. I think most of her roles she makes sure her character stays afloat.

The cinematography and visuals were great although they went overboard with tilted shots and angles, surpassing their creative limits. The drama had a decent melodic score that blended with the shots just okay but no particular track stood out. Enough technicality, no matter how I look at it, the drama boiled down to be a cheap mix between Thirty-Nine (2022) & My Mister (2018), lacking soul and a unique identity. The self narration bits were a hit or miss, some lines were brilliant and fit the mood, while others were just nonsensical pretentious scribbles. There was a good opportunity to give these narrations to other characters as well but these were mostly done by Yeom Mi Jung. The end of episode 2 made it seem like a tacky show in a fancy wrapping, signaling that it wouldn't stay grounded and would resort to impractical moves to progress the plot forward and grab attention. This is one thing the drama constantly kept contradicting itself with. I didn't like their approach for the ending; they should've just wrapped it up instead of sneakily dancing around it for way too long. Don't excuse its shortcomings by calling it a slow show. Both the writer and director have succeeded in creating slow shows before, but this one missed the mark and sacrificed other important elements along the way. Even with a very relaxed 16 episodes, most of the characters didn't get the development they deserved, but I guess some slice of life scenes were more important. That one major transition around episode 13-14 was embarrassingly poorly done and was a real cowardly move by the writer to escape the writer's block. It left an unerasable stain for what could've been a decent show. Although there were aspects to like and appreciate, the drama didn't quite reach its potential.

It didn't take more than half an episode to set your expectations for what about to come. The set up was very poorly done, it was extremely detached from reality and the characters molded themselves around that for the remainder of the drama which became seriously problematic later on and an impossible hurdle to overcome. The characters kept displaying bizarre behaviors at every corner that it made it difficult to connect with the narrative. They should've embraced the cliches and amplified them instead of tiptoeing around them awkwardly. The characters couldn't hold a single decent and coherent conversation or a piece of dialogue, it's just bad writing and an insult to the viewers! Yun Hyong Chul character felt extremely robotic and lacked real emotions beyond setting sadly while drinking & smoking. The drama treated him like a clown anyway. The pacing was dreadful as well, these 20 episodes felt much longer than a regular 20 episodes drama. Chae Rim did a lot of melos in the 2000s but I think this drama turned out to be the worst one of them.

Right off the bat the technical problems were too glaring to ignore. The washed out black levels were a true eye sore that I had to make a custom color profile for it through the media player. A big portion of the drama was shot in direct bright sun light which amplified the problem even further. Enough technicality, the drama was supposed to offer a mix of romance, comedy and law, although hints of these genres do exist but the drama did an outstanding job in failing miserably with incorporating and mixing each one of them. They may throw some cheap lines within the legal field but that wasn't enough to qualify it to slap the law genre tag, let alone its name. I find it hard to believe that someone would find this funny. I think even our primitive ancestors would have a hard time with it. Finally, anything involving the romance as a concept was unquestionably broken. They couldn't even have a chemistry running despite being the first step for any kind of romance. Lee Seung Gi shouldn't have accepted this project. For dramas that waste 90% of its runtime on absolute nothingness, this drama would have a strong placement in my Top 10. With all that being said, unfortunately, this drama isn't the worst of its kind; I've seen worse.

I can assure you dear viewer, the elongated shot of Ji Sung taking off Song Hye Kyo's shoes and zooming in on her feet was absolutely critical to the plot.

The drama had many great things going on for it until it went through an unfortunate interruption. It built a solid vibe for all the involved characters and gave each one a purpose to dynamically interact with one another. Kim In Ha jumping into sticky situations was always fun, you never knew when would he pull up his signature move, the sneaky high kick! Giving the male lead a solid side kick was the best thing the drama did. Yoo Jong Goo was In Ha's partner through thick and thin. They always came in as a one package and provided the needed duo action. The soundtrack "Like The First Day" got engraved in my brain cavities for how much of a banger it was. However, everything I mentioned evaporated when the drama suddenly poured all its attention into the love square after halfway through. The love square was painfully out of place in all regards, it even went against the characters' writing contradicting itself just to be part of the nasty melo trend. It also shifted its main point of tension to be all about that. The saddest part was the lack of "duo" action after that, we barely got any. Around the end of it, it decided to double down on the melo and have the deplorable trope of two characters pushing each other away to show some kind of "poetic love", yikes! Anyway, the drama was another good example of a great first half only to fumble in its second half. The biggest point of comparison between this drama and "Swallow the Sun (2009)" was its insulting transition and disparity between its 1st and 2nd half.

It started off with a bang and kept its tempo up for another 10 episodes before performing the hardest emergency brake pull ever. At least for that portion, this is what modern day parodies would cite mimicking the exaggerated nature of the melo landscape from late 2000s. Lots of abroad filming with the typical Korean lens of foreign lands, loads of shaky action with tons of cuts for every shot that can rival that one Liam Neeson scene jumping over a fence, plenty of exposed skin akin to the usual Korean broadcast ratings, and all kinds of flashy elements that they could through at us as fast as possible. All of that stopped with the brake slam and the drama turned to the usual slow melo of that time, it was around when they moved the setting back to Korea. Although the earlier parts lacked a real sense of focus and were disjointed as hell but at least they weren't as boring as the 2nd half. On another note, the speedy harsh soundtrack got me exhausted after playing for nth time in every episode. The biggest point of comparison between this drama and "All In (2003)" was its insulting transition and disparity between its 1st and 2nd half.

Finally! It's been a hot minute since Lee Ji Ah was out of the melo cycle.

Another poor choice of profile picture change from MDL. They really don't understand how to maintain a database!

My first impression is that these 2 male leads weren't suitable to play this type of scenario in this "youthful" setting. It's hard to see them attempting romance even when they were in their 30s. Something doesn't click no matter what! Although the drama was long but it kept you entertained watching the car crash. The revenge was tame, it never went too far but that was the drama's intent to begin with. You can get the gist of that just from reading the synopsis. However, there were some cruel parts in the process which helped selling the injustice, better than a lot of modern ones who attempted similar approach. The dialogue was fairly good, usually we don't get extended dialogues that let the characters to actually talk even if it got a bit melo along the way. The opening theme was good but when I listened to the full version I wasn't a fan of the rest. The characters went through a reasonable development without neglecting the secondary ones which typically get neglected because of their wrong doings. It did such a good job showing the wrongful side being genuine in repenting. The drama wrapped things up better than I expected, it gave an actual proper conclusion to its leads. While the drama isn't perfect but it offered an appealing package.

The drama started on an objectively stupid and trashy conflict that couldn't have been written by a real human in 1998. I enjoyed the journey of the group and whatever they had going on but the atrocious attempt to shove in the love triangle and romance of the leads was unbearable and killed all redeeming qualities all at once. This was one of the worst trio leads combination I've seen. The drama is actually a great example for how adding a romance can completely ruin a show. The female lead was as dry and boring as they could come, easily the worst character in the drama. Even the guests had a better impression. The male lead always felt out of his place. Kim Min Jong has been uncharming as always even in his prime play-boy phase. Song Yoon Ah had changed completely, she's now a different unrecognizable version of her past self. Going under the knife did a big number on her. Not even her voice was matching. It had me double and triple check to see if she was listed in the cast by mistake but it was actually her. At the end of the day, there was a lot to dislike about it and little to no likeable elements.

It was probably one of the most generic medical dramas out there. Looking back at it, it was soulless and lacked a defining identity. They really cheaped out on the dynamic between some characters. More on the dynamics, every patient had some kind of a dynamic between them and one of the cast but some of these were off and just didn't translate well into the screen. I didn't like what they have done with the character Jung Ha Yoon and her storyline in general. Both Kim Do Hoon and Baek Hyun Woo were very lacking and limited in character. The final conflict and wrap up were quite underwhelming and unfavorable.

The drama was based on cases but these cases quickly became quite repetitive after the first one. It was obvious they were reskinning the same thing over and over. Even the overarching story progressing in the background was going through something by echoing the same points. Rinse and repeat until the last few episodes where things started to actually change and progress again. The female lead Min Da Hae had the weakest presence on screen, barely a functional character, let alone a lead. Her romance was boring and annoying. Remove her and give Kim Jae Hee double the roles, at least she got more dynamic with other characters too. Some scenes and ideas were enjoyable but these were few and far between.

The drama feels like it was made by someone who watched a lot of 2000s Korean drama and wanted to replicate a one just like it. It's a Korean drama but it always felt it was missing something. Anyway, the drama itself had an awful set up that stretched it thin even if this were to be a satire. The characterization of these characters wasn't appealing, you had no one to root for or like. The drama delved into love and sacrifice, but more often than not, it went all in on the melo, way too much. It ended up overshadowing any chance for a more subtle, nuanced take on the intricate web of human and familial relationships which is what the drama needed more than anything else. They tried to do that a little bit later on but it was too late anyway. The visuals were passable but they couldn't quite make up for the gaps in the story.

It wouldn't have been an old drama if they didn't give us the ending as an introduction at the very beginning. The even took it a step further to narrate to us that this is how it ended exactly. It kinda took away from the show when the ending is spelled out to you this blatantly. Anyway, this is a less than average love story between the trio leads without anything interesting going on. I had a few ideas at different points were the story could've taken a better direction but none of that happened. The male lead Son Chang Min didn't do a good job playing this shy and innocent kid at the beginning. It was too weird and awkward. They wanted to show a big contrast to his transition later on but they could've done it in better ways. On the other hand, Jung Sung Mo did pretty well for his character, I even think it's better than most of his modern roles. Anyway, the drama as a whole felt super limited and they didn't do much with what they had.

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.

Whatever they did with that introduction with the military stuff and other nonsense was just bad and embarrassing. They could've cut to the adults without giving backstory and it would've been fine. Anyway, the story itself was very slow, everything was moving at a snail's pace. I wasn't a fan of the love story here, it was just a girl who fell in love with the first man she saw after spending 10-15 years in isolation on a men-less island. You may expect the usual empty shots and over-dramatic reactions from older dramas in this one, while they weren't necessarily bad but I've seen these elements done better from the same era in mid 2000s. I found the last few episodes to be an unnecessary big wild stretch. It was done that way because they had nothing prepared beforehand for the end.

It was a very open ended move. We saw that the flower was used for personal reasons which opens endless possibilities to create infinite stories. It feels like they only made the movie to throw an open statement that they can make another 10 seasons if they wanted to.