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Sexless Tea Party
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.Was this review helpful to you?
Ja Must Go
Well, I had a little higher than usual expectations from looking at the cast members but at least it didn't take too long to show what it had in store for us. The drama kicked off to a bad start leaving an ominous bad impression. The first 1/3 of the drama was set in the past giving us a ridiculously boring and generic backstory of the leads, starting with their parents and moving on to their birth, early childhood, and teenage years. These kids turned out to be the worst part of the drama, totally unlikable – both the characters and the actors playing them. And it didn't get any better when we were introduced to their adult versions. The romance and love triangle were downright despicable, filled with self-pity, sappy motivations, and a bunch of whiny kids. A wild suggestion, why not take the drama from the beginning of episode 39 into a different direction? Extend it with another 20 episodes, remove the romance, have the FL be the empress of her nation, and conquer neighboring nations.Was this review helpful to you?
The Tale of No-can-do
Initially, it stood out by highlighting a predominantly female perspective of resilient women thriving independently, offering a glimpse into a world of contentment among a backdrop of mostly antagonistic male characters. However, the typical romantic entanglement, took a central role in a heartbeat as it featured two inexplicably infatuated men competing for the affection of a seemingly unremarkable woman, creating an appalling surreal cycle of rejection and groveling. This toxic dynamic became overwhelming and off putting, tainting the entire drama. The drama stumbled when merging this with a weary political subplot that ended up being unnecessarily cluttered. On another note, the cross-dressing gimmick at the beginning was nothing but a waste of time and a blatant cash grab. At the very least, it should have served as an element to help the characters bond but it didn't. That only started to happen after the identity reveal, not before.Was this review helpful to you?
Spoonfed bias sociopolitics
This is one of the best examples I've came across to what I like to call a "cosplay show", it had little to no serious consideration for its proposed era. The trend continued when the drama started to get preachy from a modern society point of view while being in no position to allow it to attempt such a thing. These could have been avoided if the drama was a parody, of which, it was not. There were obvious other problems and inconsistencies too, but what stood out the most was the mundane sequences filling the biggest portion of the drama, these were a real brain rot.What did the drama want to be? A social commentary, a political play, a profession spotlight, a slice of life, or a light romcom? It never embraced any aspect of fully committed to a theme. Whenever it tried to delve deeper, it pulled itself back up to the surface. Unsuccessful mix, regardless. There were other points to be made about the cast, chemistry, and romance but I don't feel like repeating myself.
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The Red Death
Some soundtracks were brilliant and went hard while other ones were pure rehashed garbage picked up from your local free-licensed store. However, the drama itself suffered from being painfully long-winded, with excessive and unnecessary long shots that reflected negatively on the cinematography. Especially when the chemistry was average at best. Plot-wise, it fell into the trap of being extremely formulaic, treading familiar ground seen in many dramas with the girl/prince trope. It didn't dare to try anything new or to spin its own twist. The male lead made the whole experience significantly uncomfortable and challenging, his personality didn't exude any attractive qualities in the slightest; in fact, I found his behavior to be quite repulsive, appalling and off-putting, catered exclusively to the fan-fic obsessed mindset, which may explains its ratings.Was this review helpful to you?
Hong Gil Dong - Take 2
The drama started off promisingly but took a nosedive after a pivotal moment around episode 7 when the plot took an unfortunate turn with the very conveniently timed amnesia break. This narrative choice not only broke the momentum built up until that point but also shattered the drama's coherence. After this abrupt twist, the series struggled to regain its footing, and the attempts to recover its initial momentum proved futile, leading to a disjointed narrative and a noticeable decline in quality. While attempting to portray the struggles of the oppressed, the series fell into repetitive cycles, as expected. The romantic elements felt forced and superficial. Rather than enhancing the storyline, the romantic subplot felt out of place and failed to integrate seamlessly into the overarching plot. It felt like they had to give the lead a girl, any girl. Would have been better if his siblings occupied that gap instead of being wasted on the love interest. At least the drama didn't end like Hong Gil Dong (2008).Was this review helpful to you?
Vampire Diaries
The poorly written prologue wasn't a good sign going into this drama. The leads didn't develop their relationship naturally, most of what we got to signify their romance was long dreamy stares. That's pure lazy writing. This what their romance was based off which made it hard to care about their romance, let alone their unmatched chemistry. If we were to ignore the romance, then we are left with the vampires which were equally lacking. The pacing of the storyline seemed uneven, resulting in moments of sluggishness followed by rushed progress. The bad guy barely showed up in the first half. Although I didn't expect much but the ending was just too boring.Was this review helpful to you?
Not so sharp of a shooter
The drama fell flat in so many ways. The whole idea of a sharpshooter tackling the Joseon era should've been thrilling but the way they pulled it off was dull. The characters were generally dislikable. Their emotions and connections felt about as deep as a puddle after a sprinkle. And that forced romance was cringe central. No spark, no real chemistry between these characters, making it hard to care about their lovey-dovey moments. They tossed action, romance, and politics into a blender without a recipe, which resulted in a messy unattractive artificial mix.Was this review helpful to you?
Not good
A well sizeable chunk of the beginning was wasted and failed to hook the viewers in for quite some time. The ending as well was equally bad if not worse than the beginning. The writer completely gone mental in the worst possible way. Maximizing the cringe and the illusion of creating something artistic, not knowing he was a clown in a circus. The drama itself was embarrassingly dry and lacked appealing elements. A story not worth telling. I'm not sure about the historical accuracy but they did a poor job with storytelling regardless. They also turned Empress Ki into a joke of a character. The drama had a dislikable selection of leading cast. I hated watching Son Chang Min as a lead, Jeong Bo Seok was too much in your face and Seo Ji Hye was just okay-ish.Was this review helpful to you?
Try again!
Practically, this drama is just a shirtless men expedition. It featured one of the most deplorable writing efforts and attempts to be edgy and hip with the times (2010). The drama had absolutely nothing to offer other than Jang Hyuk presence. They made Jang Hyuk as an edgy cringey whiny kid full of stupid one-liners and little to no real characterization put into him. This is a prime example for how to NOT write a broken and traumatized character. The drama had no real fights, just a handful of flashy dances in slow-mo with little to no weight to their strikes coupled with unfitting soundtrack for the fight or the moment. To reach the 24 episodes mark they had to stretch it thin, literally, with a lot of repeated scenes, extremely elongated stares and gazes, irrelevant dialogue and random slow-mo shots which all resulted in a poor utilization of the cinematography.Was this review helpful to you?
Coffee innit....
A decent concept but the drama didn't hit well with me. I didn't like either of the main leads nor was I interested in their boring sappy personal story. The support characters and their stories were slightly better. You better off just drink a cup of coffee anyway.Was this review helpful to you?
Kinda watchable
The drama had a nice concept but the story was too thin for a full run drama even with the added side stories. It's also why they sneaked in a useless love pentagon that didn't get anywhere. Although you may find the FL's behavior passable as a teen but that wasn't the case as an adult, it was increasingly challenging to endure watching her. It simply didn't serve the narrative. After seeing her character in action I had a strong hunch to why they broke up. Such a reason may be valid when written adequately but, in this case, it came off as a shallow excuse to progress the plot. Even if we were to over glance that, they ended up giving a half-assed resolution to their underlying problems and opted to supplement the rest with an overdose of mindless lovey-dovey scenes while eliminating any opportunity for the drama to delve deeper into the emotional package they threw at us earlier on. Another prime example of the bait and switch technique the Kdrama industry have been going through recently and it doesn't look like this will change. One last thing, there were some obvious amateur editing mistakes sprinkled in the drama. One singular scene may have multiple camera angles but 2 different color grading, even for the same consecutive face shot.Was this review helpful to you?
Do yourself a favor....
Just from reading the synopsis it turned out to be as rancid as it sounds exactly! This feels it was made for a college group project while trying to be edgy and trendy. The standards keep getting lower nowadays.Was this review helpful to you?
Big bait
This drama was a big bait. You may think this is about an uncle and his nephew, although that's partially true, but the biggest focus was on the mothers’ committee and everything surrounding it. The drama quickly turned into another boring high-class circle jerk lacking any creativity or nuances. The uncle nephew relationship was always a side story progressing in the background. The last 2 episodes were utterly useless, the drama ended by episode 14 and the remainder were all random made-up last-minute events. The writer blatantly gave up. The drama is still watchable just for the sake of a handful good scenes otherwise it's underwhelming for its genre.Was this review helpful to you?
Bad prequel
It was too expensive to keep Namkoong for another 2 episodes so we got this instead. These sloppy 2 episodes further highlight the worst points about the original series. Soo Yeon once again proven to be the worst character. We got less violence and a worse story, action and performance. If you barely got through the original one then I recommend skipping this useless prequel.Was this review helpful to you?
