6
Pain....
This is just... bad. This flat jaded narrative and these one dimensional characters killed my soul. I can't even be bothered to continue writing my comment.Was this review helpful to you?
Almost there....
Suk Bin's mother wasn't punished enough for being less than a subhuman junky nor did Suk Bin himself. Both the female lead and her mother were absolute doormat characters, letting everyone have their way with them and completely surrender passively without even attempting to bite back. Completely infuriating to watch this behavior for 50 episodes. Even at the moment of the reveals if it weren't for the other characters acting on their behalf nothing would have been accomplished. Many characters were introduced but were never done anything with or even appear more than few times like Suk Bin's sister. The leads relationship had a decent attention and screen time in the first half but they were completely neglected in the second half. The drama also needed more characters and stories. The only independent side story was the FL's uncle which sucked anyway. It's safe to assume that the writing was very problematic when it comes to its characters.It seems to be the writer completely forgot about the pink notebook.
Was this review helpful to you?
Good...
Pretty good drama, great diverse cast, full of stories and the writing is decent. The drama does a lot right and it will appeal to a lot of people. I think Joo Yeong will be a fan favorite. However, there are few annoyances that bugged me. As good as it may seemed but it got seriously exhausting after a while watching the male lead endlessly taking all the shit, sacrificing to no avail and being the victim. He might as well just be a saint.The drama also rely lazily on that one dimensional antagonist that I'm wondering why the writer didn't put any effort into him? They are clearly able to so judging how they made the other characters. It's also a little problematic how long the antagonist linger around with no real development to the story, I think it would be better if he was only given attention for a certain period.
Another thing bugged me is how both main couples/both brothers' relationship came to an abrupt pause around the last ~30 episodes for an unjustified logical reason just so that the drama could have 1 more conflict before the ending. Which brings me to my next note, the drama needed a little more tension than the massive influx of happy moments, the only factor that was creating tension was the lawyer which himself was lacking a lot as I explained above. Overall, still a good show 7.5/10
Was this review helpful to you?
Mid...
Very light family drama. No heavy long conflicts, no bad blood, no soap opera cliche and no evil characters lingering around for too long. It doesn't do anything interesting/special nor it is offensive. Generic smooth sailing family drama. The last 40 episodes felt like an extreme stretch. I wanted the leads' relationship to have a stronger presence, it was a bit on the weaker and tamer side. I also wanted a slightly better ending overall.Was this review helpful to you?
NO....
The looks are too deceiving in this one, this is 5% family drama and 95% melodrama with the usual violent violin playing in the background every 2.1 seconds. This is not a family drama and the tag should be removed. For the length the drama had there was barely any story and the writing wasn't passable at all. I was losing my mind because of this "James" plot line, 100 episodes of endless tease and hundreds of close encounters to reveal the father identity. That's mostly the main story, what's even worse is that the exact same scenario step by step is being repeated for another 30 episodes for the grandparents identity. The last 30 episodes were random shenanigans and cringe.This drama definitely had one of the laziest dumbed down writings out there. The writer was relying heavily on the mentally challenged mother to create tension, I lost count how many times a character threaten the mother that result into a problem and people shouting. It also extends to the characters' writing, all of which were bland, one dimensional, single digit IQ and unlikable. The writer was also trying to push her political agenda of pro-life antiabortion so damn hard with multiple extensive dialogues sequences.
Was this review helpful to you?
Bad police drama
This drama was hands down the worst portrayal of police force I've ever seen. They were unbelievably bad at their job, even for 'police' drama standards. This is the most important aspect the drama needed to nail but failed to do so and resulted in a lukewarm detective/thriller drama. Both Soo Young's backstory and the main villain were lame and disappointing. The only redeeming quality was its cast, specifically the main cast, other than that the drama is straight up a failure. Not even Jang Hyuk contribution helped it. Speaking of which, Jang Hyuk looking like professor Snape in the poster lol.Was this review helpful to you?
Problematic
This is the first (I think) and worst mental-illness/psychiatrists focused drama! It's common for the patient to crush over their psychiatrist and fall in love, because they are mentally unstable and vulnerable, but once the roles are flipped and the psychiatrist is the one imposing their feelings on the patient then there's a big problem at hand.The first obvious problem is for a psychiatrist to fall in love with his patient. It would probably be less of a problem for a doctor in another field but not a psychiatrist, a professional dealing with mentally vulnerable people. With all that being said, I could easily turn a blind eye to the whole ordeal if the drama was comedic/light/romance and never took the serious and professional route, of which this drama tried so hard to go for. The second big problem, there was a blatant attempt to stir the narrative in that direction while disregarding any coherency at the same time. We can clearly see an example of that right from the beginning in episode 1 with everything happened with the cop incident.
This drama had nothing to offer other than a pretty cast. Anyway, they failed miserably in handling the concept and ended up producing a very poor product. A disgrace to real professional psychiatrists!
Was this review helpful to you?
Failure is an option
For a slow drama to work you need a tight and controlled storytelling otherwise it will turn into a tasteless picture of which this drama fell into constantly. This notion was only amplified further by poor character writing, poor plot devices, and poor attention to details. The writer must have been utterly delusional thinking she was writing something "good". The final blow was delivered with cutting down the number of episodes. On the bright side, it ended early!Was this review helpful to you?
Big yikes...
Just from watching the first 5 episodes the story was too thin and I was wondering how this will keep going for 103 episodes. It seemed impossible. The answer became apparent 20 episodes later.These relationships were seriously fucked up and what made them frustrating is that the characters over complicated everything on themselves to create "the" story. That's one of the worst ways to write a story. Everyone is fucking everyone, everyone is pregnant, everyone is lying, everyone is swapping DNA tests, everyone is swapping partners back and forth, everyone got a baby, everyone is the father and everyone is a sociopath. At the end, everyone hanging around with each other like nothing happened after all the vile acts against humanity and the nastiness they went through. I can't even!! Both the writing and the actors failed to show remorse.
Finished the drama and the frustration and disgust didn't wash off. To get through this, you'll need a strong stomach.
Was this review helpful to you?
High potentials, fails to deliver!
Let's state the obvious, the comedic moments weren't good, it always felt forced. I assume they wanted to do that to lighten the mode? It took what felt like an eternity to kick start the story. Teasing the viewers constantly about the "tape" for the entire series was kinda annoying. How many times you can save Ha Ram's life became a personality trait for the male characters in the drama lol.When you over complicate a story, things get out of hand real quick really fast. Maybe dedicate some of the budget to hire a team of skilled veteran writers instead? Many convoluted plotlines were brushed off eventually. Half of the death cases weren't interesting. The last 2 episodes in general contain some serious unsalvageable nonsense. The writer turned off her brain and started writing willy-nilly. Starting from the beginning of episode 13 there was a big disconnect with the story and the momentum.
Abysmal ending. The ending goes into my list of "I'm a special quirky little writer so I'mma pull an ending out the depths of my ass". They tried to make it "poetic" but ended up shooting themselves in the foot. The writing department was really lacking and barely functional that by the end it leaves you with nothing but pretty visuals. This is a real case of a drama that had high potentials but fails to deliver.
In conclusion, it got a visually appealing atmosphere, good enough cast, and it's entertaining enough to be passable. Definitely doesn't deserve the hype. The series was from Netflix I should have known better. This is a 5.75/10 on a good day.
P.S. Kim Won Hae is always a treat to watch.
Was this review helpful to you?
It's just good
Excruciatingly long and pointlessly slow until the last two episodes where they speed up everything, yet the last 2 eps were underwhelming for an ending, especially the last 30 minutes wtf was that! It's full of fillers and mundane conversation. These conversations don't contribute in any meaningful way other than prolonging the series, if they were to serve a comedic purpose or to further develop the characters then sure keep them going. Also, 25+ hours of workplace abuse/politics is utterly exhausting and mind numbing. Massive missed opportunity to utilize this "empty" time to present a better story. Most of the drama is focused on Geu Rae & Sang Shik while the side stories are brushed off and barely given any attention.Nonetheless, it's a good package but not as good as I was expecting. Looking at ratings/reviews my expectations were too damn high.
Was this review helpful to you?
Real Estate Scam
As per design, this is the usual love square quarrels from the 2000s, following the blueprint precisely but with one major unforgivable flaw. It's expected from this formula to have a loose story not adhering to reality, common sense or logic, in one way or another it blends and enhances its entertaining value to push forward the narrative and dynamics. However, this drama went beyond what the viewers may deem passable in that regard with how they snowballed the setup involving the FL's friends, and her friends existence in general, pure atrocity. I refuse to believe that the writer spent more than 1-2 minutes thinking about the initial setup. Admittedly, the cast is what kept it alive and watchable, from the main leads to the elder cast, absolutely excluding the duo friends. The resolution and the romance in general felt quite distant from the characters, probably because they held it off for too long before establishing a clear communication between the leads which only happened in the last episode. Overall, the drama was just alright.Was this review helpful to you?
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 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.Was this review helpful to you?
Under the Queen's Stares
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.Was this review helpful to you?
Our Gloomed Youth
The story kicked off with the female lead getting falsely accused of murder and the prince is connected to the incident. So how would they structure the drama around this narrative? They had the female lead spend most of the drama hanging around the prince waiting for something to pop up for the story to move again, which didn't happen until the last few episodes. Unbelievably long and draggy for little to no story or character development. Everything can be summed up with 6 episodes without compromising anything from the narrative. The romance and the secrets were too delayed to care about, instead of laying them out evenly. Which made romance redundant by the end. Aside from the initial few episodes, I don't see anything appealing in this drama.Was this review helpful to you?
