6
The cursed, the remake
A slightly different take on Jang Hee Bin. The drama suffers from the exact same problems any profession focused historical drama attempt. Very similar to Goddess of Fire with its storytelling, transformation, progress and conclusion. The drama didn't deserve to be longer than 16 episodes at best for the amount of material it had to offer. Quickly enough, they deviated from fashion design in favor of typical bland drama antics. They kept all the details of fashion design to minimum. Looking at the cast it seemed promising but it turned out to be quite disappointing. This drama and its other remakes were all equally as problematic and disappointing. Maybe Jang Hee Bin as a historical character is cursed to be portrayed in media.Was this review helpful to you?
Oof...
Within less than 3 minutes going into the first episode we were presented with these goofy and silly sound effects for every motion and laughter. My expectations were nullified immediately which definitely helped to endure it. The interactions between the characters were painfully artificial and static, which made the dreadful cheesiness even worse than it already was. This is how it seems from the surface but the content is much more revolting and ugly. Highly not recommended!Was this review helpful to you?
Good enough...
This was an enjoyable mystery-comedy drama full of character and style. The main leading actor and actress Cho Yeo Jung & Go Jun were the perfect cast for their character, completely embodying the character to bring it to its full potential. The mystery element was good and kept going for its entire runtime but this delayed a lot of things to the last episode which made it feel cramped. This also resulted in slow pacing which almost turned it stale. The last episode could've been done better, the 2nd half of the last episode was going all over the place and a bit too unfocused. Meanwhile, the ending was purely done that way to leave a stronger impression, so it's not meant to be taken serious or to be over analyzed.Was this review helpful to you?
Dissapointment!
Interesting premise but horrible execution. Unfortunately it ended up being disappointing especially with how they handled both leads' characters. Aside from the main story, the side cases, investigations, and side villains all were mediocre anyway. The team doesn't matter, they were rarely shown, they had no existing persona, everything was led by and from the perspective of Tae Seok and they don't have any meaningful contribution even for the small cases. Which is why you can't consider this drama as one of those team investigation ones. Dare I say the drama was "less than average"!Was this review helpful to you?
A tough one to get through....
Misery stemmed from uncontrollable oppression is justifiable but self-inflicting misery is questionable and down right annoying and exhausting to sympathize with, which this drama absolutely love to slap the viewers with. Needless to say, the writing is definitely not its strongest suit. Still an attractive piece from the 90s. Korean production was still primitive compared to the pioneers at the time, and this drama was amongst the first big breakthroughs. Which makes me wonder why wasn't it remastered yet despite being a significant piece.Was this review helpful to you?
Meh...
The thing with the cast is that both male leads actors don't seem to be a good fit to be leads, I mean they always occupy 2nd-lead/support roles in their other projects for a reason. The mother-daughter relationship and dynamic was average at best and was only brought up in the last chunk of episodes probably because the main focus was on hiding the other unrelated secrets. The ending was too short and quick. It bothers me with these 50+ hours daily drama that the director can't just push for a proper send off despite having all the time in the world.Was this review helpful to you?
Okay but lacks a lot....
Well, the drama is a little bit different but ends up following the same footsteps of its melodrama predecessors, mainly after the 1st half. The drama is definitely one of the tamer ones, the writer just doesn't let things get too far even when things have all the right to be fully escalated. This is why the envelop of forgiveness was aggressively pushed beyond its limits. This is also why the drama had a very very long 12 episodes epilogue just to stress on that one single point. This is also why you may see the influx of positive comments. This is also why feelings in general became disingenuous at the end.
Both main leads had a weak performance and even a weaker written character especially the female lead. The actress is just too stiff, the only scenes she showed some expressions was the ones with the baby while the remainder mostly poker face. Her poorly written character suffered greatly due to its saint-like personality. You know how these kind of personalities go in dramas. Anyway, the 1st half was promising but it didn't live up to my expectations.
Was this review helpful to you?
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?
Decent enough...
The first half was more fun than the latter. Watching Mi Yeon trying to take revenge on Hyo Seop was the best part. In fact, they were the best couple in the series. On the other hand, almost all the other couples were weak and lacked chemistry, especially Sun Ha. Speaking of characters, I was expecting more from Yoo Ha against her in-laws, a bit disappointed.The drama itself is fine, it had its ups and downs, it can be a bit slow sometimes, it had some interesting events, and it had a handful of likeable cast members. It's a casual family drama with little melodrama, most of the conflict was with the in-laws which didn't last that long anyway.
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?
Wasted potentials (as always?)
It's really disappointing to see a drama with a good and enjoyable start just to wither away later on, that includes everything even the cast. As if every single person that was involved in making the drama got tired of the project. Although the earlier parts were enjoyable but I was rolling my eyes every single time Je Yi & Soo Yeon show up on the screen and broke the momentum. They were both easily the worst part of the drama in general. As expected, by the time we got to see the real culprit, it turned out to be a caroonish joker knock off with zero effort put into writing him. To state the obvious, Namkoong was doing an unbelievable amount of heavy lifting to keep this drama afloat. The OST was decent at the right time, while other times it was just some background noise. It's still a decent watch and the slightly shorter runtime was helpful but temper your expectations a bit.Was this review helpful to you?
Good
Great casting choices, all of them were a good fit for their character. Doo Na is such a natural she always stand out. Glad to see Cha Tae Hyun in more main roles. It's hard to find a mature drama that isn't overly melodramatic or infested with tropes. It started off as a slice of life to get us accustomed with the characters, their backstory and their current status. It took until the last third before the characters began to spill out their guts and get serious. Aside from the supporting cast, all of the four leads were elegantly written, well developed and interesting on their own. It's a solid drama and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey, however, there were a few things that held it from reaching higher. I wish the cinematography would have been better with tighter compositions and theme. I also wish there was more investment in creating a suitable soundtrack. Upping the production value in these two areas would have helped the drama in creating a memorable atmosphere and nudge it to be one of the best of its genre. One last thing, I wonder what Hwi Ru whispered to Seok Moo in the final scene?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?
