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Decent Inheritance
There were definitely a few things to like here with the obvious main attraction being the kids interactions. The main lead had a good enjoyable dynamic going on outside the supposed "romance". Speaking of which, the romance was underdeveloped and made me wonder if it was necessary to begin with. They surely had plenty of time to give it more attention if they wanted to. Which brings me to my next point, it was a tad bit too long. Once the male lead transformed into someone who cared for the children and the kindergarten, things started to get draggy and less enjoyable. The 2nd half was mostly defending and protecting the kindergarten but it wasn't interesting and didn't have the same vibes of the 1st half. If the drama had more side characters and side plots it would have had rectified the problem. The drama made me wanting to see the leads reuniting in a modern drama.Was this review helpful to you?
The Spies Who Lied To Me
Although its earlier parts were better than the rest but the initial set up needed more time and thoughts to be put into it. They wanted to kick start the premise quickly but they rushed things along the way which made later parts to drag instead of having a better investment at the start. The first 5-6 episodes kept you interested and had a good amount of intrigue but things slowed down significantly after that and it began to lose its attraction even when Derek began to be involved in the story heavily. They had a lot of elements lined up perfectly to create something good but never committed to one theme. Derek was an interesting addition to the dynamic but his character was never consistent, his character was forcefully bent 3-4 times to fit whatever narrative the writer wanted to steer the story towards. This also affected how the triangle played out. Again, they had a lot of time to better allocate and divide the runtime to make it more natural. There were a few attempts where the drama tried to get preachy and profound with dialogue and inner-monologue but once you zoom out it turned out to be condescending nonsense. I would say the drama was partially fun but not all the way.Was this review helpful to you?
In Another World With My Smartphone
Although its earlier parts were much better than the rest but the initial set up needed more time and thoughts to be put into it. They wanted to kick start the premise quickly but they rushed things along the way. The first 5-6 episodes kept you interested about the plot and had a good amount of thriller but things slowed down significantly after that and it began to lose its attraction even when they attempted to add story-altering twists. The story itself got sloppier for no reason in the second half and the villains turned out to be underwhelming. The characters never felt like they had a good dynamic or chemistry going on, not even with the most obvious main mother-daughter or father-daughter relationship. Their lack of appeal made it hard to root for anyone. Something was missing, none of them clicked.Was this review helpful to you?
You Are My Psychiatrist AKA Trauma Bonding
There is a comment to be made about psychiatrists dating, loving, diagnosing, healing their patients but, technically, she wasn't a patient during working hours. The writer brushed that off by having ML to pull up the "If you were my patient, I would have asked you this...." By no metric this should've been longer than 8 episodes. The slow dreamy scenes and extensions didn't serve a purpose, they didn't enhance a scene, build an atmosphere, have a cinematic purpose, or contribute to the story. I think they wanted to associate pretty nicely shot slow-mo scenes with it being a cute show? Such things would only work if they struck at the right moment, not every moment. Some cognitive things didn't need to be portrayed on screen to convey a piece of information, like the ML lead forgetting the fridge door open to tell us he was distracted. It's okay to have a few sprinkled here and there but the drama was infested with such scenes. The first 3 episodes were a bit too boring but I stuck with it to see more of this supposed "mystery", of which, there was barely any mystery after that. This was supposed to be the secondary main plot but ended up being less important than most of the insignificant side plots like Da Jung's mother or Ga Young's trainer (btw what happened to the trainer?). The drama didn't know what it wanted to be so we had an uneven mix of genres and themes. Observing the characters, there was something off about their behavior, like an imitation through a fancy lens. Not only through their portrayal but also through their driven narrative. The drama had a lot of inner monologue and self-narration to fill its time but most of them were a hit or miss and didn't provide a deeper connection as they hoped. The drama was supposed to show the healing process but both leads didn't have more than a couple of scenes where they properly talked.Was this review helpful to you?
LOVE SUCKERS
The drama started on a decent pace with few things to look forward to. It was somewhat fine for the first 5 episodes until the drama made its biggest mistake with the reality show plot. It killed the story, romance, characters and ruined the overall vibe of the show. Completely shifting the structure and tone to something different entirely. The reality show plot became the center focus and didn't give room to let the characters work on their problems, instead we got a handful of cheesy lines that lacked any sincerity. Somewhere along the way they forgot to add romance for the leads but, regardless, the leads relationship was the farthest thing from being healthy and would eventually lead to misery. They never really worked on their relationship like adults but instead the whole thing was drenched with empty sweet talk. What I'm trying to say, the drama failed to offer a serviceable comedy, romance, slice-of-life or human drama. Lee Da Hee charms weren't enough to carry.Was this review helpful to you?
Disastrous Job
It's a really cheap, lazy and outdated copycat that had no soul or identity to speak of. This shouldn't have been released in 2022. The cast were fine but they should've had some standards when picking up their projects. The synopsis emphasized on the drama having a love story and romance but that doesn't happen until the last 1/4. During which, the drama pushed their romance into our faces to a sickening level without actually being romantic but more like children discovering attraction to the opposite sex type of romance. The story and writing were practically nonfunctional on a literary level that it made me feel ashamed for finishing it. I wanted to draw some parallels between it and orange cats but I would be insulting orange cats. It was broadcasted by ENA, I should've known better.Was this review helpful to you?
Really Sad Man's Story
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.Was this review helpful to you?
ALL OUT!!
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.Was this review helpful to you?
YOU MUST SWALLOW!
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.Was this review helpful to you?
Mr. Quit-it-already
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.Was this review helpful to you?
Generic Hospital 2
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.Was this review helpful to you?
Lukewarm Blood
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.Was this review helpful to you?
Redundant Love
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.Was this review helpful to you?
"Fashion", allegedly...
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.Was this review helpful to you?
The Equity Man
It amplifies the sarcastic mid-2000s melo cliches to the max, something about is just endearing to watch despite its comical nature, that's why it worked back then. But this drama kept it going for too long and it started to get annoying. Some scenes were too obvious they were added to pad its length, I would say these were the worst part about the drama. These useless scene were more important than the story according to the director and writer since the story was filled with incomprehensible skips and gaps in every other episodes that each left its own problems. I'm not asking a melodrama cliche to be logical and sensible because they'll never be by definition, but at least don't go too far like that insane 13 years time skip! On another note, Han Ji Won was pretty useless despite being the FL, little to zero contribution before or after the blindness episodes. One last thing, I wasn't a fan with anything they did for the last episode. The drama gets an extra point for the skewed morals.Was this review helpful to you?
