6
Wannabe Delinquents
On one hand, it tackled some important complexities surrounding youth crime and the justice system. But on the other hand, it felt like it was hitting the viewers over the head with its message a bit too hard. They always found a way to end up being overly preachy. I guess that's part of the overdramatization? The drama had a handful of cases but these were presented in descending order, with each one being less appealing than its predecessor. I feel conflicted about some of the cast choices, but if we were to ignore that and only focus on the characters, the situation didn't look so bright either. By episode 6, they started to inject personal stories and affairs, but it was a bit too late to have proper development when the drama was just 10 episodes. In the end, it was a watchable law drama with some notable ideas but remained average until the end.Was this review helpful to you?
Bloated Heart
The drama had a good selection of cast with decent varied performances. Jang Hyuk working double and triple shifts here. It had some interesting characters, especially Gye Won which I feel we didn't get enough of him. While the story may have been fine for the first half but it took a worse direction in the second half, losing whatever interest and build up it had previously. The keyword here is "odd" regarding the state of the production. Odd and questionable choices of the soundtracks, some of which didn't fit. Odd and questionable shot compositions and editing. Some shots had slightly different lighting or color grading of the same scene. The drama is filled with very long takes/shots that were too annoying after the 3rd time, it came off as a poor attempt in trying to mimic film, most of them didn't hit right. The only highlights of this drama were the intriguing 1st half and the character Park Gye Won.Was this review helpful to you?
A queen
The narration and its subsequent transitions were overdone and jarring. Regardless of the historical accuracy, everything was portrayed and delivered as poorly as possible to maximize the trashiness and spitefulness, guaranteeing to make you hate the palace power-struggle themed dramas just a little bit more. This was a very painful and redundant 60 episodes. There was a big massive disconnect of the characters' writing after the timeskip. The awful OST the drama didn't help enduring its journey. With the ridiculous overdramatization of the last 5-6 episodes, the drama reached its ultimate clown status. I pity those who had to endure this drama serializing weekly.Was this review helpful to you?
Sun embracing the moon
What even was that?! I would have rather gotten lost in a liminal space than watching this. The entire portion of the plot involving the kids was absurd and uncomfortable. They had no idea how to structure the narrative with the kids which led to a handful of subsequent problems that couldn't be fixed. About 80% of the drama was wasted on a single weak point of tension. The longer runtime made the tension even weaker. The following events didn't matter for how little investment the viewers have had in the first place. While the cast was mostly okay, Han Ga In didn't feel right in this drama.Was this review helpful to you?
Okay
It's a watered down tale with low tension and disappointing baddies which all made the insane runtime just a tad bit more unbearable. The entire story is confined to in-palace drama where the king likes a commoner while another woman grows to be super duper extra jealous. You may imagine how the story will pan out for 60 episodes. Its length turned out to be its biggest weakness, this is further emphasized with its first and last 5 episodes of which they were dull and redundant. It would've been significantly better with a short runtime since the main leads were likable. Speaking of which, the main leads scenes were generally enjoyable, they had a good chemistry but only when it's NOT romantic. Their romance sucked! Making the king physically a weakling was a nice touch. Although the drama is named after the historical character and we were shown and told about her having ambitious ideologies but we rarely got to see that side of her character in the drama, just a few scenes in the middle and around the end. Instead, we got a typical melodrama in a historical setting while borrowing small bits and pieces from the real historical character for world building. The main leads were doing a lot of heavy lifting to keep the drama afloat. The drama is okay but it doesn't have much to offer and the long runtime is really hard to justify.Was this review helpful to you?
Poor!
From the story to the characters behavior and their relationships were all made from pure revolting cringe. This drama's female lead had the perfect embodiment of the childish naive mentally handicapped female lead despicable trope. I truly dream of the day when Korean writers wake up to the realization that this behavior is NOT cute! Disguising this behavior under the umbrella of youth and innocence is borderline pedophilic. The leads' interactions and romance had to be the most painful part of the drama. But the pain didn't end there, the drama's length was utterly fatal. Excruciatingly long for all the bad reasons. As if they didn't edit the drama at all and just threw in all the footage they had filmed.Was this review helpful to you?
What even is this....
Shamelessly copy-pasting their homework from Police University (2021). Nonetheless, the drama had the worst combination of anything and everything which ruined any appeal for it. It would have been a tiny bit better if the drama didn't have any romance. Aside from the first 2 minutes and 42 seconds of the introduction scene of the first episode, this drama was a waste of carbon emissions.Was this review helpful to you?
It's about friendship
Kinda boring. Maybe because I was expecting better revenge schemes? In fact, it wasn't about revenge. Just a group of lost souls who needed a friend at desperate times. But even then, the theme was weak anyway.Was this review helpful to you?
YAWN!!!!
It's unbelievable how boring this drama was. Most of its run was wasted on a single plot that is the lost daughter. Other than the main characters, everyone else felt expendable and useless. The writer didn't put much effort in the side stories either. All of them were short and lacked development despite having 80 episodes. The romance was straight up forced and it only started to happen in the last 8 episodes. The drama clearly ran out of time or was cut short just by looking how they made the last 2 episodes. A quick abrupt time skip and a generic update of the character.Was this review helpful to you?
Hmmm....
Poor quality, low budget, scuffed effects, poor color grading, murky story line, half functioning cast and a handful negative IQ characters. Uninspiring and dull cases. Might be the worst "negotiation" themed piece of media I've ever seen. Still watchable, I guess.Was this review helpful to you?
Disappointing...
I don't know why but for some reason I had high expectation, it turned out to be a complete flop. One of the worst chemistry for a lead couple ever. They might as well replace the male lead with a random support character and it wouldn't matter. Most of the relationship is one sided, FL who is doing most of the heavy lifting and constantly being abused meanwhile ML barely there or reacting, all talk no action, it's truly exhausting to follow their relationship, especially with the unjustified hatred from the in-laws. It turned to a pure blind hatred.The drama had no clear direction, around mid way through they were making shit up as they go. Random plots and character appearing and disappearing. Soo Bin completely disappeared in the last 1/3 despite being a main character, they didn't even bother writing anything for her. Even though she had a heavy involvement/impact on the story early on. Yu Ri's father inclusion was the worst part about the drama. For the second half there was no story going on other than the leads' story, all side stories were dead by then.
I don't recommend this drama. Because of the amount of shit they were making up, they writers completely trapped themselves in a corner and the only option to get out is to introduce terminal illness to force some emotional investments from the viewers for the climax. Evidently, the ending turned out to be bad with how they decided to execute it.
Was this review helpful to you?
NO!
This is the most boring "hotel" themed drama I've seen so far, neither the staff nor the guests were interesting to follow. The character Kim Yun Hee is simply the worst part about the drama. The romances, relationships, pace, characters' writing, hotel management and the individual guest cases, all of which were hovering between bad and unwatchable. I don't even wanna bother elaborating any further. Not recommended!Was this review helpful to you?
Out of the 4 'Endless Love' installments, this one is the worst.
The mothers giving up their daughters to one another so easily was off putting, weird and irrational. This shitty start will linger with you for the remainder of the drama. Of course with such oldies they slap you with the classic terminal illness trope to give you an ending only your grandmother would love.Out of the 4 Endless Love installments, this one is the worst. Spring Waltz, Summer Scent and Winter Sonata were better than this. This one isn't well written, they push hard to maximize the angst and sadness while neglecting anything else. Song Hye Kyo was gorgeous and remained so 22 years later!
Don't watch it from Amazon/KOCOWA, they cut some scenes here and there, and later on from episode 9-16 they shave off 5 minutes from every episodes. Watch the TV version or even better the DVD version if you can which got extra scenes where every episodes reaches +1h and got separate deleted scenes.
Was this review helpful to you?
.
It's a decent thriller mystery with an interesting premise and a good performance by the lead. Namkoong brought a lot of character to his character while trying to work with what turned out to be a mediocre flawed script with the usual plot holes. The pacing became problematic halfway through, as it felt sluggish and failed to maintain an engaging momentum. Its length is a contributing factor to that. The village story wasn't big enough to work with. Both female leads were poorly written and their inclusion affected the drama negatively. There was a poor attempt to force a romantic plot line which felt contrived and disrupted the narrative coherence. It would have been fine if they were to commit and go through with it rather than abandoning that. Both female leads lacked chemistry with Namkoong whether it was friendship/professional/romantic. The ending followed a typical and predictable pattern for its genre resulting in an underwhelming and unsatisfying ending. There was clearly a massive bait trying to capitalize on the "multi season" trend.Was this review helpful to you?
Disappointing
Most of the cast were underperforming on their roles. Aside from the main female lead, there wasn't much appeal going for the drama. Which made the drama utterly boring with its insane 24 episodes nascence runtime, it felt painfully infinite. The drama had a poor pacing with every section/period. The first 10 episodes all served as an intro and could've been condensed down to couple of episodes at best. Some gisaeng "training montages" were laughable and straight up ripped from anime-esque training arcs followed by an instant skill power up, despite having all the time in the world to flesh out the gisaeng journey from an artistic point of view. A drama about gisaengs that doesn't put the effort and needed attention into the gisaengs. To top it all off, they couldn't even deliver with the ending, I hated the last episode, everything felt force for the sake of progressing the drama. By the way, Jang Geun Suk shouldn't be listed with the main cast since he's only there for a few episodes.Was this review helpful to you?
