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6
Too empty....
One of the most boring love squares ever! There was no need to even have it. It would have been infinitely better to spend the time in developing each couple individually since Bo Ra & Dae Ro were the weakest part in the drama. Speaking of which, you can't even count Bo Ra & Dae Ro as main characters, they are more like support characters throughout the entire run. Meanwhile Ah Ri and Joon Soo are the real leads. Speaking of characters, the adults' story was dull and uneventful. The same thing can be said about the other side stories. The drama just feels too empty. Too much time was wasted on Ah Ri's life that there wasn't any room for any development elsewhere. I wanted to see real development between the step sisters. Anyway, the drama had a decent start but there are just too many shortcomings.Was this review helpful to you?
MY EARS!!
Things were kinda fine until the events started to loop endlessly in a corporate setting. This is exactly how most of these daily dramas die and wither away. This drama is manufactured specifically to trigger the viewers by having constant intense shouting with every other sentence, boosted OST playing every 2 seconds to accompany the shouting, unbearable archetypes like the intense hatred and favoritism of the stepmother for one daughters over the other, and the stupid amnesia. The male lead character became absolutely dull after he had the accident, in fact, the entire drama turned for the worse after that.Was this review helpful to you?
Uhh...
Oh god! It's an amnesia drama, the most intense kind too. It feels like the humans who worked on this dram come from an alternate reality or a parallel universe. This drama by far had the highest concentration of "buffoonery" in any makjang out there. Zero chill, ridiculous over the top and a "bruh moment" every other scene. All in all, not in a good way because this is the only thing the drama had going on for it, that is to throw as much makjang elements as fast as possible. The writer/director were speed running any% no-loot the human brain tolerance to "bullshit receptivity". Anyway, wouldn't recommend.Was this review helpful to you?
NAH.....
The drama must have a big identity crises since it couldn't decide between being a family drama or makjang, constantly switching even within the same episode. Right from the beginning, EPISODE 1, when one of the family members took picture of Ji Na's necklace and, for absolutely no logical reason, put it on the internet, I could already smell the fuming hot garbage the writers are about to create. Guess what? I was 100% correct. This drama tips heavily on the baboonish side of the makjang scale.Although Uhm Jung Hwa did a great job, but it's impossible for me to view her as an evil character. I didn't like how she suddenly became evil for no reason from episode 12. We were initially presented by a strong independent Yoo Ji Na (Uhm Jung Hwa) but 15-20 episodes later the writers made her turn to a bag of dirt and completely ruined any build up she had.
The drama had a strange pacing, it changes weirdly every handful of episodes with the biggest change came from switch between episodes 30 & 31 which created a big gap and disconnect in the story. Speaking of switching and change, I think the switch of the female lead ruined the drama.
Jang Hee Jin is absolutely a great actress but she just didn't fit well in this case. They even went on to replace/recreate all of the flashback scenes.
Another form of change/switching came with the love interest which shamelessly switched three times. It was straight up disgusting watching Hae Dang being with one man while sobbing/begging/crying/caring/dreaming/lusting/bitching/loving/chasing/pitying/thirsting/craving/running around for another man. Despicable and uncomfortable to watch! On the other spectrum, Jung Hae Jin was absolutely the only "good" part about this drama and nothing else.
After being the nastiest humans ever to walk the earth, suddenly everyone became angelic and have the highest morale of any other human for the ending. Great writing! It feels like their budget was small, it was mostly filmed indoor between 2-3 family houses with very limited number of outdoor scenes. I feel sorry for this cast to be involved in this atrocious project. The drama that followed it after finishing serializing "Man in the Kitchen (2017)" was much better than this. Can't recommend this, barely 3/10 for the cast's sake.
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Amazing...
I absolutely love this director, it's been 10 years since his last project, I really hope he comes back to direct a modern drama. Yang Dong Geun and this director are the perfect match. I'mma say the obvious, they don't make them like this anymore. This is the earliest performance I've seen from Gong Hyo Jin so far and it's amazing, vibrant and full of life. The OST was straight up a certified banger! It's had been 1 eternity since I rated a drama 8.5 and it's well deserved.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?
Lazy writing
The insane amount of plot conveniences ruined the drama and killed even the slightest potential it might had which made the writing seems abysmal. Not only it was stupid with every step along the way but it also removed the tension with any serious scene. Moreover, we were over fed the same repeated information like babies. Even if we were to disregard all of that, the pacing was terrible with a big empty gap of nothingness in the middle parts. None of the side cast were interesting enough to make the middle parts worthwhile. Aside from the first episode, there wasn't much appeal left.Was this review helpful to you?
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Interesting concept but fails to deliver
That was kinda boring. We are barely given information about the mystery, it's mostly a slice of life with loads of repeated scenes. The actually story is no bigger than a 2-3 hours movie. Almost nothing happens in the first 5 episodes, the story starts at episode 6 with tiny bits of small teasers every now and then. Most of the "previous life" story is condensed in episode 15 and half 16. At least it was nice visually.On another note, I prefer to see Yoo Ah In in movies rather than long format dramas. He was also the main and the only highlight of this drama.
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NO!
I usually like Sung Joon but this is by far his worst project to date. At this stage of his career he shouldn't accept such projects. There's almost no story, just a very long sequence of plane clips. Who ever edited this turned up the saturation to a disgusting level. No wonder this was delayed for years because it's a failed project, dead on arrival. Absolutely a waste for the cast time and talent.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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Decent
It's good but not quite up there. It's a bit unbalanced, some episodes were good and memorable while other ones were lacking any appeal like the depressed customer on a rainy day episode. The episodes that focused on the staff were generally better. It could have been easily trimmed down a bit for a better experience. One more thing that held the drama back was it's lack of commitment. The stories/relationships/interactions of the staff were always kept to a surface level which some may see this as lacking substance. The cast was diverse and kept you interesting. Choi Daniel and Shim Eun Woo were clearly the ones that stood out the most. Going into this drama I was worried that this is just a long format of a short drama quality but it turned out to be fine.Was this review helpful to you?
Nah
Tacky introduction and weak first episode that doesn't encourage the viewer to continue. While the rest is just your typical washed up OCN thriller. Nothing attractive or interesting about it. They could've taken the story in an interesting direction but that would be too much to ask for. I appreciate OCN cutting down the runtime but even then, it's still unnecessarily long and filled with irrelevant nonsense. I'm afraid Jang Ki Yong played the same character too many times that he fell into the vicious cycle of typecasting.Was this review helpful to you?
If ony they put some effort into it...
Nice radiohead intro and nice pink aesthetics but that's where the nice things end. The drama threw at you an enormous mixed emotional package that was never untangled adequately, not even remotely close. The shorter than usual runtime isn't an excuse, 7-8 hours should've been enough to deal with it.Was this review helpful to you?
Another lazy one...
This is not a good writing. Overdosing on misery will only backfire in this case. Subjecting a single character to all of the common tropes of sadness will lose the emotional impact and genuine human connection. This is also resulted in making the drama feels infinitely longer, you'll keep wishing they just die already. Yet, that wasn't the worst part about the drama. The entire murder/mystery/investigation element was effortlessly bad. At one point the entire nation was chasing them until they gave up, no one cared and no proper follow up. The drama could've been easily cut in half without affecting the narrative at all.Was this review helpful to you?
