The MDL profile of Choi Ji Woo states that she is "considered one of South Korea's most beautiful women." I don't get it. She seems more like a fit grandmother to me. When she is in a scene with Jin Ki Joo, there is a definite disconnect. That made much of the plot unrealistic to me.
Such surface issues aside, this was written for seventeen-year-old girls, and was much too long. It should have been made as a two-hour movie instead. Wait! It was! With Lee Tae Ran! If I can find it, I will watch it.
I enjoy a complicated plot from time to time, but this stretches the trope to the breaking point. Too many improbabilities had to be successful for the final outcome to be reached.
In the final analysis, this was pretty silly. The actors, make-up crew, and set designers did their best, but the script was written by an eight-year-old.
It is hard to believe that, in his entire life, Ta Gon never cut himself shaving, nor received a cut while learning to use a sword, nor got his lip cut during a fight. Everyone should have already known that he was an Igutu. Why doesn't he have purple lips? Edit: Much of this gets covered in episode 8 ( Part 2, episode 2). Doesn't matter -- in the middle of episode 9, I realized that I didn't care anymore and dropped it.
Episode 16 -- Two different people went off of the roof of a building, and both landed on the roof of cars, because that seems to be the only legal place to land in Korean dramas.
Lee Elijah is the most beautiful woman in the world. Her character tried to run down two people with her car, but did not get punished for it.
I hate the lazy writing that sometimes pops up in Kdramas. In episode 9 Eom Yun Hwa poisons Kim Dan and try to throw her off a balcony, yet at the beginning of episode 10 police think that they have nothing to charge Eom Yun Hwa with. In Korea, it's okay to murder police?
Did anyone else wonder why the Ham Gil Soon and Choi Do Hyun characters did not end up as inmates for attempted murder of Lee Jae Hwan? Ham Gil Soon was also complicit in the attempt on Na Yi Je.
Kim Ok Bin and Lee Elijah, both at the same time. I love them both, so I expect to enjoy this. The subs on two servers at Kissasian were awful. I switched to Dramanice. The subs there seem to be okay.
I found the plot to be extremely thin. I began watching at 1.5 during the second episode and continued like that most of the way. The story for each individual continued as I thought it would from that second episode. Serious disappointment.
Something must be wrong with the MDL algorithm. A couple of months ago this had an average rating of 6.7 or 6.4. How is it now 7.4? 184 users! That is impossible. It used to be included in the listings, when the basic requirement was 250.
It seems that whenever I question the acting ability of an actress, I get a bunch of hateful comments, but I really have to ask what Kwon Nara brings to any drama she has been in. Back in the 1930's, Katharine Hepburn was in a play, and writer Dorthy Parker quipped, "Miss Hepburn ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B." When I watch Kwon Nara in anything, I think of that quote. Whether she is supposed to be happy or sad, angry or elated, she looks the same. Compare her work in Itaewon Class to that of Kim Da Mi. For those who do not understand the quote -- it is sometimes said of a superior actor that he/she "ran the gamut of emotions from A to Z."
I loved this movie so much that I bought a copy of the dvd. It is a remake of a Hollywood film from the 1940's. I had to buy a copy of that on vhs. The Hollywood version is mediocre, so this Chinese version is a vast improvement. I quickly located other films of Xu Jing Lei and was terribly disappointed. Letter From An Unknown Woman was, as far as I am concerned, her crowning achievement.
Such surface issues aside, this was written for seventeen-year-old girls, and was much too long. It should have been made as a two-hour movie instead. Wait! It was! With Lee Tae Ran! If I can find it, I will watch it.
Edit: Much of this gets covered in episode 8 ( Part 2, episode 2). Doesn't matter -- in the middle of episode 9, I realized that I didn't care anymore and dropped it.
Lee Elijah is the most beautiful woman in the world. Her character tried to run down two people with her car, but did not get punished for it.
Kim Ok Bin is wonderful.
The writing could have been better.
For those who do not understand the quote -- it is sometimes said of a superior actor that he/she "ran the gamut of emotions from A to Z."