usagisaiko

Just curious, what do you mean--the drama doesn't really follow through with the premise to create a story that's actually as interesting/meaningful as it could be?

So true...even though I guessed pretty early that he was pulling strings and trying to sabotage his father-in-law once I realized how much he felt caged by his wife's family, he was still an enigma, and as you said, the excellent writing and nuanced acting kept me guessing about him the whole time...especially w/ his non-verbals...all those nuanced facial expressions! Hope you did get to marathon it later--i did, and kept thinking how glad I was that I didn't watch this drama week to week! There's so much more to appreciate all together, because there's no waste--nothing unnecessary at all (unlike so many dramas)...no endless repetition, pointless dialog, dragged out acting, etc.

Did anyone who didn't love this find it at least get better after the halfway point? Because I'm finding it dull with terrible writing/acting and all kinds of unnecessary dialog/scenes/characters and would've quit already if not for Nam Goong Min...(and not sure he can save it)

If it does get better though, I'd want to stick with it to not have wasted getting into the story, but if it continues in the same way, I'd rather not. Thanks for any advice you can give!

Halfway through and nope.

I dunno, I don't think there's anything wrong with you not feeling interested...I'd say that if you're in the camp that doesn't enjoy it from the beginning or finds it a bit dull, you probably won't love the whole thing, because now that I think about it, it's not so much plot-driven as character-driven. I think it's kind of a style thing and it seems like most people either love it from the beginning to end or don't love it from beginning to end.

Yes, you could say there is a twist toward the end, but it wasn't so much meant to be unpredictable (at least not to me) as the story as a whole isn't a whodunit, so to speak. I felt most of the actual twists were sprinkled throughout, although they are subtle and not meant to be the kind that purposely misleads you big time and then wham! surpriiiise! I would say that if you love the leads acting enough, there's tons more of that to enjoy, but if the characters or writing or style don't captivate you, you may not want to put too much more time in. While I loved this drama, I know how it feels to keep plugging away trying to hang on to see if things get better, and then feel it wasn't worth the remaining 8 hours to find out. Hope this helps!

I see where you're coming from; this summary was what was on a lot of sites, but I have edited it to try to reflect your fair point as it indeed is not a typical crime drama about a serial killer. Hope you find more dramas that are to your liking.

Nope, not overdone. At all. I guess I can understand if some of the younger set found it slow in that it wasn't an action thriller with car chases and villains constantly trying to snuff the heroes (which I often like, too). Instead, what was thrilling to me was the fact that this drama just didn't *need* all that. There was nearly zero unnecessary dialog, shots or underediting, and no expected gimmicks, which is makes this a new standard in multiple ways. Plus, the acting (including supporting actors!) was so brilliant on so many levels that even the nonverbal drama between characters made every minute more compelling.

People have compared this to Signal which I too thought was great--that is, until its conclusion that revealed that the writer hadn't thought her story through enough to actually tie up loose ends that we were trusting to be brought together (something that she even basically admitted). But this writer--possibly b/c it's a first bought screenplay--clearly took the time to think the plot, characters, and themes through thoroughly...and clearly wrote and rewrote this script with great care. Imho, this surpasses Signal by a long shot, at least as a whole.

There was no artificial conflict or pointless red herrings or overly righteous/all-knowing protagonists or superevil/hate-inducitng villains; in fact, what I found so thrilling wasn't even so much trying to figure out who was guilty of what. It was that the script and direction continuously made me ask yet more questions...but none of them pointless or meant to merely confuse. Plus, it was so refreshing to get two non-cliche ego-free main characters who aren't morally conflicted and yet are actually fascinating for those very reasons. It was truly a pleasure to watch from beginning to end! Oh, and did I mention No Melodrama? Yeah. ＼(*T▽T*)／ And a friendmance 10x better than a romance.

PHEW. Thanks muchly for clarifying. When I first looked at this page before starting to watch this, I was beyond mystified at the same thing (which I first thought had to be tongue in cheek! like, Heirs was better than this! ;)

But then tonight, I read some other comment that made me reread all this and wonder if at least this thread was relevant...and suddenly this drama was going to turn into a Signalesque type storyline...and then I sent myself into an overliteralpanicattack wondering if I was missing something...I think I simply fried my brain. "Maybe they're being literal and at the end our minds will be weirdly blown, or they're maybe talking about 9xTT and the 'case' is referring to that that blasted incense case and I've forgotten some part of the 9xTT plot that involved corruption, maybe it did? Or maybe it's this drama and jr high friend is gonna die and then the TT will pop out of nowhere?" @_@

If you want another crime drama, one that just finished recently that was really good was CRISIS: Kouan Kidou Sousatai Tokusouhan. I'm not comparing it with this but it looks like you watch a lot of Jdramas so you probably are familiar with the feel of a non-comedy crime Jdrama.

(Also, If you haven't seen many Chinese crime dramas, you might enjoy some from the past couple years too that include some romance, like any of the ones based on Ding Mo novels.) Hope you find something good!

Is this a major spoiler for this drama? Really hope not because if so my brain is totally sad and deflated at the thought as I was enjoying the ride...if so, please delete!

So true! When I first saw the synopsis, I thought, oh here we go again. Too many dramas with the device of the emotionless protag whose brain has been damaged, but is smarter because of it. And the actors end up gradually showing too much of a range of emotion because of the story's romance element.

Although now that I think of it, Jang Hyuk did do a great job in Beautiful Mind portraying his character according to his empathyless brain; I felt it was mostly the annoying teenage-looking female lead (and how weird she played their relationship) who ended up detracting from his character being as interesting as it could've been. JSW's character and relationships are also written so well, that this element is so much more believable and fascinating...

It only just started airing, we're a few episodes in. I don't think it's been subbed yet

Just curious, how so? Did you watch/like the first season from years ago?

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM

Question for novel readers (I've worded this without spoilers)
I was so into this drama while it was on...and while I didn't exactly get bored when it began to lag, I think it felt like everything went downhill when suddenly a certain character was made to change drastically in such a way that was technically believable and interesting but not in the way that change progressed in his character arc.

It felt like it was forced on him simply for the purpose of the author's intended outcome of the love triangle, and I'm just wondering for anyone who read the book, does the relationship that basically gets starcrossed (so that the other one can blossom) feel the same in the novel? Or does it all just feel tragic without feeling in that last section also? Even if I favored him, it's not like I was against the other relationship. It just seemed like the other one was forced to change just to make the other seem more righteous, but maybe the novel makes more sense.

Thanks for any insight you can share, feel free to hide spoilers!

I hear you, Lori...it throws things off, right? Then again, usually Koreans play Japanese in Kdramas and movies, and the accent is rarely not noticeable to me, even for actors who are proficient in Japanese, but it's no big deal since the main audience is Koreans anyway. I think it's even less of a big deal for Jdramas that are still far less for a foreign audience, especially when they don't have very high budget. I just have a problem with bad accents when it comes to film, especially high budget ones!! Especially the ones where you can't understand hardly anything! Recently saw a Korean film where one of the main supporting actors sounded so garbled it was clear he just memorized lines phonetically, and that somehow made the proficient Japanese speakers seem even less realistic...so I do wish there was more attempt in general to find more proficient speakers of a second language to play a character who is a native speaker, even on lower budgets.

At least it's not as bad as Hollywood films/TV when the American character is supposed to be a polyglot speaking some Asian language, or the character is of a different nationality and the language is totally butchered--talk about cringeworthy, yet the main American audience generally wouldn't notice. And there is no short supply of native speakers or fluent ESL actors in the U.S.! That's what I remind myself whenever a character who's supposed to be fluent in English sounds like they're reading memorized gibberish, or a random British white person is playing a Russian, etc... ;)

It should be 10 or 11 eps as most weekly j-dramas like this are, as it isn't historical or a 'soap opera' style melo, and probably won't be a short one (i.e. 7 eps or less) since the original kdrama was 16 eps...I could be wrong, but I hope that helps!

Omg, thank you so much!!!! What a great project, I will definitely have to check out other old ones at this site! Btw sweet profile pic, was *just* thinking today I need to watch that again

Oh yayyyy thanks for letting me know, I'm looking forward to it.

If you didn't find it (and yes, the video is broken on most sites that supposedly have it), you can see it on Youtube in parts. https://youtu.be/IOL7ycAe-YM