Slow Start, Strong Turnaround
DISCLAIMER: The review is based on the first 2 episodes only. No spoilers, only early impressions.
The drama started off quite weak for me, to the point where I watched half of the first episode on 2x speed and even skipped some scenes that felt unnecessary. A first episode should hook you enough to watch it normally, and unfortunately this one didn’t. I’m generally very weak when it comes to political corruption plots, they usually bore me unless there’s something else to balance them out. From the premise, I thought this drama would have enough going for it to keep me engaged early on, but ep 1 focused on the darkest, most frustrating side of corruption. It was slow, overly long, very heavy, and dragged out so much that it became boring rather than immersive.
The only reason I pushed through ep 1 was because of why I started the drama in the first place:
- the trope of a character going back in time to fix past mistakes, which I find extremely intriguing
- Ji Sung — one of my favorite actors, which alone made me want to give this drama a fair chance
Even episode 2 took its time it still needed at least 30 mins to finally reach the actual turning point where the main character resets his life and goes ten years back into the past. But once that happened, the pacing and engagement improved significantly. I stopped fast forwarding, watched at normal speed and by the end of the ep 2 I was genuinely glued to the screen, wanting to know what happens next. By that point, the drama had finally found its footing and did enough to keep me seated and eagerly waiting for next week’s episode and I’ll definitely be pressing play as soon as it airs.
That said, I still have some personal complaints. The “over-the-top” acting meant to come off as comedic didn’t really work for me (as expected for my taste). There were quite a few cartoonish, overly animated moments where characters screamed too much or acted in an exaggerated, theatrical way which pulled me out of the story a bit. In those moments, the tone felt inconsistent and unserious. Objectively speaking, the acting is solid overall, but those choices didn’t fully land for me.
Another issue I noticed is the inconsistency in the main character’s personality. The shift is so sudden that it makes you question whether this is even the same person. In the present time he’s portrayed as morally gray with an unpleasant personality that annoyed me throughout the 1st ep, and even with the explanations given, I couldn’t really like or root for him. Then, once he goes ten years back, he suddenly turns into this chaotic, unserious, almost anime-like “hero” type, trying to be cute and righteous. While I understand the reasoning behind this change, it still feels strange because mentally, he should still be the same man that only went back in time. The contrast sometimes makes the character feel more cartoonish than believable, though I can accept it for now given the circumstances.
Overall, the drama had a rough start for me but it managed to recover by the end of ep 2. Despite my issues with pacing, tone, and character consistency, the core concept and Ji Sung are strong enough to keep me invested. For now it has the potential to rise if the story continues to tighten its pacing and balance its tone better.
The drama started off quite weak for me, to the point where I watched half of the first episode on 2x speed and even skipped some scenes that felt unnecessary. A first episode should hook you enough to watch it normally, and unfortunately this one didn’t. I’m generally very weak when it comes to political corruption plots, they usually bore me unless there’s something else to balance them out. From the premise, I thought this drama would have enough going for it to keep me engaged early on, but ep 1 focused on the darkest, most frustrating side of corruption. It was slow, overly long, very heavy, and dragged out so much that it became boring rather than immersive.
The only reason I pushed through ep 1 was because of why I started the drama in the first place:
- the trope of a character going back in time to fix past mistakes, which I find extremely intriguing
- Ji Sung — one of my favorite actors, which alone made me want to give this drama a fair chance
Even episode 2 took its time it still needed at least 30 mins to finally reach the actual turning point where the main character resets his life and goes ten years back into the past. But once that happened, the pacing and engagement improved significantly. I stopped fast forwarding, watched at normal speed and by the end of the ep 2 I was genuinely glued to the screen, wanting to know what happens next. By that point, the drama had finally found its footing and did enough to keep me seated and eagerly waiting for next week’s episode and I’ll definitely be pressing play as soon as it airs.
That said, I still have some personal complaints. The “over-the-top” acting meant to come off as comedic didn’t really work for me (as expected for my taste). There were quite a few cartoonish, overly animated moments where characters screamed too much or acted in an exaggerated, theatrical way which pulled me out of the story a bit. In those moments, the tone felt inconsistent and unserious. Objectively speaking, the acting is solid overall, but those choices didn’t fully land for me.
Another issue I noticed is the inconsistency in the main character’s personality. The shift is so sudden that it makes you question whether this is even the same person. In the present time he’s portrayed as morally gray with an unpleasant personality that annoyed me throughout the 1st ep, and even with the explanations given, I couldn’t really like or root for him. Then, once he goes ten years back, he suddenly turns into this chaotic, unserious, almost anime-like “hero” type, trying to be cute and righteous. While I understand the reasoning behind this change, it still feels strange because mentally, he should still be the same man that only went back in time. The contrast sometimes makes the character feel more cartoonish than believable, though I can accept it for now given the circumstances.
Overall, the drama had a rough start for me but it managed to recover by the end of ep 2. Despite my issues with pacing, tone, and character consistency, the core concept and Ji Sung are strong enough to keep me invested. For now it has the potential to rise if the story continues to tighten its pacing and balance its tone better.
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