ysadulset

First of all, I think it was a wise choice to drop all the episodes at once. Although there was quite a lot going on, I'd say the drama is still on the lighter side, and I think its momentum works much better as a binge.

Story-wise, I would've rated this much lower (probably would've dropped it too) if it were just about a clueless damsel-in-distress woman with amnesia and a smart manipulative man lying to her so he could keep her by his side. Because let's be honest, that's basically romanticized kidnapping and brainwashing. Well, this is still kinda that lol, but at least the drama knows its setup is ridiculous.

I was soooo relieved that they wrote Eunsae to retain her intelligence and wits. She doesn't simply believe everything she's told after waking up, and she keeps her doubts up for quite a time. She starts doubting Taeha immediately, and honestly, none of the village people involved are particularly convincing liars either, including Taeha himself lol. None of them even really tried so hard to convince her anyway lol. You can tell they want her to recover her memories as soon as possible for her own safety.

The story unfolded better than I had expected, and that's why I ended up writing a review in the first place. On paper, this is a countryside romance with the usual city girl meets rural guy setup and a reconnection thrown into the mix, but the story also keeps dipping into crime. Well, it did start at that before the cozy village setting. Those two sides continuously felt like they're taking turns instead of blending together. Taeha, especially, looks like a completely different person when he's dealing with his old life vs when he's hanging around the village and with Eunsae. The genre switching can be messy, so I wouldn't call the story perfectly balanced. There are moments where the darker side feels like it belongs to another drama that wandered into this light countryside rom-com. Still, I strangely had a lot of fun with it.

I also liked the leads a lot. Their chemistry carries a good chunk of the lighter scenes, and Hayoung is really, really pretty. She also has great comedic timing and gives Eunsae enough personality that the amnesia never turned her into a passive character. And Haein... yeah. His eyes are doing a lot of work here lol as usual. Taeha is a pretty quiet character, so there are plenty of scenes where his face has to do most of the talking, and he handles that really well.

I also appreciated that the drama doesn't make every conflict between the leads unnecessarily frustrating. There were several points where I expected the usual K-drama misunderstandings to drag things out. While I understand why that could be needed for this type of story, I was pleasantly surprised that it mostly avoided that. A few twists surprised me too, and it brought a bit of whiplash towards the end.


TLDR; The cast is charming, the romance is okay, the mystery actually kept me interested, and the whole thing moves along quickly enough that its stranger choices don't have much time to become annoying.

Yes, it's light, a bit absurd, and predictable. Yes, I enjoyed it.