The romance is unique. In many ways I find it extremely realistic. The actors made the romantic scenes look fun and the chemistry was strong. The type of love they portray is very meaningful too, because it's a couple that was first friends, and really consider each other family. It's not a flighty love, but a deep rooted love of loyalty and understanding. But even knowing this, love is challenging and there are often obstacles.
I think the re-watch value of this drama is high, because there are subtle things that can be missed. A lot of imagery and symbolism is used. The side stories and side characters were also really good.
I think if you're in the mood for a very artistic style drama which focuses on characters, it's a good way to go. If you want something fast paced where you don't have to think too much about it, Bubblegum might not really hold your attention for all 16 episodes. There's so much love and beauty in this drama though. I personally feel it's worth watching. I really enjoyed it a lot. I guess what I really loved is, it doesn't feel like every other drama I've watched; it has it's own lovely vibe. It pops and makes you feel happy, want to smile - like bubble gum.
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God bless you TV network and may you always entertain us with such dramas that I consider jewels. I can't possibly think of a any better way to say goodbye to year 2015 and welcome year 2016 than watching this beautiful masterpiece. I'm not the best writer and I'm not english native speaker, I don't have much vocabularies to support my reviews or to say the least about this drama so I really thought this over and over and decided to write one even though I'm sure it won't be good enough (that's how much I loved this drama).
I never had feelings for any show the way I have for this one, as soon as I open my eyes in the morning and as soon as I close them at night this drama never left my mind all day long. How long has it been for me to think about a drama during my daily life, and recall scenes and smile by myself just from recalling flashbacks? To be honest I don't think it ever went to that extent with dramas that I've seen, I don't think I got attached this deep before. I'm definitely going to have hard time letting go of this one and hard time getting back on track with other dramas.
Story
Taken from life, there is nothing new here everything you've seen and watched and might even have experienced. Two childhood best friends, never relaised their feelings for each other because of certain circumstances. Their friendship is so beautiful you'd wish you had someone like that next to you. I've seen friends turn into lovers but I've never seen it or felt the way I felt with this one. I love how simple yet deep this story is. As I'm writing this review now I find myself smiling...The story had so much depth had so much feelings to share. I find it hard to relate on the emotional and mental level when I'm watching dramas or shows because at the end of the day I'm very much aware that all this is created even if it's presenting real life it isn't real and those are actors.
However Bubblegum has managed to connect with me in every level possible I can't express enough how happy I am with this and how long I've waited for such a drama. To some of you this might be seen as a slow based story because unlike other dramas this drama does not have side stories, pretty much no events happening therefore it is taken as it's going no where and dull. I don't know how can I explain that this is not the case at all I really wish I can and I will try to. This is not a dull not a slow based story this is actually the THE ONLY drama that I've seen so far has something new each ep. In every ep the story has new feelings to share and new development of feelings. I never watched drama with a smile on my face all the time, I never cried in a happy scene in my life. In fact, of all the dramas that I've seen I cried in only two of them and they were sad scenes, I never thought that I would tear up for a happy scene. I guess I have completely forgotten that this is a drama I'm watching and those people aren't real, I felt for them I was supporting them I cheered for them I got hurt for them I felt their pain and finally I felt their happiness. Nothing was taken for granted in this story including their love it wasn't taken for granted and it wasn't easy to make it happen.
Acting
Lee Dong Wook as Ri Hwan: I love this guy, I respect him as an actor he never disappointed me even if his drama did. I was feeling sad for him because he's such a great actor yet his past dramas after Scent of a Woman were all flops. Everyone was telling him to take on a cable drama and I'm so glad he did!! I can never imagine Ri Hwan being anyone but LDW. This is when the character is written well enough which gives a great actor a chance to prove his worth and show his acting skills. Ri Hwan as a character is someone you will definitely be thinking "Can I have a friend like him" He is so sweet so kind and so caring, he chose to be traditional medicine doctor in consideration for those who fear hospitals (as his best friend did). I could't help but feel envious towards Haeng Ah for having such a friend. Ri Hwan's "Believe in me, if we are together we will be Happy".
Jung Ryeo Won as Haeng Ah: She is such a wonderful actress with a great smile, I always admired her which surprised me how come I have only seen few of her dramas!! This will change as I'm definitely going to be watching everything I missed on. I can't imagine anyone else as Hang Ah other than JRW she took in a simple yet deep character and gave it life and more depth I really believed that she is Haeng Ah and when I searched it turned out that she felt the character was very close to her personality (no wonder why it felt so natural). Haeng Ah is simple kind girl, she's very caring and sweet to everyone but not weak. Her character just like all the characters in this show felt real, not over the top not angels or devils but simply normal human beings with flaws. Haeng Ah's "The Happy Child is the meaning of my name, and I want to be happy".
Park Hee Bon as Yi Seul: One of the drama's strongest points, she portrays a very rich girl but how was it presented in this drama? very much different than all that I've seen so far, she is not skinny (which in korea means fat thick huge... you name it), her face is very much natural (I find it pretty) but according to their standards Big = Ugly, she doesn't dress up like all the rich female characters in every other drama, she is down to earth the most modest the simplest girl I've ever seen in drama and the most natural one. Korean dramas finally presented someone who I could see as normal and could be the girl next door, the girl I can see in my real daily life. Even though her self-esteem is broken because of her mother (which is also a character that is taken from real life as I know some mothers are like that) she still stands up for herself and makes a point without disrespecting her mother. She continues to be herself refusing to change anything she believes that is her true identity, yet she is still the obedient daughter who would listen to all her mother's demands as long as it does not involve her changing herself.
Kim Ri Na as Tae Hee: I love this character very much I love the kind of female character she is presenting. Tae Hee is a very straightforward woman, she speaks up her mind without the slightest of hesitation. Her spirit is strong, her personality is strong, she is open up with her feelings and is very comfortable to talk about them. She would go straight up on a guy and tell him that she likes him, she doesn't waste her time playing around with words or worrying how strange people would think about her. She may seem cold on surface because she's very honest but deep down she's very caring person and always looks out for the ones she love. I really admire her character and I wish to be as strong as her.
I would love to write about each and every character is this drama because I loved them all but because I loved all of them that's too many which would make review even longer. I love every single character, I love ALL the female characters (this never happened before). Every character was essential I wouldn't imagine it any other way.
Music
Beautiful!! I loved two OSTs
Because I by Lasse Lindh: This is my favourite, it's so beautiful that even my friends who haven't watched the drama loved the song so much they will watch the drama.
My Time Towards You by Alex: My 2nd favourite, I don't know how were they able to make such fitting OSTs 10/10 doesn't even begin to say it.
Rewatch
Are you kidding me? I'm rewatching this as soon as I submit my review. I have it saved on my computer.
Overall
When I talked about this drama I'm not just talking about the main couple's story, it's not just their happiness or their love story. It was about every single one of them every character got to share his/her story and love and their pursuit of happiness. This drama has different feel to it, so it may not appeal to some of you, I think it takes much more than reason of "entertainment" to watch this. I do hope that there are people who enjoy, love and appreciate it the way I do. All I can say is that I do very much from the bottom of my heart recommend this drama.
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What the drama starts out as what it is by the end vary vastly. While we do get clues about what the important parts of the story are, we never get a clear focus on what exactly we have to look out for. While I may blame the writing but I also have to praise it for not making it stick on to a single track and boring the hell out of me.
The story of the leads is compelling and you will find yourself rooting for them throughout the show. Their relationship goes beyond romance and it's like how they mean a lot to each other and without either of them their life is incomplete. They will make you cry and laugh. The main lead's jealousy over the female lead was cute. There are some frustrating parts to the story also like implied incest, illnesses, secrets, manipulative second leads and scheming mothers. While the comedy and romance is present in the beginning, the middle was frustrating as hell. Towards the end the writer tried to resolve much of the issues and did so more or less satisfyingly.
The strength of the drama and the reason I stayed glued on were Lee Dong Wook and Jung Ryeo Won. I thought they made a cute pair and their interactions were really interesting. I was also excited for Lee Jong Hyuk to be playing the rival love interest but his character hardly served any purpose. It was a pity because he is otherwise such a talented actor. The female second lead was also very underwhelming and I did not care for her at all. For me, most of the secondary characters in this drama failed to make an impact and the real reason to sit through 16 hours was purely the leads.
The OST of the drama is fantastic and has been on my playlist as and when the songs kept coming out. It really fits the indie mood the drama tries to portray and blends well with the situation. In fact, the soundtrack is one of the strengths of the drama.
While I think it was nice to watch it once, the story isn't quite unforgettable to make me rewatch the entire thing. I however loved the kissing scenes and the leads' scenes which I may check out on Youtube later.
Watch this drama for something different and fresh but don't expect too much out of it and be prepared to shed tears.
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just normal strong and sometimes week characters , they could be me or you .
It is mindset .
The ost , direction , cinematigraphy and acting are Daebaaaaaaaak
The lines are awesome and inspiring.
my favourite ost ;i love you more than i need you .
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This review may contain spoilers
Watching this, I was angry at almost everyone in it!
What I liked:1)The actors playing the younger Ri Hwan and Haeng Ah. Their story lines were interesting, and they did a good job. Episode 11 was good, we got to see the leads as their younger selves.
2)I suppose all of the actors did a good job with what they had to work with. It wasn't the actors themselves, but the characters that I had a hard time with.
3)Episode 15. Nice tie up and it would have been a good ending here.
Things that made me want to scream:
Let's start with the characters.
1) Ri Hwan appears to have cared for Haeng Ah forever. He was always there to pick up the pieces when her life fell apart, but never put himself out there. Then there's the fact that he was TOO nice. There was a girl that liked him (why?), she was basically a stalker, she knew that he liked someone else, but he kept meeting her and then he apologized to her?!?!
2) Haeng Ah - puts up with (and lives with) a man that completely ignores her, shows no emotion toward her, and can't even really have any kind of a deep conversation with her. She decides that she's had enough, breaks up with him, yet keeps meeting with him. Apparently, I was so irritated I started micro-watching, because her rings were driving me up the wall. Why do you need one on every finger?
3) Seok Joon - aforementioned boyfriend of Haeng Ah. This character had no personality at all. Completely flat affect throughout the entire drama, until one slight movement toward a grin in the last episode. She breaks up with him, he knows why, you know he has no intention of changing, yet still keeps coming around. Stalker much? Watching him was creepy and depressing.
4) Ye Seul - the girl that likes Ri Hwan. Again, this character had no emotion, other than depression, throughout the entire show. She even says that people "say I'm like misery". True words. She knows he doesn't like her, that he likes someone else, yet uses emotional blackmail to be with him "I'll get the best care for your mom if you'll be with me."
5) Haeng Ah's mother - she was terrible at the beginning of the story line wanted us to feel bad for her, but in some ways, it was too little, too late.
Those were my main issues. Then, you add to the fact that there were entirely too many story lines going on. Multiple couples, used-to-be couples, almost couples. Not enough time was spent developing a really good story for any of them.
Story:
At about episode 5, Haen Ah and Ri Hwan finally admit their feeling for each other. But by episode 7 she is waffling. They break up in episode 8 and there is abject misery all around until the very end of episode 13. The reasons for the breakups are weak, and there are numerous opportunities for the 2ML and 2FL to try to inveigle their way into the leads' hearts/lives. It was so irritating and unnecessary. I really disliked both second leads, and the fact that the leads kept meeting up with them made me dislike the leads as well. So, the leads were actually apart more than they were together, and I didn't feel chemistry between any of the characters. Episode 16 was just filler.
Music:
There was some song that was repeated multiple times and the beginning of it sounds like Jingle Bells, which totally took me out of the story.
I know that a lot of people really liked this drama, lauding it as having an Indie feel about it. In layman's terms, that just means that the story was slow. Which isn't a bad thing in itself, provided the drama is well-written and that you like and root for the characters. I was just counting down the episodes until I could be finished.
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The only tears I shed were from yawning
I’ll admit that I didn’t have high hopes for this drama, so I wasn’t the least surprised when I got to the end and felt completely and utterly deflated. Bubble Gum is just another case of two childhood friends turned workaholics who end up falling for one another, and everything is pretty much an eyeroll from thereon. Storylines like this can either be such a hit or miss depending on how it’s executed, and I don’t mean in terms of how it’s directed or produced, but whether there is an exhilarating character or plot development – both of which were absent throughout the whole 16 episodes.Looking back, Park Ri-hwan (Lee Dong-wook) and Kim Haeng-ah (Jung Ryeo-won) were meant to be these two very easy-going and likeable leads who were successful in their respective fields, private, low-key, and no-drama kinds of people. Yet somehow, these characteristics also happened to be their biggest downfall because they turned into these boring, uncharismatic, and passive puppet protagonists who never took it upon themselves to reel the story forward. Rather, the driving force ended up being the supporting characters, each of whom made you want to claw your eyes out. They were frustrating, annoying, and unbearable to watch for the opposite reason given above in describing Ri-hwan and Haeng-ah’s character traits. A few examples include but are not limited to the stereotypical rich mum or tiger mum, overbearing best friend, irritating or desperate second female lead AND male lead, and pushy/cringey ancillary characters who contributed nothing to the plot.
To make matters worse, the second female lead (Hong Yi-seul) was portrayed as this academically intelligent woman turned hopeless romantic caught up in a one-sided love. The woman was just clingy, relentless, and increasingly petty when it came to wanting to get Ri-hwan’s undivided attention, and understandable that one would get jealous upon hearing from her arranged suitor (Ri-hwan) in person that he was in love with his best friend, but nothing changed for this was not breaking news, and it was pretty clear from the first episode that Ri-hwan had absolutely zero interest in pursuing her but just stuck around to be the nice guy he was.
Similarly, Haeng-ah’s ex-boyfriend, Kang Suk-joon (second male lead) was just as infuriating to watch as Yi-seul. His character was stubborn, arrogant, and desperate, and not one bit of me felt sorry for him each time he tried to convince Haeng-ah into giving him a second chance but was instead turned down. Although he wasn’t a toxic or malicious person per se, his presence inhibited Haeng-ah’s growth in the drama and there was just no second male lead syndrome to simply put.
Perhaps the most annoying character though was Ri-hwan’s mother, Park Sun-young, who was controlling and slightly calculating. If she had accepted that Ri-hwan and Haeng-ah were meant to be together from the start, then she wouldn’t have had to make things so difficult for herself and the couple from the get-go. But every decision she made was outright selfish even though she claimed it was for the best for the two adults.
Other annoying characters included Haeng-ah’s best friend and co-worker, Noh Tae-hee, who became increasingly intense, annoying, and controlling as each episode went by, as well as a radio host in her 40s, Oh Se-young, whose character just screamed 'baby'. Although I liked that Se-young’s character challenged the stigma surrounding big age-gap relationships, and Tae-hee made all these attempts to woo a divorced man at her workplace, both the females’ acting was just too over the top for my liking, and their characters’ struggles seemed to overshadow that of Ri-hwan’s and Haeng-ah’s.
I couldn’t also help but get frustrated as a viewer when Ri-hwan was confronted by Yi-seul’s older brother, Hong Jung-woo, during a heated scene. Involving overprotective chaebol siblings who use bribes to get what they want is such an overused cliché which dumbs down the plot. This is even more so the case when Jung-woo is so afraid of heartbreak getting to Yi-seul and says to Ri-hwan of words to the following effect: “I want my sister to marry the man she loves. More than that, I want her to marry someone who loves her. If you can't change to be that person... why don't you go somewhere where you will not be seen. For example, a place where neither I nor Yi-seul can suddenly appear like this.” … *EYEROLLS*
In the end, the dialogue was watered down by petty remarks and mundane rants about love and life which had little impact on the plot. Although I appreciated this drama helping shed light on a lot of the stigma surrounding mental health including taboo relationships prevalent in modern society, I thought both of these aspects could have been better developed into something that was less cringeworthy. On the flipside, I gave it some well-deserved stars for the chemistry between the leads, and the radio show setting which acted as a place of solace for people to call in and talk about their personal problems.
“To lose something and to forget something ... There's no way to be sad about those things... If the bubble pops, then you can just blow another one. The small happiness that you feel when chewing bubble-gum... It's not any different from any other kind of happiness.” – Ri-hwan
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but there are some comedy in some scenes, but it is highly recommended to watch
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This review may contain spoilers
i couldn't bear more than that, it was really such a pain to continue even for the sake of lee dong wook
i already watched it triple speed starting from ep 04 till ep. 08
even when i watched it like that i was skipping scenes
i even jumped 3 episodes then i watch ep 11 on double speed then jumped again till ep 14
and GUESS WHAT !!!
i didn't miss anything
and there were too many repetitive flashbacks in a provoking way
as if just to fill the drama
the FL was too annoying for me
i don't know why but i hated her ..something wrong with her role, or her i don't know really
i feel no chemistry between the two main leads at all
the story was very slow motion very very
the rhythm was too
nothing new at all in the plot and the idea was totally consumed
i was more curious on other side stories
specially (park hee bon) when she met (alex) at ep 14
i wished their story was more earlier and more detailed
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A hidden gem
I can say that drama is a hidden gem because I only watched it now in 2024 when it was shown in 2015 it was a 9 year old drama but still it was that good. I heard so much about this drama but it never catches my attention, until one friend of mine recommended this she said it was good. And I decided to watched it. I didn't expect that I would loved it, its a melodrama that touches your heart.The story is about friendship and family. You will treasure more the value of your friends ahen you witness their downfall, you will never leave them instead you will guide them and let them learn from their mistakes.
Its about family wherein you will have to choose between your family or your lovelife. Its a vary complicated situation wherein you need to weigh in who you must follow because you don't want to hurt them.
Later on they come to realize that their love prevails. It maybe hard to manage but they faced it together. It maybe complicated at the beginning but they handle it well enough. It ended well because they are true within themselves, at the end they both gain a happy and fulfilling family and friends .
I can say that Lee Dong Wook don't aged, his a living vampire I guess 🤭, his so good looking now and then. 😊
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Rubberband not Bubblegum
It was an okay drama overall. The storyline was average and quite predictable. The acting was great!However, I feel that this drama was pretty stretched. It seemed like they just wanted to make it with 16 episodes of one hour each. They could have made it a miniseries with 10 episodes or even less than that. It's name should have been 'Rubberband' and not 'Bubblegum' seeing how stretched it is.
I also didn't like the female lead's character to some extent. She's a total Cinderella. But the actress who played her role did a great job.
After like 10 episodes or so, I just felt like dropping it but I was curious to see who Tae Hee would end up with. That's what made me watch it till the end.
I won't recommend it to anyone. You can watch it if you have that much patience and nothing else to watch.
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I'm planning a LDW watch this year and this was the 1st one on my list and I was disappointed. Not b/c he isn't good here but the characters, all of them are super annoying. I did love his chemistry with Jung Ryeo Won though. Her character was quite rude for most of the series and I really didn't like her...The adults in this series all behaved like 12 - 15 year olds. I hate shows like this.
I wish we could get a story where the leads aren't necessarily meant to end up together. They can just be friends and be close to each other. I also did not like the 2nd leads. Tae Hee and Ji Hoon did not belong together in the end. The storyline was just ridiculous. What sense does it make to be miserable for the sake of someone else's so called happiness?
The show did get better in the last few eps but by that point I didn't care.
3/26/23
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