Madame Antoine (2016)

I found the drama to be funny. If you are looking for something light and entertaining then go ahead. If you are looking for something deep or really about real psychology, then you might want to skip this.

Han Ye Seul really impressed me as a strong character who always gets to the bottom of the story. She may have been a little naive but was not the stupid female cliche. I liked that she looked for sincerity. The two second lead males Seung Chan and Ji Ho had cute interactions that were always fun to watch.

It was a weird idea to that experiment but it was interesting and entertaining enough to watch. The main problem was it dragged on too long. Also it feels like Soo hyun never learns and that was annoying. I still don't know what the point of the doctor was.

Overall, I found the drama to be a little over the top and unrealistic, but as a romantic comedy it was good. The romance part was a little disappointing though because too much of it was an experiment, at least to Soo hyun.

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Why is it that some dramas just have the need to jump aboard a train of serious plots just because it's been done successfully before and then glide all over the actual health issues with immature attitude, lack of communication and love-will-fix-it-all kind of a message?

I had to watch this over the span of two months because from the fifth episode on it just wasn't interesting enough; the plot was dragged and all over the place, most of the character actions didn't make any logical sense and the fact that they took a different setting just to force the typical couple dynamic of hot and then cold jerk and understanding and annoyingly forgiving woman just makes all of this feel like you're watching the same old thing all over again.

With these things in mind, I suggest completely letting your logic and reason fall asleep and then settling down to watch this because this isn't a show that can really be taken seriously...otherwise it would get offensive.

The story brings absolutely nothing new to the table except for the appearance of the third male lead. That's it; we have the cool-headed, cold-hearted male psychiatrist who doesn't believe in love and decides to use that in his actual work in an experiment that frankly insults the profession of a psychologist. Enter the main female who has some super powers given to her by the late Austrian queen (not the historical version of course, because that wouldn't be romantic and in the dipshit Korean drama heroine fashion, she needs to be ignorant), and uses them to help people overcome their hurdles in life. There were times when you could glimpse at how smart her character could've been but somewhere around the middle of the show that was all thrown to the wind and consistently dragged out so as to get to the 16 episodes cap.

The supporting characters very quite funny and entertaining to watch, especially the scenes of the other two ships but there was also problematic writing that made some genuinely lovable characters insensitive and dumb. The plot is also intertwined with a few cases that were there to announce that it's a psychology drama but all of that disappeared in the second half where I could see many commenters on Viki asking 'What happened to [insert character name]' because both the story and the writing were quite frustrating and lost at that point.

In regards to acting, I think everyone did a pretty good job. It's only due to reusing the same old K-drama type of characters which made the entire cast unbalanced at times and the script generally had an issue with character development.

The musical background was neat, I don't recall songs being out of sync with the overall feeling of the scenes but neither was there a particularly memorable tune.

I personally won't rewatch this drama, the draggy plot is simply not worth it.

There was a great chemistry between the leads in the kissing scenes (quite hot at that), but it fell short in the other ones; as much as they have tried to carry across this 'sizzling' romance. That is, of course, to be blamed on badly timed scenes coupled with immature ones. Sung Joon did some incredible acting but his character is built on layers upon layers of mistrust, deceit and lies, while on the other side, Go Hye Rim is gullible to the point of stupid which makes for a lot of lovely episodes that will make your blood boil. I also feel that a lot of key points of the plot were rushed or simply passed over as if nothing happened, they crammed a few cliches near the end and some characters who were important were never heard from again.

Truthfully, there is so much wrong with this drama that it would take a long time to summarize and I don't think it's worth it to take it so seriously. This is neither 'Kill me, heal me' nor is it 'It's okay, that's love' and I think it shouldn't be taken that way at all. With a lighthearted approach, this can be watched as a cute albeit cliched drama with a few steamier kissing scenes. Anything other than that is just pulling at the leg.

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