The Golden Spoon (2022)

My spoon is too big

This was a fresh and exciting spin on the monkey's paw concept. It was full of clever plot twists, intense personal and familial drama, and of course lots of social commentary on how being poor and being obscenely wealthy can both wreck your life in certain ways. It was interesting to see what did and didn't change about the various golden spoon swappers' personalities after they assumed their new identities. I appreciated the moral complexity of their choices and circumstances. I do think the show struggled at times to handle the ramifications of big time jump that kicked off the second half of the drama. The characters didn't always feel like 10 years had actually transpired in their lives. The love lines and potential love triangles were conceptually interesting but fell flat in execution, there was not one ounce of chemistry between any of the potential romantic pairings.

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A Good Watch, Despite Some Flaws

Ok I finally finished the series and after finishing the series, I have some thoughts to share. The initial episodes, around 1-6, were definitely great. However, things became messy later on due to the excessive number of golden spoons. Despite this, I found the show entertaining and couldn't wait to see what would happen next. The ending was really satisfying and well-done.

Overall, I wouldn't say the show was bad - that would be too harsh. The acting by the entire cast was solid and the soundtrack was excellent. The only downside for me was some of the plotlines. Despite this, I would still recommend giving the show a watch. I'd give it a 7/10, which means it was a good watch in my opinion.

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The story has alot of twist and unexpected events. The leads acting are very good and on point. Shoutout to our maknae Sunjae. His acting improved and did really well in this drama. I hope he gets more drama where he is the main lead. The music was also catchy. I just wish 2nd male leads character had more development cause whether he is poor or back to his rich self he seemed to be a bit weak. The parents of both male leads are well portrayed and you would love to hate Tae Hyeong’s dad. I don’t know how the rest of the episodes will go but I have high hopes. Will complete the series then update my review.

Edited: The series ends as how it should be. The male lead learned it the hard way. The villains karma came and I love how the 2nd male leads growth and his heart which is stronger than the lead. Salute in him choosing what makes him happy and not regaining his luxurious life. Though tempted he made the hard choice and sticked to it. Not everyone can do that.

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I like dramas that offer up something original while including some clever twists and turns. Thus, I enjoyed The Golden Spoon a lot. The drama attempts to illustrate how helpless and powerless the poor can feel and the lengths some might go through to claw their way up to become rich and powerful. There was a lot of good acting in this drama but the biggest revelation to me was Lee Jongwon, who played Hwang Taeyoung. He managed not only to switch convincingly between his rich and poor iterations but also made me care about a character who started off as seemingly entitled, shallow and flawed. I think Lee Jongwon stole the show from Yook Sungjae, who is no acting slouch himself.

I recognize that the Hwang Hyeondo character was one-dimensional and that his apparent omnipotence was not believable. Plus, as another reviewer also noted, there seemed to be an excess of golden spoons floating around towards the end. But the drama was so much fun that I didn’t really care.

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Good Enough

Korean Drama " The Golden Spoon " is a webtoon live action.

The series is a character drama, thus, it focuses more on its main leads, rather than the romance, which was okay, but, fortunately, didn't overshadow the main story. Rather, it compliment it and was there to add a few touches of emotional frustration.

On the other hand, the drama weighted the family bonds more, compared to any love story. The family drama was on point and was rightfully enough intense.

However, the drama after the first part, got confusing, as they kept adding golden spoons. Thus, it was hard to keep track on who was who, or whom they used to be.

The performances, in addition, were great by all the actors and actresses in the cast.

So, overall, eight out of ten.

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Not all that glitters is gold

I really loved this drama full of twists and turns.

Lee Seungcheon is a man of a thousand faces capable of transforming himself several times and fighting strenuously in business, in love and for his life, because even the life of a rich person like Hwang Taeyong's is somewhat problematic.

Even if only at the end with the death of his real father, Seungcheon really understood that what makes you truly free is not wealth but living peacefully, spending time by the sea with the person you love, hoping that one day she will be able to return his love.

A round of applause goes to all the amazing actors and actresses who catapulted us into the imaginary world of the golden spoon.

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Despairsm

There is a constant change up in the status quo through out the series that keep up the pace of the episodes. The portrayal of the endless pit of poverty is brutal, where everyone is subjected to the fires of desperation in this morally complex and ethically ambiguous exploration and study of characters. The supernatural entity in the form of an halmoni selling magical golden spoons to people desperate enough to see her, (though Joo Hee seems to be the exception to carry out an errand for her) is no guardian angel, but rather an agent of chaos offering opportunities to sew discord and mayhem to any type of person, regardless of their intentions. All the customers receive and cast the fates that they forge for themselves and their victims. It is pretty convenient of her to forget to give out all the rules at once, so everyone only knows more if they revisit her or someone who knows informs them.

Seung Cheon gave up his family in order to satisfy his ambitions with the excuse to help them in the way that money only can but though he loves them, he loves being elevated from being poor more. Tayeong who is the unwitting victim of the non-consenting life swap chose to stay as Seung Cheon to be with the "best parents in the world" but a lot of his choice is also colored by him not retaining direct memories of his life as Tayeong which are supplanted to those of Seung Cheon's and can't even parlay the skills he retains into a way out of poverty until the far future where it's also because of the years of monetary help set up by Seung Cheon for their parents to have a business and residence with cheap rent.

I like how the show kept it ambiguous as to whether Tayeong killed Joo Hee's father or not because although he held on to Seung Cheon's hands until the latter slipped into the river, but he did leave him for dead before changing his mind mid being driven away by his driver Moon Gi. Tayeong could have had a moment of weakness or even a mere accident that he had forgotten. I never thought he was the school shooter though, which turns out to be his step uncle Jun Tae who is Yo Han's biological son. It's strange that Yo Han/ new Hyeon Do didn't do the math and figure out that one at all though he knew that Jun Tae is his second wife Sun Hye's son and not brother. Her never acknowledging Jun Tae as his mother even when he already knows the truth was pretty cruel though he's a murderous sociopath.

There is a loud omission to how Joo Hee survived with just a few bills in her pocket. She is an idealistic, naive heiress who worked at a convenience store for fun and believed that money is not important until all she had to inherit was her murdered father's debts and 500,000 in leftover slush funds that her selfish brothers gave her that was quickly stolen from her and she kept looking for in the 10 years time skip when she already has her own apartment and is employed full time as a journalist. What did she do for money and housing as a high school senior and college student? Did Seung Cheon secretly help her from afar as well? She also doesn't really challenge Seung Cheon on ethics of his choices which seemed like she was a character that was set up to do. Even though she gives some lip service to Yu Jin, insisting Seung Cheon will go back to his own life.

In the end, Seung Cheon cannot escape the cycle of greed that the golden spoon enables, barely escaping death when the gardener switches lives with him and dies in his stead. He no longer has his own memories and becomes a different person until Joo Hee found him. She continues to love him for the person he was when they first met, ignoring the greedy, selfish person he became that throws friends under the bus, rationalizing everything along the way. Seung Cheon's mother and sister should have been able to know the truth as well and make their own decisions as to how they feel about his and Tayeong's choices. He deserves a thrashing by his sister for sure. His father who always felt guilty for not being able to monetarily support his family and apologetic for being Seung Cheon's father still felt rightful anger at Seung Cheon for abandoning his identity to be a rich kid with different parents though in the end accepted his decision that Tayeong chooses to be his son and his birth son doesn't.

It's fun that both of the To My Star leads had supporting roles in this show as the bully Jang Goon and the driver Moon Ki. They both make it to the end with Jang Goon as Yu Jin's husband and Moon Ki as Seung Ah's husband who watches along with the rest of the family of Tayeong's rise as an successful webtoon author writing about The Golden Spoon, which seems awfully dangerous to give an how to guide for a very real supernatural object that the granny entity continues to sling to anyone willing to ditch their parents and steal someone else's life.

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Character/ relationship development and plot twists

I really enjoyed this drama, the best thing about this drama for me was the relationship between Seungchun and Tae Yong which really doesn't developed until the second half of the drama. This drama was kind of slow because a lot of the plot twist, relationships (non-romantic) and essentially the more interesting storylines do not come in until around episode 10.

I did not like the romance in this drama. There was a huge time jump in this drama and I don't understand how the romantic relationships between all of the characters remained the same during and after this period. The only good relationship this time created was the parent/son relationship between Tae Yong and Seungchun's parent's and I would even say a nice relationship between Seungchun and Tae Yong's 'father'. I loved Munki's relationship with Tae Yong and Seungchun, despite them both being the same person to Munki, their relationship with Munki was VERY different. Tae Yong and Munki had a brotherly relationship. (I don't watch BLs and usually don't randomly ship guys but) I started shipping Seungchun and Munki, heck they were the only 'couple' I shipped.

I preferred Yu Jin over Joo Hee. Unlike every other charecter in this drama Joo Hee was the only one who stayed persistently the SAME, no character development, nothing, she is so self-righteous to the point that it was annoying. Yu Jin made mistakes, but she changed a lot throughout this drama from being selfish and cold, to someone who actually cared about Seungchun. Joo Hee was the only character I did not like and I wish we got to see a lot more of the brotherly bond between Seungchun and Tae Yong instead of the romantic storyline between Seungchun and Joo Hee. (SPOILERS) I would have been fine with her had she just stopped after discovering how Seungchun swappeed places with Tae Yong, but then she spent the rest of the drama begging him to switch back, to be himself etc, despite the fact that Tae Yong was happy being Seungchun and Seungchun had already been Tae Yong for over 10 years, at this point he had no right to switch back.
I wish it was Yu Jin and Seungchun at the end and Tae Yong and Joo Hee, both pairs would have been perfect for each other.

I will not go into detail about the plot twists, but I feel like it was quite predictable. You see, every single person who has used the golden spoon, for some reason in this drama, have the exact same view on poverty, on how "being poor is a crime".

I liked the ending of this drama, but I wish we got Tae Ying and Seungchun's bromance instead of Yun Ji and Seungchun.

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Golden Spoon Golden Life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this show. The show started out really great for the first few episodes until it starts to go downhill but kind of quickly picked themselves up along the way. I wasn't expecting the last ep to be this twisted but I'm glad it turned out that way. I really like the ending where they talked about hyundo and yeojin part.

At some point, the second male lead and main female lead were quite useless when they build up the story all about them. Its a shame but I felt like their characters could play a more important part. But Na In woo's appearance really.... strong and powerful and important to bring the story to a next level. Acting was phenomenal especially by the two dads. Although at the ending, I wish hyundo could act a little more sad.

Overall the OSTs are great and the story is great. I look forward to their future works and I think this drama really gave a whole new level of meaning in life to some people. I like how relatable the story is especially at such a moment in life.

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Unique and Thrilling Drama!

This drama has one of the most interesting and socially relevant plots I’ve ever seen. The acting is superb and though many of the characters are flawed, their flaws hi light their humanity. I don’t want perfect characters, so I appreciate the anti-hero qualities to many of the main characters. There is a fair share of ridiculousness and a few characters are one -dimensional and cliche,but it doesn’t take away from the talent displayed and the message of the drama. I think many of the harsh reviews are from viewers who possibly forget that no one is truly good , not even ourselves. But it’s that uncomfortable friction that creates compelling stories.

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