Strong Girl Namsoon (2023)

Writing 101: How to make a happy ending a bad ending

If a happy ending and a cameo from the original IP (Strong Woman Do Bongsoon) couldn't even save a show then it means it's very bad storytelling.

You've got as FL a reckless girl with superhuman power. Overload it with an overacting, self righteous with a savior complex FL's mother. Sprinkle in the ditzy FL's grandmother with a cringe love story. Then add in a kind of wimpy, goofy cop with gold digging parents as ML. Garnish it with a sexy villain with a tragic back story. That is the recipe for making you root for the villain and his redemption instead of the good guys. The story should have been about Namsoon but Geum Ja kept being pushed to the forefront. It would have been fine if Geum Ja was a good mother and on the surface she is but she truly isn't. Her fat phobic comments to her son, her derision for her husband, her self righteousness just because she is strong turned me off. The comedy were cringe and weren't funny, not at all. The only people that I really liked were Namsoon's adoptive parents, the villain Ryu Shio, Shio's childhood friend and Namsoon's father.

The way they ended Ryu Shio's arc was so tragic that even though the story supposedly have a 'happy' ending, it made me unsatisfied and wished that I have never watched this drama. Will I rewatch? Will I recommend it to others? Definitely no, unless it is to give an example of very bad and lousy writing with lousy and overacting actors.

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Watching a cartoon

If i can guess who would appeal to, it will to 5 years old and below. This story makes no sense, the characters are all (except the villain ML) so bland and too cringe to watch. The chemistry between the leads have no chemistry - it was completely forced from the get-go, and some of the side plots (like those two tent couples? and the grandma unnecessarily side quest for love) makes me want to gag.

The only things I actually enjoyed despite literally slept through 8 episodes is strong woman bong-soon's little cameo and the villain male lead. I felt bad that a 3D character that has so much depth and trauma was killed off so easily in the world of 2D mindless character. It felt like I was watching a cringy cartoon in episode 16. I wish Ryu Shi-Oh was in another series where it suits him. THE character got wasted like that.

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Watching it only for the villain

Title itself says a lot. I am watching it currently for ryu shi oh. He could have been the spotlight, a hero but no. The story is all over the place. Sometimes i'm like, "whats going on and why am i watching this?" Because its so random and messy. Funny part is, I started watching this, mid series from like 8th ep for the villain and i still understood the storyline of the drama. Watch this drama if its your first kdrama. Otherwise no. Especially if you have watched strong woman do bong soon. Ryu shi oh is the only good thing. Good back story and could have had a good character development. If the producers wanted us to root for villain and hate the main leads then good job, it worked.

Rant on characters:

Hwang geum ju is the most annoying ml i ever felt. I didn't feel any motherly vibes from her even if the show tried. Only started crying and caring when her own son was almost dying from drugs. She literally owns a hospital and is fricking rich but didn't give an F when the father asked her for help. I didn't feel bad when she was crying and hugging him. Her character felt narcissistic in a bad way. Doesn't she care about the fact that she just got reunited with her long lost daughter?? Any loving/caring mother would have spend days with their reunited children since they were not there when she grew up. But this lady didn't care that her daughter is going right into the lion's den (ik nam soon is hella strong but still, she is her daughter that she just reunited with!)

The granny romance plot is just useless. Its not funny either. If the granny character did not exist in the story...the story would still be the same, no change lmao. Same like Geum ju, no care for her grand daughter or grand son, cares more about her lover.


Gang i-sik is a good detective, i cannot deny it, he cares for his teammate and doesn't stop even if he is in danger. But as a romantic lead, he had no chemistry with nam soon. He met her, saw her cute and was already falling in love without giving us any chemistry. Could have just stick with police/detective work.

The father of Nam soon. My second favorite character that i sympathized and felt something for. You can see that he deeply cared for his children, does show guilt for losing his daughter. Does spend time with her for the time he lost with her when she was a child, tried his best to find out his son's sickness, since he had no choice, he went to detective. Always get pushed back because of Geum ju, he didn't deserve that man.

Nam soon is fine . Her acting sometimes annoy me but she was fine. should have not betrayed Ryu shi oh. Has more chemistry with Ryu shi oh than gang i-sik.

Ryu shi oh, my man, he was the only interesting character with a backstory. Could have explored about it a bit more. You should be making me hate him but the producers made me empathize with him. Makes sense as to why he was the way he was. Him changing from his rage mode to soft mode when he beat up the truck driver on ep 12th and then immediately voice mailing nam soon made me feel something that none of the main leads made me feel. He doesn't force himself on her, openly speaks up what he feels towards her. He is a charming man. he didn't deserve this ending.

Other characters i liked were the "no make up pretty unni" lmao, that lady doogo coworker beside tseg tseg. And that Russian bodyguard who works for shi oh, i think his name is kyle or something.

Only rewatch value for watching Ryu shi oh scenes.

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disappointment is an understatement

well, this is bout to be lengthy, brace yourselves
this is all nothing but my personal opinion, no hate to any of the actors, i bet they hated it too

so first of all, i only watched this because of byeon wooseok. for the longest time i delayed watching it because of the cover, thinking it would be stupid but the ryu shioh edits had me thinking it could be a serious drama with a solid plot. well... it was a mix of both, it was very naive overall although they really tried to make it serious and to raise the stakes (but ultimately failed).

the first few episodes had me hooked and i had hope for the story and the characters as they set up interesting situations, however my hope quickly died by the 5th-6th episode when i realized i'd been watching for a while and nothing had really happened. the episodes were exploding with filler, specifically the scenes with the grandma and her love affair. those had absolutely nothing to do with the plot, that was all just there to make the show longer but those scenes were simply unwatchable. i patiently waited and watched them the first half of the drama but i found myself skipping them at one point as they were insufferable. how come the grandma and her romance have more screentime than the romance between the two main characters ?? speaking of the two of them...

Namsoon was so clearly forced into that relationship with Heesik immediately after arriving but honestly, she barely showed any interest in him. the two of them had almost no scenes together that focused on them as a pair and their romance felt way too one-sided. yeah, Namsoon was first to say she loved him, but she never really showed it because there were almost no such scenes. the chemistry was not it and the romance was definitely underdeveloped with Hwang Geumju constantly brainwashing Namsoon into getting herself a man to reproduce. that really made me cringe as a concept by the way.

next up, the family as a whole. they were the most annoying characters ever. they were there to be a filler, they didn't really have their own personalities. they are only there to interact with the main characters, not to have their own arc. they did kind of all have something personal going on, but everything about them remained unresolved. the relationships in the family were highly toxic and nobody reflected on it. their son Namin almost died trying to lose weight after everybody shamed him for it instead of trying to help him become healthy and when they realized they had screwed up, they just let him eat all he wanted and continue being unhealthy, instead of teaching him anything (speaking from a strictly health-motivated pov, it's unhealthy to constantly binge fast food, fried food, spiked with sugar). additionally, hwang geumju was so uninterested in her children almost the entire time but was so dramatic every time something happened to them. that was so funny and ironic when you have in mind that she couldn't really care less 99% of the time. the only one who actually cared about his family was Namsoon and Namin's father, who called out their mother multiple times on being money and business obsessed. yet she didn't reflect on that and she didn't change it.

Ryu Shioh was ironically the only good part of the drama, despite being the "bad guy". he started off obsessed with Namsoon and her strength, wanting to use her, but she was starting to heal his inner child and he could've gotten better. of course, he was a bad person who did horrible things but Namsoon, who happened to be the only one who mattered to him and the only one who could change his mind, decided to stick to her ways and completely ignored his calls for help. she approached him wanting to take him down, he opened himself to her and all she had to do was sympathize with him, hear him out and she could have found a way to help him. instead she chose to hate him and not to care, even though he was ready to tell her everything. she could have reached out, instead she lied to him and betrayed him, despite REALIZING that he was really a victim. she admitted it herself AFTER he died. so then why let him die? when they were getting close he asked her what sort of a light he is, a real or a fake and she said he could be real if he tried hard enough, something that got him thinking. furthermore shows that she had some hope for him but then why didn't she try to help him? all he did was an attempt to escape the people above him and live a free life, he went crazy only when she betrayed him. he did deserve SO MUCH BETTER. he was the only character i rooted for and he could have had an amazing redemption arc just like Hwaja, who for context literally tried to kill Namsoon. why did they forgive Hwaja and gave her a chance to live a good life, but ignored Shioh's calls for help and let him die? the entire time Namsoon wasted to spy on him without hearing him for a second. if she heard him, he could have been saved. instead he just died as one of Pavel's pawns.

opulenta. that was an amazing example of plot armor. it was always there to conveniently give the needed information for the investigation, something big that was never even explored. they set it up as something they wanted to tell more about but they never actually did.

speaking of the investigation, the logic was just not there most of the time, everyone was jumping to conclusions based on information, fed to them by opulenta, the plot armor. it wasn't a proper mistery, tracking down the big bad guy behind Ryu Shioh.

next up, hwang geumju, the rich, money-obsessed lady who kept repeating how she wanted to change the world. well then... why keep all your money to yourself and only investing in more companies just to get more money? the kdrama made a point that it's exactly because of stinky-rich people why there's so many poor and homeless. hwang geumju has an excessive amount of money that she never even used to for example donate to people or build a school, an orphanage? nah she just kept them to herself.
this is a perfect example of why you should show and not tell, because telling the viewer that she wants to use her money to change the world but then never showing her actually do something feels like a slap to the face. for all 16 episodes only at the end did she kind of do something for charity and it wasn't even that major.

lastly, Kang Namsoon herself. you know it's bad when the main character that you're supposed to root for is an annoying adult who acts like an infant. Namsoon is a super immature character who doesn't really have the ability to think critically, instead she acts impulsively and things conveniently go her way (oh no, it's the mary sue symptom). she does whatever, illegal stuff as well !! and mind you, they recruit her as a policeman at the end! literally save all those people in that universe TT
this was the most overly-stretched plot i've ever watched with the most frustrating and dissatisfying ending that made me despise the main characters for essentially not having any empathy or ability to read the room. a lot of what happened wasn't a result of bad circumstances, but rather a result of the stupid decisions that the stupid and clearly blind main characters made (Namsoon, i'm looking at you).
Namsoon and Geumju were simply unlikeable, Heesik was a bit mehh, didn't really have a distinctive personality, the grandma and the rest of the family were annoying and Ryu Shioh was the only character who had depth and was likeable, yet they did him so wrong and i don't think i've ever been this frustrated

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Such a disappointment.

I watched this drama because of my love for the original.
First episodes were good, the story of Namsoon and his mother was touching... then everything went down.
Namsoon was too infantilized, so much so she was annoying. Added to this, the main couple had little screen time and in my opinion lackluster chemistry, it was boring to watch them.
I stayed until the end just because of the only character that I still cared enough for, Ryu Shi Oh and his ending was an unfunny joke.

I only rescue from this drama the performance of Byeon Woo-seok and the cameo of Park Bo-young and Park Hyung-Sik.

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This is the 2nd worse kdrama I watched this year. Just bad. I am not comparing to Strong Woman b/c I never saw it. I literally started watching this b/c of the short youtube videos of Si-O. I love a good looking guy, villian even better (that's my jam). I actually thought the 1st three episodes were fairly good even with some of the shenanigans going on.

The reason this show is terrible is the writing. Period, point blank. A show can be an over the top comedy/fantasy/drama. That doesn't mean the writing gets to be bad and the audience has to accept the many inconsistency in the story. The plot still has to be logical and reasonably entertaining but this wasn't. There were way too many unnecessary characters and too many unnecessary subplots.

This was the worst, non-climatic ending to a villian I have ever seen!! I didn't expect Si-O to do a complete 180, that makes no sense. But to not have an epic, all out fight scene with the "hero" and the villian was just plain stupid and Namsoon being immobilized by drugs doesn't count. They litterally end the villain and then there were 40 more minutes of show left. A show that, at this point no one cared about.

The best thing about this show is Byeon Woo Seok. That's it.

11/26/23

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A bad written show….

~Warning this is mostly a rant~
The focus of the drama was all over the place
At first it was more of a typical kdrama romcom with a girl with superpowers that has been lost for years coming back to her also superpower family and also finding love along the way…in typical k-drama fashion…
BUT as the episodes went by the story became mostly a drug plot where the good guys try to take down the villain behind it. That left a lot of the storylines not properly developed or to become completely irrelevant by the end. Not only that the drug plot itself was also badly written leaving a mess of an ending (which was to be expected)
In more detail the things I didn’t like:
Undeveloped characters: There was just way too many of them and we didn’t get the chance to focus too much on anybody.. even the protagonist felt like a side character at times with how much unfocused the main story was, the cop love interest was too side lined he never got much focus and didn’t feel like a main lead at all… At least the main villain had some characterisation and even a backstory which I appreciated

Inauthentic relationships: There is not one relationship that is given a proper amount of care and development. The characters are what they are to each other because the script says so, we never properly see them building that connection. Biggest example is Namsoon with her family. The moment she gets found and has the touching reunion with them, that storyline is over and she barely interacts with any of them after. It’s like she never left…mind you she had been gone for many years and was a child then so how could she be close to them now she doesn’t know these people yet?? She doesn’t interact once with her grandma, TWIN brother, uncle, she meets up with her father who she supposedly was the closest with and he was the one that lost her episodes after she has been found-has a dinner with him- barely interacts with him after, even with the mother who had been so desperate to find her most of their interactions have to do with uncovering the drug plot- No emotional connection and bonding nothing

Terrible romance: At first it was okay but a bit inta-lovey which I didn’t care for, she instantly likes him because “he is handsome” and talks about loving him in the first episodes, he also fairly quickly likes her because of her “quirky personality that is cute” (I don’t remember more specifically). Do they ever get any deeper???? Noooo. no deeper bonding (except some very rare instances like him telling her once about his brother that died), no romantic tension, no passionate moments, they barely give us anything other than some of the typical cute-moment-scenes. As the eps go by they become less and less of the focus leaving them only few if any interactions every ep. But they still go through the typical romance story beats they have to go through like a confession, first kiss etc leaving me wandering “where is all this love coming from?” It was not properly established why they would not like but LOVE and want to marry each other and I just don’t buy it
I wouldn’t wanna leave out of this the villains feelings for the main girl… What did she even do for him to start liking her and trusting her so much?? She had superpowers which got him interested in those (which is why many assumed at first he was trying to use her for her power), acted out her quirky self which apparently is enough to make any love interest fall for her without any deeper attachment and I guess she did one time told him one line that deeply touched him..that is all.. She literally made no effort in approaching and getting close to him or understanding him , He is the one that started involving her in everything, trusting her and expecting her someone he just met to keep all his dirty and illegal secrets.. someone who is supposed to be a big mafia boss.. is that really logical???

Boring storylines: I can’t stress enough how much time pointless storylines took, they were essentially half the show…. We have a storyline that involves the grandma romancing a barista and when the grandpa comes back some drama involving them, a storyline about the mother investigating a bread guy that does shady businesses (he also turns out in the end to be either the leader or a member in the mafia drug organisation it’s so funny how they made a comical and irreverent throughout the whole series character be the twist villain in the end). The mother has a lot of screentime investigating the drug case, going around in her motorcycle like Batman living a secret double live saving people from evil etc. We also had a storyline about the brother taking some diet pills with drugs in them, the ml with his cup buddies investigating the drug case and then their police chief dies cause of drugs… what else… some pointless scenes with the uncle and the mothers assistant and the most unnecessary of all a side story about the two homeless people Namsoon befriends and interacts briefly in the first episodes…

Ridiculous plot: I could talk about some smaller things like how Namsoon learned Korean in moggolia and her only language problem is talking in informal speech obviously for comedic effect and making her more quirky cause otherwise she speaks korean perfectly But things like that can be easily overlooked…
I do have issues tho with stuff like: Namsoon putting zero actual effort in but still being able to fool everyone and get information on them as a spy…. Like how she stole ryu sio’s computer without the Russian guy realising and no one even suspected her (the person that was literally hired the day before), how the dumb lady next to her would be won over and unconsciously help her simply because namsoon said she looked young, how ryu sio would tell her things like “I killed this person” and his drug operation, take her in his meetings and secret drug lab, believe in her simply because when he asked her if she was in his side she said yes??.. You can’t tell me a person that is supposed to be smart and a big mafia boss couldn’t figure her out….. they really had to dumb down the bad guys to make her succeed easily in whatever she had to do. She also was the one doing most of the work for the police and of course by the end she joins the police without having to go to the academy or anything…
Also you can’t tell me being a strongwoman in the family was not a relatively known fact when they are constantly using their powers in public without hiding at all?? Ryusio should have figured out with little investigation that the family has super powers and that she is the daughter because she also does.. instead his only clue was talking to the fake daughter….
One other thing… I know how extreme Koreans are when it comes to drugs but the portrayal of them in the show was wild. Not only is that one drug making you super strong, it can also make you a madman and it’s that dangerous and deadly that after you take it even once you die unless you have the antidote??? I don’t think that’s how drugs work in real life. I could go on and on about the plot but that’s all I thought for now.

You may ask then “why did you watch it through the end if you didn’t like it/it was that bad?” If I’m being honest I wouldn’t be interested in watching the show if it wasn’t for Byeon Woo Seok and that is because I saw his character beforehand and he looked cool… He did do a good job at portraying his character enough to give me an interest at least to see what his fate would be. I don’t understand tho what their intentions with the casting and that character was? On one hand they managed to get more people invested because of him on the other hand everyone was left disappointed by the end because 1 of his wasted potential and his bad ending (for the ryu sio fans) and 2 of the big focus the show had on him (for the people that wanted the focus to be on the main couple)

Other than that the production is good, the music and actors are okay too (I mean rarely ever have a problem with acting or anything) if it wasn’t for the writing being that bad it could have been a decent show…

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Don't waste your time on this.

Wow, I thought I couldnt hate another drama as much as Love Alarm, but here I am writing a review for this sh*tshow I've watched. While I didnt have very high hopes from this drama coz the cast wasnt as impressive as the Bong Soon, I didn't expect the story line to be this bad. The FL - is probably the most annoying character ever. The ML, almost has no personality. FL's mom top-notch overacting. The only character who has a wholesome story is the villain.

I want my time back. This was an absolute disaster and 70% of the people are still bearing with this appalling performance is because of Byeon Woo Seok (bless his heart)

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NOT WORTH THE HYPE ?

people put too much hype into a show like this, first the storyline was just messy and boring at the end only due to most peoples bae ryeo sio but i didnt even bother watching last 2 episodes so ill tell you its not worth it please stick to the original show the spinoff sucks😭😭
i hated the fact that all this season was about just more koreas how drugs are bad for you sort of thing including that so many instances where they talked about having kids ( koreas population problems which they wanna fix) like the whole plot couldv been so much kore interesting if they made the antagonist the male lead wouldv been much more fun and they had more chemistry,the female lead and sio gosh plus the screen time too but with the male lead hes just “the good guy” so ofc he would end up with her with barely any chemistry and screentime together (ill even say that he had more chemistry with FL’s mom 😭 ridiculous but seemed like that) and sio just proclaimed as the “bad guy” throughout and how you cant be forgiven for doing drugs and blah blah. I feel like this season was just Korea, trying to put their whole thing out for the korean public. all in all this season was boring i havent even finished ep 15 and 16 but eveyone just stick to the ACTUAL show.

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Cringiest shit ever

Cringe show : Nam-Soon.

I kinda had high expectation with this shit show tbh. First of all, the main actress has good acting skill (you all already saw her in squid game and All of us d*ad). Somehow they forcing this kind of cringe ass character for her.

Second, hory shit. The romance for grandma is so unecessary and cringe asf (Puke worthy). Im tried to skip it but watch it in the end, bleghh. They tried to make it funny, which fail.

Third, sorry. But the main male actor doesnt have chemistry at all with the namsoon. I can imagine how cringe it is BTS. Then next his acting, i dont know why i cant feel his acting at all, probably because shit story.

Fourth, namsoon father is really good in "Castaway Diva". He really can give off aura that scary father that always beat you when he come home. What a polar opposite to this drama. Approve.

Fifth, what a waste. They done with ryu si o too soon. They should gave him more backstory and more screen time. He is the cure for this cringe show.

Overall, this drama is NERFS to the original strong girl bong soon. From Cast, Acting, story, and gold COMEDY.

I give this 6/10

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