Meant to Be (2023)

60+ hours I will never get back

•It had so much potential to be a great soap-style drama.
•There is absolutely no rewatch value from my perspective.
•I could not stand to sit through a 100+ episodes just to be disappointed for 70% of the show. So major disappointment.
•Acting is subpar and sometimes a bit of an overkill but hey, I can’t act at all.
•Plot heads in various directions.
•After 50% of the show there was no character development. (Maybe by episode 90)
•Unnecessary dialogue.
• Completely one sided and favorable to the antagonist throughout the majority of the drama.
• It redefines “drama” and carries it’s very own sub style.
Category: WTF was that?
• Some things could have been fixed with an easy google search. It’s not like they wrote it in one day. Or did they?!


With soap dramas we basically understand what we will get if we decide to watch it. There will be absurd scenes and very domineering parents. The family business will face a crisis and someone will get hurt or killed. Family relationships will be broken and mended. New love will blossom and the antagonist will turn over a new leaf.

However, we do not plan on watching something so ridiculous that we have to question our own intelligence and mentality.
If you can bare to get through 50 or so episodes of being livid at the writers and producers then this is for you.

Spoiler:

This drama has a male lead who has the surname Kang. Kang is the most despicable, horrible and disgusting human who would do anything for money and titles. He starts off by killing his wife and trying to kill his newborn who is named Hae In. Then the story completely spirals from that moment on.

One family is attacked the entire first half, which makes it almost unbearable to many like myself. Give us drama but don’t give us destroy the poor and the wealthy always win. No one wants to see the less fortunate bullied and especially to those extremes. That’s the problem people are having with this. You can create drama without bullying the poor. -She was an orphan for crying out loud.-
It’s very old and tiresome. Circumstances that at one point created such a gap involving working class and or the less fortunate, has shifted tremendously. (Meaning even the poorest are fighting for their rights.)

All of the families are intertwined. Conflicts continuously happen. Scheming and power plays are involved as well as love triangles. There is nothing new here folks except for the disgusting father. I don’t think I have ever seen a father so horrible and foul in a drama in all of Kdrama history. At this point no redemption would make me see him differently. He has passed the point of no return. And I hope the writers don’t try and do that because you have built his character up in a way that’s unfitting for any decent human.

I originally thought this would be a loving, playful, family drama. This turned out to be the complete opposite. I don’t know why they opted for a bright, lovely, doting, and bubbly family atmosphere on the cover either. It would be fitting for HaeIn family but not Kang and his ingrates. They should have went with a darker sinister look.

The writers now are really focused on following the blueprint to 90s style dramas or early 2000s I am sure. It seems as if you have seen similar plots a thousand times and get the same result.

If you can sit through that, you have made it midway.
My problem with this story is that it’s very one dimensional. I personally hate shows like this because the writer is taking an easier approach and just checking off boxes. Nothing about this story is interesting enough to make you want to rewatch it.

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Disappointed in the ending

When I watch a drama that starts out with greed to the point of destroying someone as sweet as Soon Young and his baby, I continued to watch because I want to see him get his payback. I was so thoroughly disappointed that even though Kang Chi Hwan ended up in prison he was forgiven by all.

Yoon YI Chang and Lee Soon Young dying such horrible deaths by that despicable Kang Cho Hwan just broke my heart. Plus his bio daughter had to hide who she was from this man. I get that she was sweet and forgiving but dang KCH didn’t get what he deserved.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed most of the supporting cast; especially Lee Hoon, Ahn Dong Yeob and one of my all time favorites, Park Chul Moon.

I won’t watch again, though.

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