When the Phone Rings (2024)

A near perfect drama

If there was any big plot holes or things that did not make sense it was Senior Mr. and Mrs. Hong, what did Chairman Hong really gain from supporting the family that murdered his son (if it was all about money/power this did not come across well) and worst is Mrs Hong this woman had no redeeming qualities yet they tried to gaslight us into thinking noooooo she does love her daughter, lets call FUBAR on this.
Paik Sa Eon is an excellently written character, everything he did/said was in line with the psychology of this character that was well developed and presented with nuance. The final action of fleeing does make sense if you understood his trauma. YYS gets full marks on his performance.
Hong Hee Joo had a tough challenge to hold her own against a very charismatic ML and give full credit to CSB for able to portray HHJ with silent strength. She was not just a romantic tool, or a mere plot device, she was her own interesting person and her character had a fully evolving journey in the plot.
Final acknowledgement of excellence to the entire production team director/editor/writer, especially the screen writer for this superior adaptation.

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Best Kdrama of 2024

When the Phone Rings is a thrilling K-drama that masterfully combines suspense, romance, and political intrigue. The story follows Baek Sa Eon, the youngest presidential spokesman in Korea, who comes from a distinguished political lineage. Despite his stellar career as a war correspondent, hostage negotiator, and news anchor, his personal life tells a different story. His marriage to Hong Hui Ju, a mute sign language interpreter and the daughter of a prominent newspaper owner, is distant and based on convenience. However, their lives take a dramatic turn when Hui Ju is kidnapped, forcing them to reevaluate their relationship and confront their true feelings.

The series excels in character development, presenting Baek Sa Eon as a man torn between duty and personal growth, and Hui Ju as a symbol of silent strength and resilience. Their journey from estrangement to genuine connection is portrayed with emotional authenticity, making their transformation deeply moving.

The drama's suspenseful pacing and brilliant cinematography keep viewers hooked, while the intricate storyline ensures there’s never a dull moment. The supporting cast adds depth to the narrative, enriching the plot without overshadowing the leads.

Why When the Phone Rings is the Best K-Drama of 2024

For me, When the Phone Rings is hands down the best K-drama of 2024. It strikes the perfect balance between emotional depth and edge-of-your-seat suspense. The show delves into profound themes of communication, vulnerability, and rediscovering love amidst adversity, making it both thought-provoking and heartwarming.

If you’re looking for a drama that keeps you captivated from start to finish while offering rich character arcs and meaningful storytelling, When the Phone Rings is an absolute must-watch. It’s more than entertainment it’s an unforgettable experience.

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Please don't waste your time watching it

The characters have significant potential—a leads who are a hostage negotiator and a sign language expert—but none matters as the story progresses. The entire 12 episodes focus on building anticipation for romantic scenes to lure the audience. While I understand the bait, it’s underwhelming as a viewer when the story feels sidelined by the worst screenplay. The plot exists, but the show drags out dramatic scenes for far too long instead of exploring it.

The last few episodes were the worst—it felt like soft porn, unbearable to watch in one go. I appreciate the “will-they-won’t-they” tension and eventual romance, but the male lead just didn’t deliver because there is no plot, and their acting couldn’t make up for the nonsensical story and screenplay. There’s no depth to the emotions; the story exists only as a prop. Give me some actual plot to connect with the characters’ feelings!

The funniest part is, it’s not even rushed—it’s the atrocious screenplay that completely derails the plot. The lack of storytelling is so bad it feels like they didn’t even try to piece the narrative together. Scenes drag on endlessly with no purpose, leaving me disconnected and frustrated. It’s as if the creators banked entirely on the hype and romance, forgetting they needed a coherent story. Easily the most overhyped and poorly executed Korean drama of 2024.

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felt very pointless most of the time

the story is not sufficient to hold together a series, and lacks authenticity. their lovestory felt rushed, they just decided they love this person to death, and everyone has to go with it. the acting was good from both their ends, the only good thing in this drama. yes this is fiction but as i was watching i couldn't help but be in disbelief about the insane choices these characters were making or the figurative somersaults the plot kept doing.

the main problem is the lack of connectivity with the audience.

the trials and tribulations of a presidential spokesperson who is pretending to be his half brother's son who also happens to be the next presidential candidate? it doesn't end there, his wife isn't really her, she's her sister who can speak but is forced to not because she has to keep being a step daughter to the ceo of a news channel. and this is the only thing going on in the drama. the attempt at angst felt too forced at times. i don't understand why they kept "torturing" themselves for absolutely no reason at all.

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the plot sucks

The plot is built with several levels of complexity, opening many possible doors for the story to develop. But in the end, there are so many doors that got tangled up. A weak story, with 12 episodes that could have been only 8. The main male character starts off with bad and self-centered behavior and later claims that he was like that to defend the female protagonist, but this is done in such an inconsistent way that it seems like a comedy. Don't get me wrong, the actors carried the story, both the main and supporting ones, but the story was poorly written, purposeless, disorganized and shallow.

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A love story out of wattpad, webnovels, and cliches

The first two eipsodes felt promising and after that all of a sudden it became a romance that justifies abuse of a neglect husband and the reason why he has ingnored his wife is given in later episodes and it was really awful.

The romantic scenes and love/ romance story part of this drama are just like the typical webnovels and wattpad ArrogantCEOXInnocent wife theme. While certain scenes are mixture of thriller dramas consisting of abnormal parents and family secrets.

The drama is at the most one time watch, if you don't mind cliche but this drama doesn't fall in 8.9 cateogry lol. The story isn't unqiue at all, the unique part was long gone at episode 2, after that this drama is mess of all kinds of stories. It's like drama is struggling to identify itself as a thriller or a romance.

The romance is a typical innocent female lead who somehow rescued by a cold man who only has heart for her. And the thriller is even worse, the ML in so many instances had the chance of knowing the culprit, but it took him long enough and FL is so dumb at many times and could be easily caught but isn't due to plot armour.

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Still worth to watch

whenever i watch a season i kept reality of life in mind, at the end of 10th episode the mad person came and show a fire by some trick and kidnaped a heroine (don't remember Koreans name so difficult for me) and ya she was ready to get kidnap , wait for my final review on this season , till now its not more then 6 stars worth it

ok completed the season, but don't understand why he disappeared in last scene, his father was murderer not him , what a childish act just for sake of another episode lol , will increase the rate to 7.5 some how can say impressive work by all team

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ENJOYABLE, but a bit makjang

Baek Sa Eon is a typical K-drama male lead—cold and stiff on the outside, but with a heart full of warmth for the female lead. I wasn’t a fan of him at first due to the lack of communication between him and Hee Joo. I know he did it to “protect” her, but still, it was unhealthy.

That said, the romance developed at a reasonable pace, as did the mystery, so I was invested in the story and rooting for both leads to end up together.

Aside from the last two episodes, the series was pretty enjoyable, especially for those who like a little bit of makjang and don’t nitpick small details. There were a lot of twists, and by episode 10, I was starting to feel exhausted. When Sa Eon decided to go MIA without any explanation, leaving Hong Hee Joo confused and waiting all by herself, I lost interest. I ended up skipping a lot of scenes.

Eventually, Hong Hee Joo tracked him down by visiting the foundation Sa Eon had donated his money to. She ended up in a conflict zone—a reckless move, to be honest—and, of course, she got captured. Cue Baek Sa Eon swooping in to rescue her—so BBF-coded.

I really want to commend Chae Soo Bin for her sign language skills. It’s clear she put in a lot of hard work. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to learn and memorize, but she comes across as both comfortable and convincing. I’ve seen a drama before where the male lead used sign language, but it didn’t feel authentic at all. That’s why I especially want to applaud her dedication and performance.

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Good performances but laboured writing and overdone direction.

I really tried hard to talk up this drama, but it became increasingly hard and all my excuses eventually fell by the wayside. Compared to something like See You in My 19th Life, the plot held together reasonably well but was built around standard and somewhat tired tropes. The performances by the leads were good. You Yeon Seok did a good job of bringing subtlety to his tsundere character. And Heo Nam Jun as the villain, when he wasn’t being required to overact, was credible. But there’s the problem for you in a nutshell, the directing… the job of the director is to set the tone for the whole production, and direct the actors and cinematographer to harmonise with it. Here it was just too over the top. Melo on steroids.

It had the hallmarks of a 1920s silent film, grandiose gestures, limp women and stoic men, dramatic low camera angles and slow leaden footsteps at every opportunity.

The cost of overplaying things is that it fails to capture you and attach you to the story and the characters. The problem with overhyped dramatisation is that there is nowhere to go, no room to build, it’s full on from the get go, and bye bye subtlety. With the result that instead of being moved I’m always at the point of laughter.

To make it believable you have to follow through on a set up. Too often the characters would not do the obvious in order to prolong the plot. The result is a lot of eye rolling, sighing and FFS exclamations for the viewer. Completely cutting through any credibility, but much more seriously, any sympathy for the characters.

The pacing was sacrificed to an over-detailed explanatory style, leaking tension all over the place. It needed less words and more faster paced action to fulfil its role as a thriller. Frequent, unnecessary repetitions of scenes in the editing did not help either.

The performances were good, it’s a pity that the directing, writing and editing were so laboured.

What my rating means: 6+ Some aspects of it were OK but it had serious flaws. It will pass the time but you can find something better.

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Almost great

This drama started out SO strong. The fake marriage trope is common but this was such a thrilling twist on it with Hee-joo's voice being a secret and the kidnapper — I was on the edge of my seat for most of episodes.

I still enjoyed this overall, but in hindsight it leaves some more things to be desired. A lot of the side characters are underutilized, particularly Heejoo's sister I-na and the second ship, Yu-ri and Sang-woo. Yu-ri being a reporter ends up not really accounting to anything, and I-na's return also doesn't do much. Instead, the main leads are put through the ringer, with the female lead being put in danger over and over again. The tension is there but it does get repetitive.

I also really have to talk the last episode. It was just...bad. (And yes, I know it's in the novel, but I'm reviewing this based on drama only.) The last minute ghosting/separation is a trope that I've long-hated in kdramas, and this drama took it to another level by making this last arc just utterly random, in an active warzone in another country. It not only feels completely out of place, but there's just not enough time for all of this to happen, when I would've preferred that they just leave time for the characters to just talk to each other, and for more character relationships to be wrapped up. Hee-joo's relationship development with her mother is interesting but so rushed. Overall, the ending just doesn't quite hit; I find it hard to believe that the ML and his assistant would be able to get new government jobs after everything they've done and been in the public eye for. It wraps things up nicely but feels lazy.

Ultimately, this was still a pretty good watch, but the last episode hiccup is quite a big one.

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DO NOT WATCH, DRAMA SUPPORTS GIN()C1D€

Truly can’t believe the ending, it was honestly the worst possible ending I have ever came across. I’m saying this as a person who has watched kdrama for over 10 years now. The inhumane, false narrative and accusations created at the end truly made me lose all respect for the entire team included in this drama.

The way the ending was so random, out of context, didn’t relate to the storyline at all just shows how evil the production, director and even the actors themselves are BECAUSE SURELY THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE GETTING THEMSELVES INTO. This isn’t a mistake that can be forgiven it was done on purpose and should not be forgiven.

Please have some decency and not support this drama. I truly feel ashamed that I even gave support to the drama in the bigenning,

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