Short: An absolute masterpiece. The pacing, the story, the cast, the music, the direction, the writing. Without any need for cliffhanger tricks, the story and the cast compel you to move to the next episode each time. Absolutely brilliant.

Detail:
This is the second drama i've seen with IU, the first being Hotel Del Luna - and the second of her dramas that's gone right to the top of my "so glad I watched that" list. It also introduced me to Lee Sun Kyun who was an excellent actor in this, he has such a unique bass to his voice.

Whereas in Hotel Del Luna, IU is loud, proud and a bit of a brat, in this she's quiet. She probably doesn't say as many words throughout the whole drama as she does in the first episode of HDL but she doesn't need to, she proves beyond any doubt her acting skill through her actions and expressions, combined with the amazing story.

Ji Ahn (IU) is downtrodden, she's in the gutter, when you're the lowest you can possibly go you learn to distrust and dislike everyone around you. Everyone has let you down, discarded you and hurt you in the past so you learn to expect it from everyone else. She's in trouble with a Loan Shark who beats her up, and she has a no-good brother that she supports. Worst case scenario.

And yet... she soldiers on. If there was ever a story about a strong woman then this is it. She's lost the will to trust others, but no matter what life throws at her she just keeps pushing on. She hasn't lost the will to live.

Dong-Hoon seems to have it all, high flying in the corporate world all he wants to do is a good job, to put safety first in his role as a structural engineer. Corporate politics come knocking and the knives come out in his direction, suddenly he's being attacked from all fronts and then finds out even more devastating news that rocks him to his core.

This story is about these two completely different, but equally broken people who find and heal each other.

There are other characters such as the two brothers, I loved the relationship the three of them had together, they were good moments in the story.

There were a couple of side plots that just seemed extraneous for the most part, the actor and the monk - the actor I guess I kinda get as a motivation for one of the brothers but the monk was just out of left field and I don't think the story would have really differed if it wasn't there, so it was a bit odd.

The music in this drama is excellent, several really top quality tracks that were good to hear each and every time they came on and were on my mind even when not watching.

The general tone of this one is quite slow, it has a mix of high and low points, but overall I found that I wasn't wondering how it was going to end. For me that's always a high mark for a drama, if the journey is so good I just don't care how it ends that's a great thing and I put this one in that list.

Highly recommended.