Simjaang
This review may contain spoilers
Little the good, mostly the bad, and a lot of the ugly
First things first - I don't recommend this drama to anyone except for the hardcore Yeon Woo Jin fans.
The good:
a) kiss scenes, though you will have to wait A LONG TIME for them, were steaming. Literally. Both YWJ and PHS were great and this is rare at least in the dramas I've seen.
b) Yeon Woo Jin's acting and interesting and unusual character
c) Park Hye Soo's cute moments - despite the horrible character she portrayed, she was a ray of sunshine and I would love to see her in a role that is better suited for her and in a better drama.
d) some social issues touched upon that I've never seen in a Korean drama: like society's attitude towards trans people, self-harm and social anxiety.
e) the premise itself while generally speaking a cliche (revenge turned into love) was very promising and the reason (among with YWJ's smile) that I started watching this in the first place.
f) unusual take on the female leads competition for the male lead.
The bad:
a) Characters put in the most illogical situations
b) weak secondary characters (they were just boring, I didn't get invested in any of their stories at all)
c) annoying secondary characters (i hated everyone except Yeon Jung, who was brilliant)
d) pacing all over the place: there was zero character development and then BOOM suddenly the character did a major turn around.
e) could not decide which genre it actually was and was failing at all of them most of the time.
f) the viewer is taken to be a complete idiot.
g) Chae Ro Woon (the female lead)'s character is terrible at the beginning and then lacking any character whatsover after the rewrite.
The ugly:
a) UNBEARABLE FIRST 4 EPISODES
b) love songs playing at the funeral :)))
c) horrible writing throughout the show - they completely forgot the revenge plot, turned the promising main villain into some sad puppy who does not know what and who he likes and what he wants
d) character development came way too late when the audience already hates the character and it's too late to redeem them
e) the sister's suicide reason was a disgrace. After waiting through the first 4 horrible episodes knowing that they had a rewrite, I was still disappointed. The show didn't make me wish to throw my screen into the wall anymore but it lost any character whatsover and became just bland. The only reason I kept watching was to know how they would solve this suicide problem. And guess what, they screwed up even more if that was even possible. To save anyone who reads this review the trouble and to get this off my chest: a COMPLETELY HAPPY if a bit shy person with a very supportive family kills herself... because she falls in love with her boss and can't tell him that. There are some more stuff going on but this is the main reason that her friend wants to enact revenge on her behalf (because he doesn't know anything else that happened). This is not addressed in any other way in the show, nobody says anything how this is absolutely unacceptable, they agree that the guy she fell in love with bears some kind of blame for it. Like seriously? This is the most tone deaf portrayal of both women in general and people who have suicidal thoughts and suffer from depression and ACTUALLY NEED HELP and not that their boss would acknowledge their crush on him/her.
f) portraying the sister's sexual encounter with the second male lead as ambiguous (forced/not forced debate) and then not addressing it at the slightest (neither showing it as a possible reason for her suicide, nor addressing it any further besides the same flashbacks and also of course showing the guy as the sad/confused nice guy instead of...well a rapist). You simply cannot do that. Either show the backlash and address the issue or not portray it in any way that could imply it was actually forced. Cause now we get a possible predator who is shown in a positive light and gets his happy ending and EVERYONE including the sister of the dead girl is happy with him and have nothing to say about it. This is seriously disgusting.
The good:
a) kiss scenes, though you will have to wait A LONG TIME for them, were steaming. Literally. Both YWJ and PHS were great and this is rare at least in the dramas I've seen.
b) Yeon Woo Jin's acting and interesting and unusual character
c) Park Hye Soo's cute moments - despite the horrible character she portrayed, she was a ray of sunshine and I would love to see her in a role that is better suited for her and in a better drama.
d) some social issues touched upon that I've never seen in a Korean drama: like society's attitude towards trans people, self-harm and social anxiety.
e) the premise itself while generally speaking a cliche (revenge turned into love) was very promising and the reason (among with YWJ's smile) that I started watching this in the first place.
f) unusual take on the female leads competition for the male lead.
The bad:
a) Characters put in the most illogical situations
b) weak secondary characters (they were just boring, I didn't get invested in any of their stories at all)
c) annoying secondary characters (i hated everyone except Yeon Jung, who was brilliant)
d) pacing all over the place: there was zero character development and then BOOM suddenly the character did a major turn around.
e) could not decide which genre it actually was and was failing at all of them most of the time.
f) the viewer is taken to be a complete idiot.
g) Chae Ro Woon (the female lead)'s character is terrible at the beginning and then lacking any character whatsover after the rewrite.
The ugly:
a) UNBEARABLE FIRST 4 EPISODES
b) love songs playing at the funeral :)))
c) horrible writing throughout the show - they completely forgot the revenge plot, turned the promising main villain into some sad puppy who does not know what and who he likes and what he wants
d) character development came way too late when the audience already hates the character and it's too late to redeem them
e) the sister's suicide reason was a disgrace. After waiting through the first 4 horrible episodes knowing that they had a rewrite, I was still disappointed. The show didn't make me wish to throw my screen into the wall anymore but it lost any character whatsover and became just bland. The only reason I kept watching was to know how they would solve this suicide problem. And guess what, they screwed up even more if that was even possible. To save anyone who reads this review the trouble and to get this off my chest: a COMPLETELY HAPPY if a bit shy person with a very supportive family kills herself... because she falls in love with her boss and can't tell him that. There are some more stuff going on but this is the main reason that her friend wants to enact revenge on her behalf (because he doesn't know anything else that happened). This is not addressed in any other way in the show, nobody says anything how this is absolutely unacceptable, they agree that the guy she fell in love with bears some kind of blame for it. Like seriously? This is the most tone deaf portrayal of both women in general and people who have suicidal thoughts and suffer from depression and ACTUALLY NEED HELP and not that their boss would acknowledge their crush on him/her.
f) portraying the sister's sexual encounter with the second male lead as ambiguous (forced/not forced debate) and then not addressing it at the slightest (neither showing it as a possible reason for her suicide, nor addressing it any further besides the same flashbacks and also of course showing the guy as the sad/confused nice guy instead of...well a rapist). You simply cannot do that. Either show the backlash and address the issue or not portray it in any way that could imply it was actually forced. Cause now we get a possible predator who is shown in a positive light and gets his happy ending and EVERYONE including the sister of the dead girl is happy with him and have nothing to say about it. This is seriously disgusting.
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