It's a magical show with significant flaws.

Rating this show is extremely difficult. On one hand it's been such a long time since I've seen a kdrama that I enjoyed so much. It kind of recaptures the feeling of some of the greatest kdramas I watched, when I started the Asian drama watching hobby. (Lover from the Star, Secret Garden etc..) However the -2005 era-ish - love triangle is annoying on multiple levels, even though it's not the most frustrating one I have ever seen, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Also the writing is not only inconsistent, but also multiple annoying cliches are used, such as falling onto lips, weird relationship contracts, agree to go on 3 dates with the ex, getting filmed by bystanders at an opportune moment etc..

Onto the good things, I think the cast is great, the leads have increasingly great chemistry as we go along & while the special abilities are a bit underutilized, they add a nice flair to the drama. There is a lot of charm going on across the board, it really often feels like I'm watching art, not a technician's work. The office life part of the drama is above average, there are some kdrama specials of course, but it's usually far worse than this.

As for the ending, I detracted an entire point from my rating due to the last two episodes. Up to episode 10, this is a flawed, but very entertaining fluffy romcom, however that's followed by 90 minutes of flashbacks & the big crisis of the drama, this part held very little interest for me & while I was waiting for the inevitable happy ending the last 20 minutes happened. If this was in episode 7 I would have loved it, but before a 10 seconds happy ending? Heck no, what were they thinking? I guess this is what happens, when the production team thinks they don't really need an established writer, since it's a webtoon adaptation. They were mostly right, except the webtoon is ongoing & season 1 ended with a cliffhanger & the writer did not spend enough time to think up a reasonable way to give us closure. Though with adjusted pacing it could have worked, who knows it might be 90% the editing's fault, after all the audience has no idea what ended up getting cut..
Then I again I'm not sure if I blame them, this is a long ongoing trend in kdramas, the production team doesn't care much about the last episode, because it does not influence the drama's success, people already watched the product placements, it's not like you need the audience to come back for another episode, right?

edit: I should give more credit to the writer, yes she has botched the ending somewhat, but the drama's plot is better than the webtoon's in my opinion. (usually the reverse is true, see Secretary Kim, Business Proposal)

Read More

I should probably stop watching these 3 hour long kdrama movies. It seems like they all (at least the ones I've seen) have the same 2 minute long happy ending. One of the main reasons I still watch kdramas is that they often have long & satisfying endings. This despite being only 3 hours long felt a bit draggy & yet we've still gotten the usual 2 minute ending!

If I ignore the ending thing, this drama is alright to watch, at least if there is nothing else in your backlog. The OTP interactions were quite cute, though highly unrealistic for a friends to lovers romance.
In this genre the chemistry between the leads is key, but I feel that could've been better. The plot is alright, though there is no innovation here, none whatsoever.

There is a love triangle, but luckily there was no time to develop that, so it fizzled out without becoming offensive.

Also the OST is quite nice, however it's strangely underutilized. It's like they went ahead and commissioned some great tunes, but the mixing/editing in the drama is not taking full use of them. Just listen to the OST separately on YT & you'll know what I mean..

The picture is very nice, the cinematographer did a great job.

Speaking of 3 hour long kdrama movies. You Drive Me Crazy (https://mydramalist.com/28300-you-drive-me-crazy) is a very similar story with an extremely similar plot sequencing, but it's like 10 times more exciting.

Read More

It's not great.

Up until recently this has been the most recommended drama that I have yet to watch. People just kept recommending it to me over and over again. I kept procrastinating, because I dislike love triangles and oh boy the triangle sure is annoying in this one. The biggest problem is the second ML being a forking stink button, his toxic personality is not something that I could have ever tolerated in a romantic comedy. Another significant issue is all the character rewrites that we've gotten, character micro adjustments are unfortunately pretty normal in kdramas, but here it's pretty extreme & not only that, but multiple characters had personalities that were just all over the place.

The OTP romance is not that great. ML's robotic acting & weird fake smiles sure did not help with the immersion. Also the leads did not really grow as a couple & their relationship was super weird in a bad way.
Even the comedy is just whelming. Even if I ignore the triangle thing, what's left is still mediocre.
Some of the patients had touching stories, but compared to Hospital Playlist this is not worth mentioning. The poems felt like an afterthought, they were not bad or anything, but some of them felt quite forced.

The best thing about the drama is without a doubt Lee Yoobi. This is the first time I've seen her in a main role, but she was absolutely radiant. No one could possibly accuse her of not having the glow of THE main character. I've seen her playing the crazy sasaeng-ish archetype multiple times, I never thought she would be so great in this one.

Read More

Forgettable!

The Good:
⌲ The triangle is weak.
⌲ The fantastic (but underutilized) side characters
⌲ The fantastic (but underutilized) side couples
⌲ FL's mom

The Neutral:
⌲ As much as I like Seo Hyun Jin, her acting felt quite technician like in this one. (still not bad)
⌲ The healing aspect of the drama (I love healing dramas, but this is not working very well here)
⌲ Yoon Park is a great actor, too bad he always gets the worst scripts. (this was a low point even for him)
⌲ There is a lot of fluff, but it's hard to get into it.
⌲ Is there really an ending?

The Bad:
⌲ 30-40% of the drama is a largely disconnected crime/thriller flick and it's NOT WORTH WATCHING. (FW button time)
⌲ As short lived as the noble breakup was, it's just super stupid.
⌲ The OTP relationship is extraordinarily weird in a shallow way.
⌲ Kim Dong Wook's acting (he was far better in Find Me in Your Memory)
⌲ Metaphoric heart pain causing real heart pain being an actual plot point. (I'm nitpicking, but come on!)
⌲ ML's backstory was needlessly explained & it's really stupid. (failed MD has become a psychiatric doctor, did he go back to University & spend 3-5 years on that? drama logic)

Read More

Entertaining & not as cliche as expected

Just to get it out of the way, yes the writing is pretty bad, but most of the time it's not annoying.
Yes, it's weird that the amnesia thing happens twice, but I was not annoyed by that very much at all. The problem is not the second amnesia itself, but rather how ML acts for a while after it happened. A rational person would not turn so hostile to a woman that claims to be his girlfriend. Do verify before burning all the bridges, right? In the second half of the drama there is a lot of on and off dating/ will they, won't they stuff, however it was quite entertaining most of the time, except shortly after the aforementioned second amnesia and episode 20 was just a horrible horrible episode, with a recycled plot used in an intelligence insulting way. Yeah sure there is also quite a bit of noble reason bullshit as well, but overall I think it's acceptable.
The love triangles are weak and almost entertaining & end in a timely manner. The writer did a great job in this regard, triangle haters can safely watch this.

I'm not a fan of "Eden" Zhao, but this is by far his best performance that i've seen. (okay, he was good in Le Coup de Foudre as well) As for FL I've seen her in The Untamed and she was far better here, especially in the second half of the drama, she had some very amusing facial expressions and had great chemistry with Zhao.

The story may be bad, but the comedy is really on point throughout the drama. The side couples are not that special or anything, but there is nothing much to hate about them really. The fluff is good, at least whenever we are in the "on" phase.

People in the comment section complained about the cause of the amnesia being really stupid. I think it was not bad at all, it's nicely explained & it's not COMPLETELY unreasonable by cdrama logic standards. It's far better than let's say being allergic to one's own tears.

The OST is bad, but most of the time it's just unnoticeable. There is some weird Christmas music there, but not too much, it's not the most offensive OST that I've heard.

Yes the early episodes are very Secretary Kim-like, but is that really a bad thing? I think not. The second half of the drama is substantially different.

TLDR: This is a VERY entertaining romCOM, with some minor & not so minor frustrations.

Read More

It's okay!

The Good
⌲ There is a lot of quality fluff in the second half.
⌲ The good OST
⌲ The pretty picture
⌲ The ending is fairly good, though it's not anything I have not seen before. (the special episode is included in this)
⌲ FL's parents were quite wholesome.

The Average
⌲ The chemistry between the leads
⌲ The side couples were not all that interesting.
⌲ The comedy is not the strongest.
⌲ The triangle/square is not very offensive, but it could've been even better.
⌲ The early episodes were quite mediocre.
⌲ ML's parents
⌲ The badminton training sessions (the competition was better)

The Bad
⌲ The third worst separation plot I have ever seen
⌲ There are three and a half absolutely trash episodes.
⌲ The plot involving ML's hereditary mental disorder is wrong on so many levels.
⌲ ML's robotic acting in the early episodes
⌲ Pathologist doctor has done a c-section to help a cat giving birth.
⌲ The wasted potential that is the Detective Club.

Read More

If Hyperion was a low-budget kdrama romcom filmed in France (alternatively, Red Herring Country)

As far as travel fling stories go, this one is pretty good. Not only is the OTP couple fun, but also all the main characters, everyone participating in the package tour were very interesting (at least interesting after a while) & well acted. Also I found the realistic portrayal of sex for a 2017 kdrama quite unexpected. The only love triangle in the drama is more of a Red Herring than anything else, so yes love triangle haters can safely watch this.++

It would have taken minuscule effort to fix the script & create something remarkable. Unfortunately for a pre-produced drama the story sure doesn't seem to be particularly well written, or consistent. Just a minor change in the timeline would have removed the completely unnecessary ugliness from the OTP relationship. If I look at this realistically, it sure looks more than a bit horrible. At the early episodes ML is still in a relationship with the supposed love of his life that may have betrayed him, but he DOESN'T YET know that, they are basically in a quarrel. If I wanted to be mean I could say, that the whole plot is kind of like "We were on a break & then I fell in love with the copy-place girl, BUT IT'S FINE, because LATER I've learned that Rachel is Hitler." it's okay to completely fall for your rebound, but not like this, I don't think.

France sure is beautiful & luckily The Package works fine as a travel show as well. Though the cinematography is a bit strange. It's like the crew had no time to properly set up the scenes & think about how to effectively use some of the prettiest landscapes in the world. The end result is still gorgeous, but the photography is just whelming.

There were some very - ehm - creative product placements. As dumb as the "my friend needs these, he's lonely" sounds for a Peepee enlarger product placement, it's still better then the usual "everyone being sick all the time feeding each other cold medicines mouth to mouth" & whatnot.

#rant on
I'm sick and tired of the whistleblower cliche. I mean sure okay, whistle-blowing about embezzlement & then getting burned, because Korea is a corrupt sh***ole is not fun to watch, but that's at least somewhat in the realm of reality, right? However using African citizens as guinea pigs and then tens of random white collar workers covering it up like this is just too much. You need to be a special kind of psychopath to cover up potential mass murder this way.
Also have you guys noticed the trend how in kdramas completely unreasonable love can succeed, but whistleblowers never do. It's almost as if BigChaebol is paying for these educational lessons, as unlikely and stupid this conspiracy theory appears to be.
It's just too difficult to justify why this plot is in the drama, there is no real benefit, it could've been easily replaced with something more realistic. (like she cheated, she was forgiven & then has not shown up at the airport, because reasons)
#rant off

The ending is not nearly as bad as I have thought it would be. Of course there is the totally dumb, illogical separation, but the presentation is somewhat beautiful, it's not a complete blowout like in most kdramas. Overall I would rate the final episode at 6/10, which is certainly far above average, there are countless far better kdramas with hugely worse endings.

This is the first time in my kdrama watching carrier that I liked Yoon Park in a role. He is typically the teary-eyed second lead that ruins the drama for me. I never though he is not a good actor, but he really drew the short straw as far as typecasting goes, I wish he had more roles like this!

7.5/10 is a bit high for this drama, but considering how unique it is, it's probably justifiable. Every kdrama addict should watch this, eventually.

Read More

If you have NOTHING else to watch, you can use this to fuel your sugar addiction!

I enjoyed watching the OTP romance in this one. It was really cute, fluffy and the leads looked great together and had a reasonable amount of chemistry. Though it was certainly not without problems, such as there was a 2 episode long ridiculous breakup & reconciliation plot. Also the leads were so in love that the FL literally jumped in front of ML to protect him with her body, but apparently not in love enough to forgo the pillow barrier thing, when they shared a bed in a hotel room. So yes, there are all kinds of cliches, but all the wholesomeness & fluff made me forgive them. Also this is a safe drama to watch for love triangle haters such as myself.

Based on the main romance alone this would be a weak 8-ish drama, but there were side couples as well. The two other couples were quite alright to watch too in the last 10-15 episodes, but before they've gotten together, the men not yet in those relationships have done some REALLY silly borderline cartoon-ish things. Yuda's character was unwatchable in the earlier episodes, "luckily" he has received several character rewrites & by the time he has started dating the second FL he has become tolerable, but nonetheless jarring character adjustments are never okay. I would've rather had him killed & introduced another guy for Cheng Yi.

As for the non romance related plot. It was pretty weak. It's not nearly as annoying as in Love is Sweet, but it's an endless loop of minor annoyances & the Daoist interpretation of Go. Naturally there is a cartoon villain character as well. Honestly this plot is wasted on the excellent ensemble of actors.
There were 41 episodes, unfortunately out of those 5 are straight up trash. I'm talking about episodes 31-32 due to the stupid breakup thing & 38 to 40 due to the tragedy & the ML losing his mind. The short 10 minute long ending is basically ML regaining his mind. I would have much preferred the basic "proposal -> register marriage -> have kid" formula. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The visuals are good, but the photography is not out of the ordinary as far as 2021 cdramas go. As for the OST, it was fairly mediocre, I did not particularly like any of the songs, nor is the instrumental background music used to a great effect.

I'm not a hardcore feminist or anything, but Ding Lan's lack of ambitions as a Go player and her monologues about sentimental women such as herself being worse than men at Go was not a great listen. (I cannot be 100% certain about Go ofc, but in regular good old western Chess women are not inferior to men, at least when the conditions are the same, unfortunately that's almost never the case)

6/10. (if you want something similar but better, just go for the Go Go Squids instead)

Read More

How do I even begin reviewing 20th Century Boy and Girl, how should I rate this? On one hand the drama has fairly little emotional impact, there is no angst whatsoever, but the romances are also not exactly overflowing with emotional charge either. There is not much plot, but it meanders in strange directions. It's fantastic that the love triangle is so tame & easily resolved, but at the same time Anthony's character is just a waste of screen time, he is not annoying, just boring. Also the whole setting has infinite untapped makjang potential, certainly it's awesome that the writer did not go in that direction, but when I realized that the two male leads are stepbrothers, I could not help, but roll my eyes. Also the way the ML kept telling the second ML that he is only only friends with FL repeatedly certainly caused me some minor frustrations.

Despite the above I had a great time watching the drama. The sismances are up there with the very best & Han Ye Seul's calming energy is something rarely seen. Also the leads had great chemistry & looked adorable together. Most things in the drama are unusually wholesome and it's super nice how quickly and easily the scandals are dealt with.

I cannot help, but feel that there were too many (interesting) characters to completely develop them in 32 half-episodes and the team has even wasted 2 full episodes worth of time on Anthony.
Still gotta give them credit where credit is due. How often does one watch a relaxed romcom like this without it becoming draggy? The episodes certainly went by really fast, I reached the finale in a flash.

Read More

Is Avatar a good movie? This is one of those arguments that I'm sure everyone of my generation has heard before. I think Avatar is a great movie, yes the story is absolutely trash, but the great visuals & the incredible OST turned it into a very memorable experience for me. Rainless Love in a Godless Land is a little similar for me, the photography is far above the modern kdrama standard & the OST is absolutely phenomenal, perhaps the individual tracks aren't quite up to the summit that is the Goblin OST (or Wu Bai's Last Dance), however the mixing & even the audio effects are absolutely phenomenal, the best I have ever heard in any TV series.

I brought up Avatar, but objectively speaking the story of Rainless is actually okay too. Personally I think this is the biggest "weak" point of the drama.
I could talk about plotholes, but there aren't that many on the surface level, though it is advised not to think too deeply about cause and effect.
I'm frustrated how little actual romance we've had. I mean sure, a Tdrama does not HAVE TO BE a romance drama necessarily, however here the story was completely set up for romance, most of the big actions the main characters take are motivated by love, that is why I find it difficult to tolerate the lack of actual romance that has been shown. Someday or One Day is hugely & I mean HUGELY better in this regard.
Someone in the comment section compared the plot to a Matryoshka doll and this is a somewhat valid comparison, it's just that I could not appreciate the big reveals in the last episode all that much. It's like all these grand concepts were introduced to confuse and mesmerize the audience, but ultimately they did not have that much plot relevance.
I don't like the main villain's motivation for doing the things he did, feels like it was just an afterthought by the writer. Honestly, I think I would have preferred not knowing.
I'm not entirely sold on the ending either, how everything turned in the last episode felt quite arbitrary to me..
Still it's nice a that the writer managed to produce a complex, cleverly written & still somewhat coherent script, it's better than what most high concept shows have in Hollywood.
I really liked how the show is based on indigenous Taiwanese lore. The mysticism based on this paired with the aforementioned audiovisuals are the heart of the drama.
Overall the show is fairly original, however it cannot be denied that the writer has gotten a lot of inspiration from Goblin & a certain Japanese video game.

I talked about before how I'm not entirely happy about the romantic story, but that's not all, the chemistry between the leads could've been better. Even during the finale I could not really get into the mood to earnestly root for their happiness.

Alice Ke really stole the show. She must have had fun while filming. What a great adversary she was! Though perhaps in certain scenes her enthusiasm was a touch too obvious.

While watching the drama, during the early episodes I frequently felt that I'm watching a movie produced for children, such as the 2018 Little Mermaid movie. Xie Tian Di's character had many juvenile moments. It's fine to have juvenile adults in a drama, they exists in real life too, I'm totally one myself, but Tian Di had some ridiculous dialogs early on, similar to a cartoon mom explaining something to her cartoon son about dog poop. Did perhaps the producers try to make the drama more family friendly? I guess it's okay, this did not detract too much from my enjoyment.

Joanne's singing was a very nice touch. In the later episodes I missed the summoning ritual quite a bit. Obviously this is based on Goblin's candle blowing thing, but it was nonetheless lovely.

The episode previews were extremely annoying. Why, just why would anyone put the episode preview BEFORE the epilogue? A binge watcher does not need episode previews anyway, even if I'm watching a drama normally as it airs, I would like to have the option to not look at the previews.

TLDR: Rainless Love in a Godless Land is a wonderful audiovisual experience with an above average story, 9/10.

------
原子邦妮 Astro Bunny is absolutely incredible, even outside of Rainless's OST. Her songs sound like Ivy songs, but better.


edit: I decided to give this another go, now in the year 2023. I think my review holds up quite well, but now I felt the chemistry between the leads being better than what I initially thought & also enjoyed the final half episode A LOT as well.

Read More

It's a cute show with enough substance to remain interesting till the last episode.

The Good:
-All three couples were interesting.
-Everyone had good chemistry with everyone.
-The lack of dental procedures (I hate seeing that on screen & I have delayed watching this solely for that reason)
-The near complete lack of conflict
-The fluff (though there could have been more of it)
-I liked how the characters joked about ML having mild prosopagnosia.
-There were quite a few epic scenes. (Cats that catch mice don't meow, haha)
-Second lead noona romance was totally awesome, wow.
-Fairly unoffensive product placements

The Neutral:
-The love triangle may have been resolved beautifully, but it was still arbitrarily conjured out of thin air & they wasted 2 full episodes on it.
-FL's annoying mom (as annoying as she was, luckily she had very little screen time)
-The Africa thing (I've read about this in the comments before, but it had very little plot relevance & it was not nearly as offensive as I thought it would be.)

The Bad:
-The pacing has not been adjusted for a 22 episode series. (Episode 17 felt like the 17th episode from a 40 episode long drama)
-There were so many missed opportunities, I wish this was at least 5 episodes longer, see previous point.
-The ending is really rushed, then again I'm just repeating myself now.

Read More

This was better than expected, the relatively low ratings are probably due to Zheng Shuang's misdeeds. If you are capable of respecting the art instead of the artist, then this is a pretty good slice of life drama to watch.

My Story for You is a very long show, but I rarely felt it being draggy, it was maybe a bit repetitive at times, but considering that we went through 20 years worth of happenings over the course of 48 episodes it was alright. Zheng Shuang was pretty damn good in the drama, she did an excellent job portraying this entitled princess FL character. As for the ML the actor did a good job, but the character had some problems, he has made some decisions that made no sense to me. I liked most supporting characters, (except Hang Dong) but their bromances & friendships felt a little forced at times. The two main love lines were pretty enjoyable for me, the rest of them not so much. I hated the ending that Jia You has gotten, there was zero need for that.

The writing is okay for the most part, but the story lost coherence after the BIG time skip for the last 10~ episodes.

The drama does not have a single kiss scene, but I would have been okay with that. The problem is that the kiss scenes were completely set up, but they fizzled out every single time. Plus in my opinion it's better to not kiss anything rather then going for a forehead kiss. Does anyone even like that?

The show does not have strong love triangles, which is always a plus.

The product placements are no joke in this one. There is that koala doll that a 40 year old woman drags around everywhere & then we had straight up ad segments with various drinks, yogurts & more.

I have grown tired of Kong Lin. She plays the same kind, but narrow minded mom character in every second cdrama I watch.

Perhaps the 8/10 rating is a tad too high, but I felt sad upon reaching the end & I will certainly miss this show, though probably the rewatch value is low.

Read More

The problem with family dramas is that they target every possible demographic and because of that 100% enjoyment is impossible. However in My Father is Strange many things that were clearly not targeted at me were still somewhat interesting. This show had really great couples, characters & a heartwarming family atmosphere. The overall package is pretty wholesome. The 2 main couples in Once Again perhaps packed more punch, but this drama had a much better family narrative & overall felt more joyful. I loved how this show barely featured love triangles, despite having so many couples. (there were secondary love interests, but it was not annoying at all)

The reason why this is not a 10/10 for me is that the second half felt quite a bit draggy, especially Mi Young's love line and the big secret thing.
Family dramas are silly and a little makjang-ish by nature and despite My Father is Strange having many tropes that normally annoy me greatly, the delivery was moderate enough to keep my nerves loose.

The acting is absolutely top notch, the actresses playing the sisters did an especially outstanding job.

The drama did a good job cheering my up over the past few days. 8/10

Read More

This drama consists of two main parts, the first 14 episodes are about the high school years of our four leads & episodes 15-28 are about university life.

If I consider the first one a separate drama, then I would rate it at 9+, it's more than just great. I enjoyed the high school years much more here than in the recent hit cdrama Our Secret. If I imagined how my favorite high school anime romance would look like as live action TV, something like this would be the end result. In fact I don't think I have ever seen a high school drama with more anime-like leads, second leads. Usually Chinese high school dramas have very little romantic substance, because the censorship kills any chance of puppy loves flourishing, not in this one though. I feel the production team really pushed the boundaries of what a high school cdrama can be. I mean sure kisses, or a direct non confusable confession did not end up happening, but there was never a doubt about their relationship. Like the drama had "we'll be together forever" and (just) sleeping with & on each other multiple times, hugs etc etc. This whole introverted guy + outspoken girl story just really worked for me. Also it was really wholesome, like all the moms & even the head teacher were mostly turning a blind eye to the obvious affair. Special circumstances notwithstanding I'm really surprised this passed censorship.

The second half of the drama, the university years was not nearly as good. The leads went through the motions and while it was mostly still very enjoyable, but it was a bit annoying how slowly they progressed, despite starting cohabitation relatively early on. The leads have grown on me & I enjoyed watching them, but their everyday life did certainly not have enough substance for 28 episodes.

This is a drama where the leads (effectively) have gotten together in episode 3? and stayed together till the last episode without a single major misunderstanding, or love triangles. So of course the writers felt they have to find some tension to make the drama more interesting and with this I arrived at the worst thing about the drama, which is the relationship of the second leads following high school graduation. This entire theme of the guy not knowing how the girl feels & how he himself feels, while seemingly not having working male hormones either was extremely frustrating to get through. That's not even all, when he had finally figured out what's going on, the girl suddenly changed her mind, because ehm why not?

I just finished binging the drama, but I cannot recall any of the songs, the most mediocre OST of 2020 award goes to.. !?

If I had to recommend Meeting You to a friend, I would probably just say to watch the first 22~ episodes & then just skip to the finale. Coffee making competitions & plagiarism accusations are probably not worth the time, especially considering how there was much less sweetness in the OTP relationship after they started to officially date.

Read More

For the longest time I’ve been looking forward to this show to finally finish airing. Having looked up some spoilers in the comment section, things seemed more than great, yay happy ending, yay no breakup, yay wholesomeness. As such I could not help myself and hopped on the hype train and so I ended up having too many expectations leading to some disappointment. Don’t get me wrong HomeCha is a great kdrama, but it’s not nearly as great as I hoped it would be.

About the Kim Seon Ho - Shin Mina OTP pairing, I can only say that I have seen onscreen couples with better chemistry before, but it was fine. The rest of the cast did a phenomenal job. I liked every single supporting actor with one exception and that exception is only due to my personal bias, so I won’t elaborate on that. Even the child actors were surprisingly good.

The story is typical romcom story, without the downright magical setting I don’t think I would have praised it, but It worked very well for the most part.
I have two major problems with the story. Firstly the love triangle felt very artificial. Yes it’s great how and how fast they wrapped it up, it’s also great how civilized the characters were about it and even the bromance aspect of it was decent. I felt the only point of the triangle is that Soompi could write an exciting article about how we should look forward to it. Oh well, I realize I’m probably being unfair with this statement. So feel free to ignore this point, overall this triangle execution is still above average. The bigger issue is episode 15, or more specifically the reveal of the main mystery, why is Hong Doo Shik living the life that he is living, why did he retire to his hometown. Frankly the whole explanation made me angry. It’s beyond nonsensical. Not only did he turn the other cheek again and again whenever someone blamed him, but he also blamed himself for such a stupid noble reason. I guess I could say that I had my concerns about his characterization before, but when the final reveal came I could only roll my eyes in frustration. I think the writer herself had no idea what tragic backstory she is going to go with up until that point, so she kept procrastinating as long as she could and in episode 15 she handled it like a technician, by then knowing that the show was already an unbreakable success. I wish I had known in advance, I would have just fastforward buttoned all those flashbacks, oh well.

The product placements were often pretty immersion breaking. The writing interns were not on top of their game, at least when it comes to the smart incorporation of product placements. PP should be out of the way, not directly influencing a main characters personality and that’s exactly what happened here. The whole explanation about Hye Jin liking brandname stuff, designer bags, designer shoes is just too much. There is also that scene, when she bought a 5 million Won necklace, despite being in the red. (and later on said necklace reappeared again in a comparably stupid way) So yes the drama is so full of product placement related content, that at times I felt I should be paid for watching it, not the other way around.

The most comparable kdrama that I’ve seen is When the Weather is Fine. The story is pretty similar overall, but I think that drama is much better up until the production team COMPLETELY ruined it somewhere near the end. Homecha despite not being quite as good in the early episodes at least provided us with a nicely wrapped up happy ending & I can grumble about ep15 all I want, but that’s not nearly enough to ruin the drama for me, so with that in mind I’ll go with the rating of 8,5.

Read More