What a year 2018 has been for kdrama, we had What's Wrong With Secretary Kim & 30 but 17 and now The Beauty Inside. TBI doesn't quite match up with the other 2, but it represents the same trend, doing away with tedious love triangles & instead using other tools to generate tension and I do love a good mystery... (even if everything is obvious about it on day2)

I felt that Lee Minky's acting was a bit off in this series, it was nowhere near as good, as it has been in This is my 1st Life. Still very decent ofc, just that he felt off here and there. I really liked the rest of the cast, especially Lee Dahee, she was really awesome here. Na Younghee is an "ajumma" actress I never liked before in any of the dramas I've seen her appearing in, but this time she was a good fit. The OST was fairly pleasant too, but not very memorable.

Now why am I not giving this 10/10? Well there are some issues. Probably this wasn't pre-produced, the way how they dealt with the rival actress's character was super strange, like the writers wanted to use her as a tool to mess everything up, but changed their minds half way. Episode 14, well this was really just a plain bad episode. I realize that they felt that a work labeled as "drama" needs to have drama in it, but oh man this was pretty badly executed in my opinion. For reference, Oh My Venus had an episode with the same writer intent, but it was SOO MUCH better in every way. Let's not even mention the time-skip part.. The assistant writers(interns?) responsible for product placements were definitely not very good, too obvious boys and girls..
There were some missed opportunities too. They could have done so much more with Segye's alter egos. I mean sure I liked it when she turned into a kid spending time with mom, but there could have been so much more. Remember how memorable Goblin's ghost stories were?

So yes, overall I was entertained, will watch it again someday. I hope that in 2019 we will have more dramas like this one.

Read More

This is a procedural drama with some cute romance. This pretty much sums it up, the romance is reasonably okay, but you won't be floored by the main leads' chemistry. Big positive though that there is no love triangle, or forced separations. Shin Se Kyung did well compared to some of her other works, ML? his acting wasn't very convincing.. The comedic skits for the troupe were meaningless, I did not find any of them funny.
The aspect of seeing scents is a bit interesting, but the CGI showing mini leaf etc. symbols floating around is just dumb, it should've been some random shapes & colors, because this is just unacceptable even with drama logic.
The majority of the time is spent on the procedural police stuff and honestly some of it is really boring, some of it is really stupid, the side characters at the station were not that interesting either. One notable example is that moment when our ML shows his genius in rotating a barcode, well newsflash drama writers, it doesn't matter how you rotate or mirror a barcode, the numeric value won't change. Police tends to be really really bad in kdramas in general, but this is a new kind of low.
Park Jinjoo is the best part of the series, I would love to see her in a main role one day..
The killer, well I didn't really care tbh, the actor did a good job, the sub par script wasn't his fault.
The OST was okay, nothing too memorable though.

Read More

The first 6 episodes were really slow, even compared to "A Love so Beautiful". I'm not into watching the ugliness of society (be that Korean, or American) for extended periods of time, I was ready to drop the drama multiple times for that reason, but the entire plastic surgery thing kept me interested just long enough to reach episode 7 and then things turned for the better. I realized that I really started liking the cast & the romance was getting more and more interesting. There was no humor at all in the first half, but there were quite a few funny moments later on too. As usual in a drama like this I expected the worst from the love triangle, but that never happened, that's always a giant plus. I don't really care about bromances, but this one here was not much worse than in Goblin. I also like how it ended. Yes others have commented on how many secondary plotlines are unfinished & how great a second season would be, but I disagree. I'm genuinely afraid of what the plotline in that hypothetical second season could be. I feel that they followed the still ongoing webcomic too closely up until the ending, that's why we had all that melodramatic setup in the beginning that couldn't really lead anywhere in 16 episodes and honestly I'm not that curious about their resolution, feeling that it's better not to know, I'm content that I got the happy ending that I wanted & the topic of plastic surgery & the psychology of plastic surgery were sufficiently explored.
The OST was just there, here I am writing this 8 hours after finishing the series & I don't recall a single song, or track. Not memorable at all.

Read More

It has to be 10/10, because it's really outstanding in many ways. The casting is fantastic. Every single character has a meaningful role & is an integral part of the story. It's nice that the second male lead did not mess up the romance as it happens 99 out of 100 times in a kdrama. Based on her music videos & pictures that I've seen before I really underestimated Suzy. This is the first time I've seen her in a drama & oh man she is so cool, I'm super impressed. Also the actor that played Mr Choi was awesome, just like Strongwoman Do Bong Soon. The OST at first listen seems nothing special, but it fits really well, it just grew on me. In terms of cinematography it's definitely top tier among Kdramas, in this respect WYWS is way ahead of Pinocchio.

There are negatives too. Some of the "fake law" explanations were just too cheesy. There could have been more lighthearted scenes and the ending, which is the last 30 minutes could have been less rushed, should have been an hour long at least. Hong-joo's mom's shenanigans were really unnecessary too.

Personally I liked Pinocchio more, because I found the setting more interesting and it was funnier & the story flow was better & also the dramatic parts resonated with me more, but maybe I only feel this way, because I saw Pinocchio first and the two dramas are extremely similar in many ways. So yes, While You Were Sleeping will definitively not dethrone Goblin as the best drama I have ever seen, not even close, but it's a top tier work, that I will remember for a very long time & will rewatch it, in fact I might enjoy it even more the second time around, because some strongly hinted potential plot twists made me lightly frustrated the whole time...

Read More

This was really good. I had Dots vibes during the entire show, but I think this is better, because the most annoying things in DoTs aren't present here & what we had instead were pretty fun, plus DoTs had the worst child actors I have ever seen, opposed the top tier child actors in FfmW. Pretty much all the flashbacks were excellent, plus all the MMA fighting scenes were entertaining, it's nice that the fights did not take 15-30 minutes each, like in other dramas/movies. It was also nice that the love triangles & stuff were heavily front-loaded making the pacing of the story much better than usual, the frustration factor was also on the low-ish side. Pyo Yejin was kind of surprising in this half villain role, but it definitely worked. The ending could have been half an hour longer, but it was decent nonetheless, especially the last scene during credits. One negative thing I guess was the breakup scene at the end of E15, it was just a meaningless forced cliffhanger, since nothing changed after the breakup, there was no tension, or drama from it.

The OST was definitely above average, although hearing that instrumental track from Goblin several times felt a bit strange, because the mood of this show is just so different. (ofc that song from DOTS also appeared a lot, but that was perfectly fine for this show)

Read More

Misguided educational program for Korean highschoolers!?

This is basically 3 unrelated short stories bundled up in a 7 episodes long anthology..

Act 1:
You would think that a story that involves porn/masturbation addiction would break kdrama convention, but unfortunately that is not the case. High school dating is still a no & honestly the message that wetdreams are preferred over masturbation is just plain wrong. Also the way how this almost-relationship started is very male fantasy like and unrealistic. 5/10

Act 2:
This one is much better than Act1, but it's not amazing. For starters it was supposed to be a friendship to lovers story, but the friendship is barely shown & it's not even for a lack of time, since there was more than enough time to focus on naked upper bodies and such. I don't even think it was that well acted out really, the chemistry between the leads is not all that great either. Also in one scene FL is worried about her mismatched underwear, fastforward a few minutes & she is not even willing to allow kissing, come on now! 7/10

Act 3:
I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to be about. It felt aimless and strange to me. I don't think this was worth watching at all. Perhaps the main theme is bullying, but it's not very impactful, even if someone liked watching that kind of thing. 4/10

Read More

It's romance, not a romcom.

This has been a pretty interesting drama. It's quite unusual in many ways. When I reached the half way point I've been thinking that it's the perfect blend of fantasy and reality. We've seen characters & situations that cannot possibly be real, but at the same time I did not find either the realness or the absurdity of the plot immersion breaking. Unfortunately this delicate balance is broken somewhat in the later episodes. There were some unnecessary skits that felt out of place. It's not that the later episodes weren't good, but at times I felt like I'm watching a different drama compared to when I started. I guess to some extent the writing can be blamed too. I've been thinking that perhaps the writer realized around ep9-10 that she has ran out of ideas and a lot of padding's been added instead of content that I wanted to watch. Then again the writing is on a very high level throughout the drama, it's just that there were some recurring themes that I don't really like, such as parents "owning" their children etc. There is a lot of intelligent and wholesome dialog in the drama & also the complete lack of love triangles is extremely praiseworthy. Perhaps the problem is 100% me, because I'm just never satisfied with anything. I could also nitpick about the ending, it reminded me a lot of Be Melodramatic. Objectively it's decent, but I just don't like the idea of open ended kdramas and the characters really shouldn't discuss what a happy ending is in their last scene, that is just too immersion breaking for me, but that seems almost fotm these days. I was prepared to bash the writer for ruining the second couple's story, but considering their last 2-3 scenes their conclusion is up to our imagination..

Everything else is fantastic.

Read More

It's okay, if you are in the mood for some moodiness.

Honestly this is nowhere near as bad as the makjangish and super silly setup would suggest.
I have two big problems with the show.
The first is that the OTP romance is not very believable. I think acting shortfalls are definitely part of this issue & the chemistry was just not enough for me to fully immerse myself in their relationship.
The second is that the ending is extremely low effort. There was all this crying/suffering/hardship & then everything just worked out senselessly, also following the always annoying separation followed by a 1 minute happy ending formula. It's better than people dying I suppose, but not by much. I don't know if this was live filming or not, but it sure feels like it. Then again, it's quite normal for kdrama writers to not give a fork about well thought out endings, so that could be it. (This is pretty much the industry standard now, if anything.) On a positive note a well thought out, reasonable ending would've been exorbitantly difficult with the setting we've had, so perhaps embracing the silly is not the worst thing in the world. I would hugely prefer though if writers made scripts that can be wrapped up in a way that makes sense, instead of making convoluted messes & then just yolo-ing the ending.

As for what I liked.. There is a lot of reasonably well written dialog existing outside of the plot-driving conversations. I liked the moody presentation & the pink filter was part of that too I suppose. I liked the visuals on my color calibrated displays, but I can see why someone would hate this, if watching the show on an LG oled TV or a Galaxy phone..
The OST is pretty good too!

Read More

Great, but the Manhwa is greater.

I'm not gonna waste the time talking about how amazing this is, it's fully deserving of the 9/10 rating, but in this review I'll focus on the things that I did not like so much.

In the early episodes Ahn Hyo Seop tried to copy Park Seo Joon's character from Secretary Kim. I'm not entirely sure why the production team wanted this, I don't think this worked for the actor. As much as I'm not a fan of his, I gotta admit that once he stopped doing that, he was perhaps the best version of himself so far. He had reasonable chemistry with Kim Se Jeong and his acting ability & on screen maturity has seemingly taken a step forward.

Obviously I've read the webtoon and I'm unhappy about a few things. For starters they have removed my favorite part of the webtoon, namely Hari's hilarious attempts at trying to turn fake into real.
In the final two episodes we have deviated quite far from the source material & I disliked pretty much all the changes.
Young Seo's conclusion was perhaps a little cliche in the comics, but it was nice. Instead of that we've gotten this rushed thing with YS cutting his father off. I liked the original plot more, but this was okay too I suppose and they might have made Korean television history with this. I've seen countless kdramas with asshole parents & this is the first time when the parent gets cut off in way that does not conform with the values of Confucianism. I certainly approve of this message!
The scandal about "Hari stalking her crush for 7 years, then dating her CEO right after" is the scriptwriter's invention. Did anyone actually like this? Not me anyway..
The forced 1 year temporary separation was complete bull, I'm sorry. There was 0 need to do this. This is one of the worst kdrama cliches that the Manhwa does not have. Compared to other dramas this is once again not the worst, at least they did not break up, or anything. it's just sad that they wasted what little time they had with the 12 episode limit on something like this. The webtoon has a very long & fluffy happy ending, also it's not boring at all. I understand that there was no time to get all of that in, but the deviations were less than appreciated and that's putting it bluntly.
Also the webtoon has a really funny secondary love interest for Kang Tae Moo, if they wanted to increase tensions in e11-12, they should have gone with her mini ark instead. (not a real love interest, but everyone though so & it was really amusing how Hari needed to defend her territory)


----
(There is a love triangle, but I think triangle haters can safely watch this, the secondary love interest had relatively little screen time & has been rejected very strongly in a timely fashion)

Read More

Outstanding, but infuriatingly unfinished

It's a brilliant, incredible yada yada show. The perfect casting meets with with the best creative talents the kdrama genre has to offer. There are plenty of 10/10 reviews very accurately depicting the awesomeness of the show, so I'll keep it short.

The reason why it's not 10/10 for me is because I have gotten into kdramas specifically due to the fact that kdramas tell a somewhat coherent story in 16-20 episodes & usually they are light on the filler and the good ones give the audience closure. This show has been written with a second season in mind & it ends with a cliffhanger. The cliffhanger itself is not that offensive, but two of the three most important storylines are hanging in the air, unfinished. So yeah, the last episode was quite the maddening experience.
I really wish Netflix stopped trying to influence how kdramas are made..

Read More

Not bad, but overrated!

The Good
⌲ The brilliant episode that is E10 (It's one of the best kdrama episodes I've seen in quite a while)
⌲ Jung So Min's coolness (though she too did not try very hard early on, but improved later)
⌲ Mo Eum
⌲ The final episodes were -mostly- rather entertaining
⌲ The good comedy when not in sad melo mode
⌲ The endless fun bickering
⌲ ML's ex, mostly
⌲ There is no stupid elementary school level dating in this show & everyone has good and relatively immediate relationship goals.

The Average
⌲The acting (Jung Hae In is an excellent actor, but he did not try very hard in this one and some other supporting actors neither)
⌲ There is too much focus on the elders, very much like in a family drama. (then again their plots are not all that bad)
⌲ The chemistry between the leads
⌲ Mo Eum's romantic plot
⌲ Could have said `friends to lovers` done somewhat right, but the flashback content & ML's everlasting love are just so wrong.

The Bad
⌲ The dimwitted and insane mom
⌲ Before E10 the show has been increasingly less and less entertaining as time went on, felt like dropping it at one point.
⌲ The sad melodrama parts felt off to me early on.
⌲ The ex (despite his graceful exit I disliked almost everything about him & his plot )
⌲ The bracelet product placement (though admittedly Cleopatra could have worn that thing)
⌲ The North Pole. (good god)
⌲ Uncle!

Read More

I enjoyed the first 6 episodes, sure it's been a bit lukewarm & nothing unique or out of the norm, but at the very least the drama is relatively free of annoyances up to that point & it`s still somewhat funny with acceptable chemistry between the leads & decent-ish acting. The second FL is also really funny, though I always liked Dasom before..

Unfortunately the final 2 episodes are similar to what we usually get in 16ep dramas. Meaning it`s complications leading to an arbitrary separation culminating in a 3 minute long happy ending, if this is even that.. I always hated that formula, here though it's even worse, since having 2 trash episodes out of 8 has twice the impact.

Read More

Skip!

I just cannot believe that this drama has received 10/10 reviews praising the writer for the plot, incredulous. Having a silly, unrealistic setting in romantic comedies is perfectly normal, but to at least some extent the writer should respect the audience. Here not only are there at least 2 completely intolerable plot points, but also in the second half the plot is very jittery with no respect for logic.
In my review of 'Love is Sweet' I wrote that the OTP romance is good and everything else is trash. In 'The Love You Give Me' that statement not only holds up, but also even the romance is not nearly as good, but the annoying things are perhaps even more annoying. The two side couple's stories are also not great..

To say something good about the show, at least the acting is on a high level across the board & the leads were very cute together, with very good chemistry. (and there were many times when I found that both leads had red ears during some of their scenes, I found that to be very cute) However this is not enough to save this drama. There are many fluffy scenes that I have enjoyed, with a decent amount of comedy, however this is not enough to save the drama, not even close. There is just too much push-pulling here, with the progress always stalling due to very arbitrary reasons. Even the final episodes hold some "fantastic" surprises to sour the cake for us.

Ah almost forgot, the child actor playing their kid was amazing..

Read More

The low ratings are probably largely due to kdrama lovers watching something that is Alien to them!

This show reminds me of The Matrix quite a bit. As an ancient fossil I still remember my elementary school classmates talking about the meaning of the film & sharing with me their own interpretations, one sillier than the other. Fast-forward to 2022 & reading Glitch's comment section I had a similar feeling even before I decided to actually dive into the drama and it is exactly like the Matrix's non action related content in the sense that it's messy with all this at times seemingly random symbolism that is completely up to interpretation and no two people will think about it same way. (and there are other similarities too, except this show has very few action scenes)

I will of course share my take, but before then let me just say that this is absolutely worth watching and reading my review from this point onward will not be all that useful in deciding whether you give this a shot or not.

In my opinion this show and its characters are incredibly juvenile, but for me that is part of its charm. The early episodes reminded me of Aussie and German children's adventure shows from the nineties & I've got to relive the sense of wonder I felt when I was watching some of them as a kid. (maybe there is a hint of inspiration from Stranger Things as well..) Of course the Glitch remains quite juvenile up until the last episode, but some of the plot gets heavier & more mature as we reach the end.
By juvenile characters what I mean is that many of them are exactly like children with 8th grader syndrome going on an adventure as a group of 2-6 doing batshit crazy things that mature people would never do, but doing all that in a somewhat protected environment, where the adults never interfere too much. (law enforcement) For me this was of course very entertaining & the last episode was absolutely fantastic! Good, well thought out endings do matter & this show has one of the best endings I've seen from a television show. (I raised my final score by an entire point because of the ending) Also the sturgeon conversation at the end is such a simple, but brilliant idea. I can almost see the writer talking about sturgeons with some producer & then deciding to somehow make that the main theme of a new show called Glitch, or not, maybe it's only in my head. (and no, sturgeons are not really a spoiler, since it's impossible to interpret this without context)

TLDR: This is a Korean High Concept show that is not really a Kdrama. If you like high concept shows, give this one a chance. (of course the visuals and visual effects are quite nice & the acting is 10/10 as well)

Read More