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Starlitelet

Mellow Land

Starlitelet

Mellow Land
The Greatest Love korean drama review
Completed
The Greatest Love
20 people found this review helpful
by Starlitelet
Apr 19, 2012
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 4.0
Story 4.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 3.0
My Mini Back-Story: I saw a lot of recommendations, so I said why not? Besides, the casts seem solid, and I have a soft spot for Yoon Kye Sang. Storyline: Let me just bluntly lay it out, and get to the point. a) Humor. I didn't like the comedy AT ALL, and not to mention, this drama is a rom-com. Perhaps, the sense of humor wasn't my cup of tea. Then again, the highly exaggerated comedic movements/expressions felt too slapstick. It was as if I was watching a childish cartoon/anime. Don't get me wrong, I love cartoons and animes, but I hate the ones that degrade the audience because they're narrowing it for the younger generation. In this case, The Greatest Love was really corny for me... I was hoping the humor would get better, since the first episode was already hard enough to digest. Though, it doesn't get much better. Sadly, not at all. b) Too much predictable/boring tug-of-war. Our two leads' stories are uninteresting. Their unrealistic backgrounds are too generic that I had no connection with them. Their relationship is formed by mere bickerings. The love-hate story is handled too typically for me. Everything worked out too conveniently. c) Unrealistic or rather not plausible. I know that most Korean dramas are unrealistic considering the characters and the environment set-up. Not to mention they're mostly all melodramas. Though, that isn't an excuse to make the characters' reactions and actions do illogical things. I seriously don't understand the way these characters' mindsets work, especially Dokko Jin. d) Nothing happens. From beginning till end, it's about Gu Ae Jung getting shoved down and brought back up then shoved back down. The same thing over, and over again. I don't mind a simple plotline, but The Greatest Love doesn't give us any new ingredient. Honestly, I can't differentiate between any of the episodes because nothing big ever happens. There's nothing for us viewers to guess or wonder. Everything is laid in black and white, but in an uninteresting way/fashion. e) Boring side characters. Ae Jung's brother was boring and unnecessary. That farting scene was just idiotic. If anyone thought that was funny, then I'm sorry. There's just no dynamic between any of the side characters, and our main characters. I'll leave it at this... Acting/Cast/Characters: I didn't like any of the characters, nor was I rooting for any of them. The only character I felt sorry for was Yoon Pil Joo. Even then, his character was very 2-D. Heck, all of the characters are like cardboard cut-outs. They're all the typical Korean dramaland characters combined into one. Another reason why I didn't like the character Pil Joo was because he's the typical nice lad that always gets tossed aside. I'm starting to get sick of the pitiful supporting dudes. Even though, I love Yoon Kye Sang, I couldn't understand why he did what he did for the main lead girl, Ae Jung. It's like these characters complain about their hardships when they surround themselves near people who give them a hard time. The character formula here is very typical of any Korean drama. We have the main female lead who likes this egotistical dude. However, there's this really nice/proper lad who likes her, but she uses him or pays no mind to him. Wait, there must be more drama (for no reason) to add hardship for this pitiful lead girl. So what do they do? They throw in this evil (not so menacing) girl who's jealous of the leading female. Though, the female protagonist is so oblivious to all of this, and she tries to be a saint and save everyone's life, but never her own. Awww... this makes the boys love her even more. So preachy! It's as if the scriptwriters didn't know what to do with the evil girl, so they just dumb her down a notch. You'll know what I'm talking about if you give this drama a try. Aside from my hatred of these poorly developed characters, I thought the performances from Cha Seung Won and Gong Hyo Jin were very solid. Though, I wouldn't recommend them doing another rom-com. They're not funny. It was a nice change for Seung Woo, but I prefer him sticking to his bada** roles. Anyway, I understand that it's harder for actors to excel in comedic roles because not everyone is a natural comedian/joker. Hence given this leniency, I'd say they did a good job. I can tell that they're really great actors because of their range of emotions. Though, no matter how good their acting are, if the characters fail... then most likely it's a fail overall. Good acting can't help cover/compensate for bad characters in the end. Music: Hmm... don't remember the songs much. There wasn't anything that captured my attention. Bonus: The only time I actually laughed was when Lee Seung Gi came on as a cameo. Now, that's a dude that knows how to act naturally in a comedy. I like the way Dokko Jin says "Bingo". Don't know why though - haha. Overall: Yeah, maybe it's just not my type of comedy. There were no witty lines nor cute banters. I strongly disliked the script (or more like the dialogue exchanges). In fact, I don't really like The Hong Sisters because their scripts/characters can be a great hit or a huge miss. It's like a 50/50 chance here. Most of the time, their characters are overly exaggerated, or try too hard to be cute, which sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, it didn't work for me, and it's a rather run-of-the-mill storyline/characters that have been rehashed far too many times already. I fast-forwarded many scenes because they were redundant. I was about to give up halfway or near the end, but somewhere within me, I was still keen on seeing these characters on-screen. So I'll give them bonus for that. Overall rating for review: 4/10 Purely for entertainment: 4/10 My Dramalist rating (avg): 4/10
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