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  • Location: California
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Terry Tsurugi

California

Terry Tsurugi

California
Welcome 2 Life korean drama review
Completed
Welcome 2 Life
2 people found this review helpful
by Terry Tsurugi
Jun 23, 2023
32 of 32 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 6.5
Story 3.5
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 4.0
Rewatch Value 6.0
This review may contain spoilers

Bingeable show with great acting and likable characters but horrible writing

By the end of ep2, I was really sucked into the story and interested in what would happen next. The show was a very easy watch, and always kept me engaged.

One of the main reasons why is because the acting was so excellent almost across the board. The ML gave an excellent performance, although he had to deal with a poorly written character, but he made the best of it. I had never seen him act before, and I actually didn't realize it was Rain until I finished watching. There are times when the character does really horrible things, and that's where some of the bad writing comes in, but you still end up liking him and rooting for him.

But I think the writer could have done a much better job of showing how he changed from this amoral, greedy defense lawyer into a caring family man. I think that change was made too late in the story. It was really hard to believe how so late into the middle of the show, he was still yelling and complaining to Shi-on how much he hated the shabbiness of their middle-class domestic life and how he was dying to join the evil big law firm and get back to his lonely, rich life in the other world. I think it's totally unbelievable for this character--who's demonstrated at this point that he's a decent and rational person--after living a few days with this beautiful wife and daughter, would think that his previous life as a lonely bachelor drinking expensive wine and defending murderous, evil rich people (one of whom tried to kill him) was preferable to this loving family life of middle class comfort. No way.

Also, I was really impressed with Im Ji-yeon. She only came on my radar very recently when I watched The Glory. She did such an incredible job playing a despicable villain there, that the evil character and the actress merged in my mind, and I almost felt hatred for her as a person. So it was really refreshing to see her play a good person, and play that part just as well as the villain. The Shi-on character was just as sassy and energetic as her character in The Glory, but she was so loveable and charming. I'm really happy that she's getting so much acclaim and winning awards recently.

If you haven't watched Crash Course in Romance yet, skip this paragraph, but does Shin Jae-ha have a clause in his contract that states that he must always play a serial killer with mommy issues who favors steel industrial tools, black clothes with either a black cap or hoodie covering his face, killing people who get in the way of some father-figure that he admires, and trying to commit suicide by falling backwards from the top of a building right in front of his antagonists?

Also, even though I sometimes like to watch sick and violent horror and serial killer movies, I thought that the amount of blood and violence against children was a little too much for a drama, so I wish they had cut back on those scenes a little. I would have also cut out all the fart jokes.

Going back to the script problems--what happened to the bitchy chaebol mother in the first world who ordered a hit on Jae-sang? After he woke up from his coma back in the first world, this villain seems to have completely disappeared, like the writer forgot about her, maybe mistakenly thinking that since she was arrested in the second world, that was it for her in the entire multiverse. And several main characters were targets for killing at one point or another, and there were very easy opportunities for this, but the killers never took advantage of the easy opportunity but always waited until they could be prevented. For instance, towards the end of the show, why didn't the serial killer just kill Shi-on at her house, instead of dragging her to the top of the building at the hospital where he could be stopped? I'm glad he didn't do the easy thing there, but it doesn't make any sense if you think about it clearly. And there are many other examples like that.

Also, what eventually happened in the second world? The last scene implies that Shi-on didn't die but was hospitalized and recovered from getting bonked on the back of the head with a hammer. And it also implies that Jae-song was unharmed. But the evil bastard pharmaceutical executive serial killer had both of them tied up, but he just let Jae-song go instead of bonking him on the head next? So if Jae-song wasn't killed or knocked unconscious in that world, why did he end up jumping back to the first world?

Also, La Strada is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I resented how they referenced that classic masterpiece in such a cheap way, and kept repeating that great Nino Rota melody over and over. I thought that this reference was totally unnecessary and inappropriate, and didn't add anything at all to the show. If shows want to allude to things like movies and books and other things from the culture, they should choose them carefully to make sure that there's a relevant and insightful connection that enriches the story, instead of being a random reference just to show off the writer's sophistication.

Despite all these flaws, I still enjoyed the show, and found it be bingeable entertainment.
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