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Extraordinary Attorney Woo korean drama review
Completed
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
0 people found this review helpful
by enapeters
May 29, 2023
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.5
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 9.0
This review may contain spoilers

Not a perfectly written drama, but my enjoyment was extraordinary.

Attorney Woo is delightful, and the characters and cases were all interesting, which is saying a lot since I'm typically not a fan of legal dramas or shows that follow a case-of-the-week format. Park Eun Bin's acting was amazing; she embodied the role. I also enjoyed all of the side characters, but especially Ha Yoon Kyung as Choi Soo Yeon.

Two points of dissatisfaction:

I struggled with the romance storyline from the beginning and felt dissatisfied with it in the end. Jun Ho's crush on her started with the cliche scene of seeing her in a wedding dress, and it seemed to grow from his delight in watching her talk about whales and solving cases. But they didn't seem to have anything in common or any moment of real connection. Why couldn't they have given them some common interests? He could have been a whale fanatic too. Or loved gimbap. It's like he kept insisting, "I really do like her," as if he needed to convince the audience as well as everyone around them because nothing in their interactions made it make sense why he would like her. In my opinion, what he liked about her was taking care of her (their very first interaction was him helping her through the revolving doors, for instance), and I really disliked that because both people in a relationship should feel like equals.

I also felt that the story dragged in the episodes on Jeju, followed by some underwhelming character development in the final two episodes. My theory is that they knew by then that they had been picked up for a second season, so at that point, they were trying to follow two playbooks. Standard Korean Drama conventions say they need to resolve the story threads by the end of the season, but a second season means they need to leave some things open. Trying to meet both endgoals, the show ended up making the motivations of the characters feel whiplashy. They didn't spend enough time teasing out Min Woo and Soo Yeon's relationship (probably so they have romantic tension to work with in the next season), so Min Woo's final decision seemed out of character. Similarly, they left Tae Soo Mi a villain until the last 15 minutes (probably so they can develop her relationship with Young Woo in season 2), which made her decision feel too sudden. They brought the story to the end - season 1 could reasonably stand alone if a viewer didn't want to continue with season 2 - but it was somewhat dissatisfying.
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