Love triangle hell
Nothing can be more infuriating than a series that was great losing its potential due to a long drawn out love triangle, and also a 16 episode run time instead of a 12 episode run time. While I love Seo Dal mi, Nam do san and Han Ji pyeong all as characters, some of the way that the story has been handled was extremely unsatisfying.I also believe there should have been more about Seo/Won in jaw in the story- the parts of the female lead making up with her sister were probably the most compelling in the show. I also feel like she should have been given a larger screen time.
I would have liked to see the series end with Han Ji pyeong moving on from the female lead, but it doesn’t.
The story is decent, but I don’t feel it’s the masterpiece that everyone has made it out to be. At least two episodes worth of material could have been shortened.
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Boring
This show was neither good nor bad. Though it started out with an interesting premise, it quickly devolved. There was no depth to anything of the characters, not the male lead, or the female lead or the so called villain.It was increasingly obvious who the murderer was from around the seventh episode and the rest of the runtime ended up being filler.
There were a lot of things the showrunners could have done to make it more interesting. One thing I didn’t understand is if they were going to make it so easy for the female lead to regain her memories, why did she need to lose them in the first place? We came to know the whole truth behind her death in the first three episodes itself.
A let down, since this really sounded promising.
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Waste of potential
Never before have I seen a movie with such unnecessary plot holes and honestly, this required a full 16 length drama runtime.Nothing was explained. I originally thought that the villain is a demon but it turns out that he is just some dude? The female mc is the most useless person I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t do much the entire story and I’m not sure why she even exists.
The male mc’s past was undeveloped as hell. The fight sequences were pretty nicely done I feel though.
Overall, required way more attention to the characters and nothing made any sense.
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This review may contain spoilers
Tearjerker
The ending of this drama is both beautiful and frustratingly sad, but it is sad in a happy way.Recommend this only if you enjoy getting your heart torn out of your chest.
One thing that wasn’t the best was the sometimes poor explanation of characters and open ended threads, but i did rate this highly due to the absolutely great way they showed the relationship between the main leads.
For example, why did Hye-su’s mother in law blame her for the death of her son? Why does she suddenly have a change of heart?
WhT happened to the plot line with Seung-joo? It was completely abandoned, and not to mention the head chef, who was a great character, just extraneous.
We all need a friend like Ju-yoon but honestly have no idea why she suddenly changed her mind about Mr. Han’s subordinate in the last episode.
Just little holes in the plot, otherwise great, but can get a little repetitive. This would have been better as a 12 episode drama rather than 16.
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Uplifting, beautiful and heart touching
If you truly want to watch something that will touch your heart and inspire you to never give up, this is it. Something about it was just truly perfect.Especially the first three episodes, they were truly awesome. Also, something about this drama reminded me of The Good Place, I don't know if it was the background music or the cinematography and content material, but it did.
Honestly, I like that the drama did not make Goo Se Ra into a magical character and that most of the policies she pushed for may or may not have passed through- but it still made me believe that we can truly do anything if we put our mind to it.
Seo Gong Myung was a truly wonderful character. The relationship between the two main leads is something I truly cherished.
I love the secondary characters, especially Ja Ryong. They were cute. And so was helmet-ahjumma.
Give it a try.
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This review may contain spoilers
Wonderful story, acting, ending but some major plot holes
This drama was amazing. I liked almost everything about it, but after watching it, I am still confused. Though it seems like the show is wrapped up, some things make absolutely no sense. Like, I loved the story, it was compelling, the acting was great but there were some things just missing. I kind of wish they made it at least one episode longer to address some parts of the plotOverall, I loved the main characters and their acting. Su Hyeon is a wonderful assassin-wooden log. Nana is so great as Do Hyeon jin, although really, some more exploration into the depths of her character would be wonderful. I would have liked to see more about her childhood after she was adopted. How did she meet the reporter man?
Seul gi is adorable really, and so was Philip. I wanted to see more of Philip.
Plot holes:
1) Ko Hyeon Woo mentioned that Seul gi is Su Hyeon's daughter... How? Never explained again, apart from that one line. I was waiting for them to explain that uptil the ending credits.
2) Why did Hyeon jin's reporter boyfriend die? What is his connection to Seul gi's grandfather, and what happened there? It was never explained why he died near her grandfather, as he lived in Seoul and Seul gi's grandfather did not. Even if we assume that it was ordered by Do Jae Hwan as a pre emptive measure for the article, why would he get Pavel to do it, and why was the notebook burned?
3) What is with the Blue eyes thing? We see sometimes in the starting of the drama, that the kid ML had blue eyes. Why? It was never expanded on.
4) Somehow, Philip was doing something shady, like playing both sides of the field- both with Karimov and the client, but somehow it was never explained why? I guess money, but they really could have put one scene in explaining that whole part.
5) Yoon Ji hye's sister is not a plot hole, but really they told us absolutely nothing about her.
Things I would have like to see more of:
Philip and Su Hyeon's backstory. Flashback of how they met.
Pavel and Su Hyeon
Su Hyeon and Do Hyeon jin's mother
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Warm, cozy comfort
This is such a fun sports drama. I’m usually not a fan of sports dramas, but they really outdid themselves with this. It had a good pacing, and was rather insightful and motivating, not to mention that the story was great.I had a lot of fun watching this show. The main badminton plot was interjected by the stories of the lives of everyone in the village, which was a welcome respite and somehow didn’t take away from the show at all. My favourite villagers have to be the city couple, watching them grow and bond together with the villagers was extremely sweet.
This is a show about growing up and getting better, about outdoing yourself, sportsmanship and class.
It was wonderfully written and executed.
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Confusing
The best part of the second season are the flash backs. Tbh, there were just so many things that the show didn’t b explore, like the evil white robed people, father/butler jang’s past on the island, and honestly, half the show.I do feel like they assassinated any interesting points about Gungtan. Honestly, I really feel like the character would have been played well by Shin Sung Rok, simply because he plays crazy villains really well, not that the original actor did a bad job, but he would have been way better.
The best part about the show was hands down Van. I love him as a character, and he deserved nothing but sunny rainbows all day long. Kim Nam Gil truly is fantastic in his role and he has a lot of chemistry with the female lead.
Overall I am still so impressed with how much I actually like Won Mi ho as a character.
The show had way too many plot holes, the pacing was off and honestly could have used a traditional screen episode run time,
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The Escape of the Seven: War for Survival
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Flaming pile of… well, s***
This drama started off great. The first two episodes were intriguing, eye catching. Everything that Bang Da mi suffered was painfully, painfully drawn out and illustrated in a wonderful way. This was a revenge story, makes sense. I even don’t mind the plot twist, I just think the handling of the storyline after that sucked.And then, in the middle of the runtime, the quality of the show starts to deteriorate- not in sets, or costumes, but just the writing. Everything gets more and more elaborately over the top ridiculous. Things stop making sense. Some characters are forgotten. People stop acting like themselves. Everything goes to hell.
The strongest part of the drama v was the characters, and after a while those got stale. Instead of making Nam Chul woo and Cha Juran and Go Myeongi cringy comedians, they could have elaborated on their evil nature, how they came to be the way they are from the most respected professions, a police officer, a doctor, a teacher.
And now, as this is spoiler free, let’s discuss the characters they got right: Han Mone, Min Do hyeok and Yang Jin mo.
My personal favourite is a toss up between mone and Yang Jin mo. I loved how they slowly introduced his dad side, and his relationship with Noh paeng hee.
Han mone was such a great character. I loved her. I hated her. The acting was on point. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.
Min Do hyeok was good, if a little boring.
My advice? Watch the first eight episodes. Forget the rest.
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Drifted into a tree
The first episode of this drama was phenomenal. And everything went downhill from there. While I do love the moral position played by the series, it’s kind of terrible how the entire plot is just one thing repeated over and over again, an endless loop.However, Da Il was a phenomenal character, and the actor did a great job portraying him. Jung Yeo Wol started off intriguing, but the last two episodes were very boring considering her role, though the actress playing her did an incredible job. Gil Chae Won was a wonderful character, but I do wish she had a larger role to play.
Funny how the best performance over all was the villain of the show. Hye seonwoo played by Lee Ji Ah was a larger than life villain, absolutely felt undefeatable. Her arc was wonderful, and I love how the story showed us how she has also suffered.
Overall, really needed only around 10 episodes. The first episode was the best, and honestly amazing, so the series had wonderful potential they didn’t use.
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The redeeming plot point? Shin sung rok as Jayden Lee
This drama was okay. Again, suffers a bit from way too long and this must be stuffed with random unnecessary plot points, and has a touch of over dramatics once we entered the second half, but decent, solid.The female lead in my opinion didn’t suit the role well. Though she showed a great emotion in her role, I do feel like she always looked rather blank, but she was enjoyable.
So ji Sub’s character Han Yihan was predictable, Jack of all trades. We never really got to see inside him (here I am comparing him to the other characters) and he totally loses to…. Jayden Lee, played by Shjn Sung Rok.
I can’t stress how I enjoy every single one of Shin Sung Rok’s acting roles. He is simply phenomenal, a larger than life personality if it is demanded by the plot. His acting is seriously something I love. I rely want to see him in more. He brings a much needed touch of lightness to this drama, and a little bit of crazy. I love it. I also thoroughly enjoyed most of Kim Tae Gyum’s character, Michael and hope to see him in other productions. However, I do feel like the way they handled Jayden as a character was… iffy towards the end.
Yuna was a pleasant surprise. She was more enjoyable to watch than I originally thought.
Overall. Decent drama held together by Shin Sung Rok.
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Full of potential but unfortunate execution
This title I honestly had high expectations for, as I do for any production that Namkoong min is a part of , as he is a wonderful actor, picking scripts with emotional flair and fun scenes and is someone I would say this role is perfect for.The show started off with great promise. But honestly, it required a 16 episode run time. After a while, we stop seeing any episodes of actually legal drama, which is what the show is about, and the product placement is somehow the worst I’ve seen thus far.
Not to mention, the entire past flashback sequence was incredibly out of place and contrived. Post flashback story was rushed, and I didn’t think they’d wrap up the story until half way through the twelfth episode, which is the last. It was handled poorly as well.
Now as for things I liked, namkoong min, obviously. His performance as always was stellar. Baek Ma-ri was a fun character, as was her mother. I really liked prosecutor Na Yejin, and I thought Seo Minhyeok was a good character as well who deserved if not more screen time, then at least more character development.
I also was unreasonably in love with the opening intro song and the accompanying animation. This would have been great as a long running short animation tv show.
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The age gap distorts a otherwise heartwarming experience
This story was actually wonderful. To everyone concerned about the age gap, not much romance actually takes place between the two characters, explicitly but there were some weird moments for me personally- for example, the male lead saving the child female lead when he was fully grown- sparking a ten year long crush… and a couple more.There is not actually a lot of romance stuff that goes on from the male lead’s side, as he is pretty passive in the relationship. I feel like this would have worked better with the female lead moving on in the end, and going forward with her life.
One thing I dislike is that they fail to go into detail about the past- for eg, the story of the female lead’s father and How he met the first and second male lead, etc…..
Overall a decent show, but the extreme age gap was unnecessary. 8 years could have been 4 at max, and the story wouldn’t have changed at all.
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Feel good, heartwarmingly good
Is this a sports movie? Kind of. But honestly, this is more of a heartwarmingly beautiful story. I would have watched this even if it was a 16 episode show- and it honestly could have been.Park Seo Joonhas to be my favourite part of this movie. He does amazingly well in such roles, I think this is one of my favourite performances in a kdrama. The vibe reminds me much of fight for my way, which also was amazing.
Indeed IU is wonderfully good in this too, and I loved her banter with Park seo joon.
I honestly was left wanting for more and will probably watch more sports dramas.
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The most fun I've had in a while watching a movie
This was such a great movie. Watch it with no regrets.Kind of wish that it was a tv show, because it would have been great, the main leads are hilarious and have such great chemistry, not to mention that they simply are, extraordinary people.
Loved it.
The story was not very long, and though I wish it could have been longer, the writer clearly knew the sweet spot for an ending, which was so refreshing. There's not a moment I would have cut out of the movie, except maybe the fight scenes and even those add flavour.
Such a refreshing movie
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