catherine
This review may contain spoilers
Mature in some ways, overdramatic in others
Trigger Warning: Suicide, Rape
This is a drama that simultaneously feels ahead of its time and VERY of its time.
The way it handles sexual assault, PTSD, and grief is overall very mature, and I thought that the more raw and unedited type of directing and the more down-to-earth dialogue and acting really helped. The humor is subtle but there. The good-girl-bad-boy trope is present, but doesn't feel over-the-top, and each of our main characters feel like they've each carved out their little worlds before we get to watch them collide.
The chemistry is quite good as well, and I did find our leads really cute. The banter is fun — even though the female lead is shy and quiet, she and the male lead have a very good back-and-forth when its just the two of them, and we get to see how he gets her to come out of her shell.
The friendships are really great to see too, and that is such a crazy thing for me to say considering the intense way Qing Mei bullied our FL at the start. But once we get past that, I really liked her character and the way she supported the main lead. With that being said, however, this is definitely a drama that focuses only on the two main leads, so her character's personality and storyline isn't developed much beyond that.
Those are all the ways in which the drama felt ahead of its time.
Now, the way it feels exactly of its time (2004) are the subplots and just how dramatic they get. I enjoyed a few of them, like the sociopath/psychopath character who wanted to mold Chen Ling into the same as him, but the drama lost me a little bit when it went into his backstory. There's his twin's suicide, his mother's death, the dangers of motorcycle racing, the estrangement from his father, who is actually a wealthy chairman of a big corporation. That last reveal of him being a secret chaebol was the worst one for me because it's just so 2004 and made the drama seem a lot less grounded than it previously was. Overall, however, having so much backstory for him just made it feel a little unfocused.
The way the female lead's r*pist came back and everything with him blew up into stalking and a fistfight...I know this does happen in real life, unfortunately, but for the purposes of this show I wish it had stayed in the backstory instead of being blown up into something so big, which was then tied into the storyline of the ML returning to his rich family.
I know this is based off a manga and I'll probably read that at some point because I do think it's an interesting story, but I can already tell that I'll enjoy the earlier chapters more than the later ones, which is what I felt about the show.
This is a drama that simultaneously feels ahead of its time and VERY of its time.
The way it handles sexual assault, PTSD, and grief is overall very mature, and I thought that the more raw and unedited type of directing and the more down-to-earth dialogue and acting really helped. The humor is subtle but there. The good-girl-bad-boy trope is present, but doesn't feel over-the-top, and each of our main characters feel like they've each carved out their little worlds before we get to watch them collide.
The chemistry is quite good as well, and I did find our leads really cute. The banter is fun — even though the female lead is shy and quiet, she and the male lead have a very good back-and-forth when its just the two of them, and we get to see how he gets her to come out of her shell.
The friendships are really great to see too, and that is such a crazy thing for me to say considering the intense way Qing Mei bullied our FL at the start. But once we get past that, I really liked her character and the way she supported the main lead. With that being said, however, this is definitely a drama that focuses only on the two main leads, so her character's personality and storyline isn't developed much beyond that.
Those are all the ways in which the drama felt ahead of its time.
Now, the way it feels exactly of its time (2004) are the subplots and just how dramatic they get. I enjoyed a few of them, like the sociopath/psychopath character who wanted to mold Chen Ling into the same as him, but the drama lost me a little bit when it went into his backstory. There's his twin's suicide, his mother's death, the dangers of motorcycle racing, the estrangement from his father, who is actually a wealthy chairman of a big corporation. That last reveal of him being a secret chaebol was the worst one for me because it's just so 2004 and made the drama seem a lot less grounded than it previously was. Overall, however, having so much backstory for him just made it feel a little unfocused.
The way the female lead's r*pist came back and everything with him blew up into stalking and a fistfight...I know this does happen in real life, unfortunately, but for the purposes of this show I wish it had stayed in the backstory instead of being blown up into something so big, which was then tied into the storyline of the ML returning to his rich family.
I know this is based off a manga and I'll probably read that at some point because I do think it's an interesting story, but I can already tell that I'll enjoy the earlier chapters more than the later ones, which is what I felt about the show.
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