6
Park Min
Lands Between
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!
The drama had a good start and was interesting enough for the first half then it lost its direction completely. The first half did a good job bouncing between all the stories and progressing them bit by bit, but the main focus in the second half was Yoon Hee & Woo Jin story which over shadowed everyone else and neglected the other stories. Almost no screen time for Hye Jin & Dong Hoon in the second half because of that, their story just stopped. Which is a shame since it was the biggest story that had potentials to develop a lot more for the remainder of its runtime. None of the stories reached a meaningful conclusion given the family setting anyway. On another topic, Lee Pil Mo was really dry throughout the drama, whether it was in romance or just in a normal setting. The actor himself feels off to be a main lead. I think he works better as a side kick or 2nd lead or antagonist.Was this review helpful to you?
.....
The drama had the worst fart jokes I've ever seen in any drama. Kyung Ho is one of the driest characters in Kdrama world so is the actor Jung Wook. The leads cast were awful and had an equally awful story. Despite being the leads they always felt as support characters and weren't the big focus. Instead, the love triangle of Jung Hoon & Mi Jin & Soon Young had the biggest cut and focus. The writer's favoritism is clear. Anyway, they were annoying too. All relationships/pairings sucked. No one had any chemistry. Awful story and equally awful conclusion.Was this review helpful to you?
The writer is just really really really bad...
Goddamn! It turned out to be even worse than I thought. The drama had a decent production value and had Lee So Yeon & Choi Yeo Jin as leads so I had a tiny bit of hope but not long after few episodes I was met with a disappointment after another. Both male leads were the weakest part of the cast, might as well bring random dudes from the streets to act. I can't take Choi Yeo Jin for an evil role. I'm way too used to her goofy vibes in other dramas. I could have cut the atrocious writing some slack if the ending was passable which unfortunately it wasn't. The last 10 episodes and the ending proceeded to deliver the ultimate disappointment. One of the laziest bullshit endings out there. The writer opted to press the reset button after we have gone through 100 episodes! It's unfortunate how the drama turned out to be because I was looking forward to see Choi Yeo Jin as an antagonist.Was this review helpful to you?
If only the second half was any better.....
Goddamn I actually really liked it, not entirely, the first half only. After the first half there was a significant drop in quality, it turned purely to be in a corporate setting, things got repetitive and meaningless, the writing got dumbed down, full of uneventful and boring scenes, became just like any other weak daily drama and lost almost every potential it had to be a decent drama. I wish it maintained the same consistency as the first half. The one thing that bothered me the most, and will probably bother everyone else, is how they terrorized Ha Eun, almost too much.On another note, two couples got together in real life and married after the drama finished filming. The first couple was Ho Jin & Kate/Yoo Jin which absolutely a delight, even their age gap is real. The second couple was So Won & Min Hyuk which is hard to imagine since they were enemies on screen. Also, this is the first drama I'm seeing from Shin Go Eun and I'm keen to check more of her roles.
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!!!!!
Too bad the drama flopped because it had some potential. One thing that bothered me the most is how Ye Rin always got what she wanted. ALWAYS! The writer was trying too hard to change the love interest forcefully. It's cartoonish af! To make it worse, the female lead is one of those pathetic brain-dead leads who doesn't fight back and let everyone step on her because she is the nicest person in the universe. It's not like the drama had anything good going for it so whatever let this garbage burn....Was this review helpful to you?
The usual....
Considering the events and the crimes committed, the revenge wasn't that satisfactory, it was full of cheap shots. The same thing can be said about the ending. This drama definitely reminded me of Yellow Boots. If you were to compare it to Yellow Boots then that one is much better and more appealing even though my rating for both of them is close. Ji Suk was introduced as a man-child and he remained a man-child until the end, not much changed about him other than how he portrayed in the first episode only. The ending was definitely rushed, you can tell by their introduction of a new character around the ending. They clearly didn't plan for it ahead of time and were just going as things happening. Some things that happened were genuinely making fun of the viewers' intellect. How in the living hell would you deliver a baby while dying on the streets and get the baby snatched without cutting the umbilical cord?! Felt like an episode from Tom & Jerry. Anyway, I wanted the nun to turn into an assassin that would be more fun.Was this review helpful to you?
Good...
Pretty good drama, great diverse cast, full of stories and the writing is decent. The drama does a lot right and it will appeal to a lot of people. I think Joo Yeong will be a fan favorite. However, there are few annoyances that bugged me. As good as it may seemed but it got seriously exhausting after a while watching the male lead endlessly taking all the shit, sacrificing to no avail and being the victim. He might as well just be a saint.The drama also rely lazily on that one dimensional antagonist that I'm wondering why the writer didn't put any effort into him? They are clearly able to so judging how they made the other characters. It's also a little problematic how long the antagonist linger around with no real development to the story, I think it would be better if he was only given attention for a certain period.
Another thing bugged me is how both main couples/both brothers' relationship came to an abrupt pause around the last ~30 episodes for an unjustified logical reason just so that the drama could have 1 more conflict before the ending. Which brings me to my next note, the drama needed a little more tension than the massive influx of happy moments, the only factor that was creating tension was the lawyer which himself was lacking a lot as I explained above. Overall, still a good show 7.5/10
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Good...
Goddamn! I thought it would be on the same level as Temptation of an Angel and Two Mothers but turns out to be much better. This drama is hands down the best makjang-revenge-long-format-soap-opera-melodrama I've seen so far and it's a rarity for such a sub genre.The drama made me care about the antagonist at the end, WTF? That's illegal lol. Unlike similar dramas, this one doesn't do a magical time skip sending the lead abroad for 10 years then coming back for revenge as a powerful CEO, no, the lead go through shit to stand up again. I thought So Hee was fine at the beginning but it was really unfortunate how they changed her character completely later on.
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...
Despite seeing the ending coming, I still had some hope it would end differently. The drama had potentials to be a good revenge story for the synopsis it had but how everything played out was purely comical. I guess that's what they were aiming for. Too bad because I liked the cast.Was this review helpful to you?
No...
The first episode was so bad that it will push away so many potential viewers. They ditched away so many characters way too early, first ~20 episodes, that made the rest of the drama too dry. I didn't think the drama could get worse but when they shifted the focus away from Se Na in the last ~30 episodes it really reached the bottom of the abyss. Apparently, raping is hella easy, just give them a small shot of alcohol and they go into a medical induced coma. This happened THREE times in the drama. No one even mentioned the fact that both siblings were dating from the same family, usually that's a big no-no in Korean culture to date in-laws. Hopefully Kim Min Kyung got payed the highest out of the cast because they made her go through a lot. If I were to keep mentioning every little thing I wouldn't be finished until tomorrow.Was this review helpful to you?
!!!
Decent drama. Its main strength is its comedy which is great when the jokes hit but that's not always the case. The type of comedy you'll see here is similar to sitcoms like "Unstoppable High Kick", quirky and situational. Yet, the comedy around the middle parts (around 5-9) was weak and the story was slow. There isn't much romance since that's not the focus anyway. The leads had a good dynamic as well as the 2nd leads between each other.Was this review helpful to you?
Nope...
Well, to sum it up.... it's bad! It's one of those cheep tv-novels with no care or budget. It you look at some corners on the set you'll see it falling apart. They even use digital zoom and cropping instead of optical zoom in 2020!! If you were to use ChatGPT to generate a kdrama script it would totally crush this drama. BTW, it's called "Mom Has an Affair" but no affair to be seen anywhere!Was this review helpful to you?
There was an attempt...
Well, I hated all the mothers in the drama. The writer did a really poor job with that theme. Subsequently, the mother-daughter relationships were neglected for too long and only were given attention around the last chunk of episodes. I wasn't a fan of the ending either, they created an event later on just so that the drama would have a climax instead of having a coherent story that leads to a natural climax (more in spoilers).There's a big problem with all the pairings/characters. Both ML and FL had zero chemistry and straight up bad romance. They were the worst part of the drama. The FL cutting off her hair to display a change is nothing but laughable. Mi Sun and her man-child were one of the most boring stories out there. Woo Jin was too goddamn dry of a character, the writer must have hated him. Mi Hye needed to have some brain. We didn't get to see Mi Hye & Woo Jin cuter interactions until way too late in the drama. The villains were wack. Everyone gets off too easily.
With all that being said, the drama had some nice moments but they will keep you waiting for too long between each one. The drama is one of the draggy ones so if you were to get into it be prepared.
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Weak...
The drama's biggest flaw is that it lacked focus. Weak chemistry between FL and both men. There were some awkward pauses in dialogue and editing. Scenes and transitions were disjointed often. The writing was too loose, especially the infidelity plot which lacked complexity and nuances to be more "human". Sometimes it felt like watching an indie movie written by college students. The drama desperately needed a better build up, the infidelity happened way too early. The same thing can be said about production which often it felt off, although it didn't seem like a "lower" budget drama at first glance. It was really awful how the sound was peaking every time a character shouted.Go watch "Valid Love (2014)" similar topic but infinitely better.
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