6
Park Min
Lands Between
Nope...
This drama got one of the worst 1st episodes. I really didn't like the cast's performance. Extremely superficial and full of amateurs. It's impressive how 99% of similar drama templates turn any setting into a business setting regardless of whatever the beginning was, and this drama is no exception. You would think the setting would be in this "school" since the drama advertised FL as a teacher at a traditional Korean school and also the poster/synopsis seems like it but no! After few episodes, everything become about business with the usual cringe shenanigans in every similar setting where they fight/sabotage/expose each other till the end. The "twin" was seriously cringe, unbearable! How many were killed? Simply, there wasn't enough justice anyway. Don't watch!Was this review helpful to you?
Okay....
I was absolutely desperate for the female lead to get back to her old job of being a homicide detective because that's the only thing that would make this drama a little tiny bit interesting in the drama's setting. They completely shelved off the female lead in the last 10 episodes and put her on hold, instead they redirect the attention to a weird uninteresting cycle of irrelevant events to the main story. Which resulted in making the last 10 episodes feel like a huge drag.How would a writer escape once they are cornered? Introduce "terminal illness". With it, everything start to change magically. It doesn't matter whatever development/character the drama built up because all of that is irrelevant once the terminal illness is present. LAZY! Don't even get me started on the FL's journey to "forgiveness", absolutely laughable. The dynamic with FL and her in-laws was a big oof moment that was never resolved.
First half was full of students and the FL was doing exactly as described in the synopsis, then in the second half there was non of that and it became melo only. The same thing can be said about some character, for example, Jin Hee who had heavy screen-time just to completely disappear and never to be seen in the second half. The last two episodes were super artificial. Character who never given any attention suddenly got some like Gyeong Ah.
I enjoyed watching Kim Jung Eun & Lee Tae Ran, they are one of my favorite underrated actresses. The drama was fine, I guess. Anyway, serviceable 4.5/10 .
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It's a miss...
I'm a huge fan of older drama but this one missed the mark for me. It was unnecessarily over-complicated for every relationship in the show. For every character and relationship the writing was good enough just to fall flat and flop around episode 11 without being able to recover at all. You may think the reunion plot-line of the sisters is the main focus but unfortunately it was given the bare minimum of attention, even the climax of their reunion was underwhelming. If and only if the ending was slightly tiny bit better. It just felt like this type of ending that they went for was unwarranted. At the end, it was too big of a let down, not a single thing went as I hoped for. At least let the bad guys win just to spike some interest in the drama.I asked my friend, who is an anthropologist, and he confirmed to me that Lee Seon Woo is a newly undiscovered human species; they may resemble conventional modern humans but they differ with one particular characteristic that is their empty cranial cavity. Truly a spectacular discovery, how could they function? A mystery that would never be solved.
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Wish it was more...
This had 3 sets of twins, two of which identical, the highest number I've seen in a drama. Bae Doo Na solo carried the entire show meanwhile the remainder of the cast were dead corpses re-animated to life. The story cycles through the following sequence: Geum Hee does bad and promises to treat Eun Hee better just to backstab her few minutes later, rinse and repeat 10 more times until the last episode. I wish there was more variations. The romance was one of the driest, it didn't amount to anything, minimum affection and absolutely not a single kiss. The drama was somewhat fine until episode 15 started and it just couldn't recover after that. One last very important thing, there wasn't enough justice/karma or payoff at the end.By the way, the poster is totally irrelevant to the content maybe slightly relevant for one scene only.
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Irredeemable
All males force themselves physically on females which is kinda repulsive, even one of them attempted rape. Lee Seung Ha was 100% pure scum the scummiest of all scums unmatched scumminess from start to end. The last 1/3 was intolerably stupid and the drama became irredeemable. The culprit/antagonist was left uncharged for murder or malpractice.Unfortunately one of the most deadliest diseases in K-drama world has infiltrated this drama too, the Korean brain worms that only affect female leads and female characters in general. She knew he was a serial liar and she was previously scarred when he attempted to rape her and physically assaulted her YET she proceeded to marry him, go figure!
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OK...
It doesn't utilize its 20 episodes length in a constructive way for a relationship driven drama. There's a huge dent of inconsistency in the writing, sometime it's coherent and well thought out and other times it's as if it was written by someone who just started using a keyboard. A lot of things change and progress in the background without showing or reasoning with it and we are left to accept them and fill the gaps ourselves. For example, how the characters' relationships to one another turned out in the last 2 episodes. Anyway, the drama ended up feeling incomplete in many ways.Was this review helpful to you?
Big sadge....
What's up with the heavy inclusion of infidelity? All the characters surrounding FL are cheating: her mother, her husband, her dead father-in-law, the husband's mistress, the husband's brother-in-law, her sister, the lover and that one friend. For the main "sad" theme they overdone the sadness by incorporating an endless sequence of miserable events that at one point all the sadness became too forced. I would rather prefer a better build up and writing with the only misery/sadness is the terminal illness plot. Choi Jin Shil did most of the heavy lifting in the drama.The order of which the husband knew about the cancer and him being with his mistress was misaligned it should have been the other way around. The sister love life should have started earlier to give more focus/screen-time for her dying sister, the late intrusion of Dr Ji was unfortunate. One thing really bothered me is the amount of negligence from FL and everyone around her, if you feel sick with physical symptoms or see someone sick repeatedly over extended period of time then it's not normal you moron!!!! Anyway, it's sad but leaves a lot to be desired.
RIP Choi Jin Shil.
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It's watchable...
The hatred and favoring of twins from the mother reminded me of "Wang's Family (2013)", unjustified favoritism from the mother towards a spoiled daughter who always get it her way. The twins' relationship, conflict, story, justification and resolution weren't given a good writing, on the other hand, the twins from "Famous Princesses (2006)", which tackles a similar story within the same context, had done a much better job than this drama.The pacing of the drama is odd and unjustified when changes, things start to change without proper building. The "high emotions/moments" didn't feel real or convincing, especially the ones as we were approaching the ending closer and closer. Many characters were expendable, especially the twins' father the most useless father in a family drama, no character no writing and barely any presence. Despite the heaps of problems it has, the drama is still watchable.
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Watchable...
It seems like the writer cannot focus on more than one thing at a time, everything else is neglected, brushed off and barely got any attention. The story divided into three sections: the love triangle thing then Jin Woo & Na Yoon and lastly the section with the biggest chunk "the missing husband". The 4 listed main characters are only relevant for the first 1/3 then the remainder 2/3 is mostly (Yoon Jung - Eun Hye and Shin Ok/Taesu). Han Jin Kyung may appear once every 10 episodes and Han Soo Hyun got a random side story after the first 1/3. There was a clear shift in tone starting from episode 63 where the drama turned full melodrama, I wish they kept the same vibe as earlier parts. The last 20 episodes were endless repetition of the same words.Because of the "main" conflict, not a single couple ended up as I hoped, the ending is just unfair and was handled poorly. Han Soo Hyun was treated worse than a support character after the love triangle plot line was finished, they absolutely destroyed her character. Even when they tried to give her a story there was zero romantic build up, all we got is a time skip of her future at the end. This drama sucks when it comes to building relationships and romances. You may dislike Han Jin Kyung at the start, rightfully so, but you will end up hating Na Eun Hye for shamelessly guilt tripping her "husband" by using their daughter, even other characters hope on the same train.
One thing really bothered me is how not a single character had the slightest drop of inelegance to suggest doing a DNA test, instead let's just spend 70 episodes of endless doubts and stairs. Also, some of the casting decisions didn't feel right, the following actors didn't fit their character: Oh Man Suk, Jung Sung Woon and Lee Jong Won. The drama is watchable but it's a bit rough after episode 63.
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Can't recommend.
The concept is fine but the execution is poor. All stories share great similarities with small alterations, there's a consistent pattern in these relationships where all males are bad/unfavorable and all females are victims/deserve better. The drama had an overwhelming number of cast members and an overwhelming number of small scattered stories, even though this is a long format drama but it back fired.The lead couple are the weakest point for the drama. Them as actors, their story, their development, their resolution and the attention they were given all of which was borderline bad and they're suppose to be the "leads". This lead couple had a total, as I counted, 14 breakups/fights, my god I just wanted them to break up for good or die I don't care anymore fuck them! No wonder "Lee Ha Na" dropped out from being the female lead after the first script reading session. Speaking of which, the male lead Heo Gap Dol is the most pathetic loser I've ever seen, he remained a loser even at the end.
Let's talk about Heo Da Hye, the male lead's sister, she's one of the most interesting characters in the drama yet the creators completely destroyed her. From the end of episode 33 she was completely cut off abruptly from the drama with absolutely zero mention of her as if she never existed. Her mother, brother, kids, ex-husband all carried on as if she never existed. It seems like the character Ban Ji A became her replacement just for Soo Jo's sake.
The beginning of episode 34 marked a clear big shift in the writing and direction. The writer didn't no where or how to steer the ship from there, it took a random turn every now and then, some characters started to disappear for 4-5 episodes at times (including leads), the leads were treated like guest characters with minimum updates or attention, most cute moments became cheesy and cringe, half of the supporting cast rarely appeared afterwards, the whole story became too scattered and the stretch of events got too obvious as they were trying to prolong the series. One thing really bothered me is how the drama took a weird detour that included manipulating emotions in solving every single problem/relationship, rather than fixing them in a healthy way.
Can't recommend.
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One of the draggier ones.........
The drama had no right to be this long for the amount of content it provides. Small limited cast, thin story, some side stories left underdeveloped and eventually were brushed off, limited number of side stories/side couples considering this is a family drama not a makjang. The main story was stretched too thin with extreme drag, 20 episodes can pass without the character making a decision. The kidney plot line was like 60+ episodes or something.This is one of the most unlikable male leads in a long running drama. The female lead life was falling apart, her mother was on the verge of death, along with a handful of problems from her in-laws, son and grandma. YET despite the ML knowing all of that, the insensitive selfish prick all he care about is himself and no one else. Chasing the female lead, trying to kiss her, pressuring her why she doesn't love him back or marry him. He didn't even care about her son, how can he be a father? Judging by his overall behavior, I doubt their "happily ever after" story would last very long. One more thing, there's absolutely zero chemistry between the leads anyway.
The other male to hate is Noh Tae Wan, he's excessively authoritarian over FL in a seriously creepy and uncomfortable way. Never seen an in-law in k-drama behave this aggressively and obsessively towards a brother's wife. The later plot line about the in-laws arguing over the child was also nauseating, childish and plane stupid.
The drama lacks a lot in general, doesn't deliver a worthy experience and it's a heavy investment to get into, don't watch it unless you care about some of the cast members.
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Pretty good...
It turned out to be better than I initially thought of it after watching a handful of episodes. It may have the look and feel of 1996 although it's from 2006 but I guess that's just the limitation of production, still pretty decent, I will talk more about RAW files at the end. While watching the first half, you would think that Mi Chil is the ultimate representation of a toxic guilt-tripping-filled relationship and that Il Han deserve all the agony and pain but the drama managed to pick itself up afterwards. The drama does the "high" moments really well while the "low" moments are really low and awful but it overcompensates that with the campiness feel especially once the twins made up (around eps50).All the stories were good and enjoyable to watch except Deok Chil's story line which always felt dull and lack any proper characterization. One thing extra I wanted from the ending is for "Mi Chil" to have a slightly better ending to give her the chance to speak out. The time-skip ending had an insane amount of baby making, it's a strong contender for the highest time-skip baby making drama.
If you were to watch it then go to AvistaZ and choose the release from Taengoo, it's pulled directly from KBS vods and even looks much better than the DVD version although it got a slight interlaced effect for the first 30 episodes.
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The synopsis written here is wrong, it's only relevant to the last 3 episodes concerning Tae Suk's father. The story revolves around Woo Jin starting from the bottom and getting to be an anchorwoman for 9 PM news.
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