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They also kept forcing the viewers to sympathize with the husband and his mistress with how they told their story. The husband, according to him, never knew what love is for 20-years. The mistress, after a painful breakup and her mother's death, she had no one left for her and was in a desperate need for someone to lean on. Both the husband and his mistress were given a lot of scenes every episode and almost were treated as the "first" main leads. The drama even followed their story up until the very end to show a happy ending. They had it pretty easy for them. The wife saw her husband so sickly in love with his mistress, physically and mentally, so she agreed on the divorce. The wife didn't even had a single adult talk/confrontation scene with the mistress, how?!
The writing sucks and the story is a huge mess but the cast was fine. Don't expect romance except for the brief moments with the mistress at the start and the last 5 minutes for the female lead.
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it's kinda watchable.
Weak ending! After all this commotion, the absolute bare minimum they could do is to slap a better ending, it left me with a bitter taste. The flashback in the first 4 episodes made the drama to have a weak start. What a joke of a revenge story this is! Forgiving most parties this easily and seeing them becoming ideal human beings with a flip of switch. They ruined many lives over the years and eventually they faced no consequences. Isn't it ironic that Seok Hyun's daughter is a piece of shit psycho despite how deep his love for her mother was?The number of cast members felt too small for a 50 episode drama. Subsequently, the story also felt limited for what it had to offer and the plot stretched too thin. A long jaded 50 episode of push and pull between the Kang's family members, they had an opportunity to build a bigger plot but not much was going on beyond the Kang's house. The entire plot line of "marrying for revenge" is a whole big mess I don't want to get into.
The drama had one of the weakest female leads in a revenge story. Throughout the 50 episodes all we can see is her being tossed around from everyone like a piece of trash. Even when she attempts to fight back it's weak af. A proper female lead for a revenge story is a one that gets fierce, offensive and aggressive in the second half. This drama also had "things that were too excessive but I guess it's a melodrama" kind of cliches: the parrot, shipping container, steel beams, 15 adults chasing 1 7-yo girl, satellite images and questionable technical stuff. Overall, it's kinda watchable.
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Irredeemable
This drama was destined to fail from the beginning. Some of original selected main cast dropped off. Some cast controversies prior to filming. It was cut down from 50 episodes to 26 with premature ending. Conflict between cast. Lee Tae Im absence in the last 5 episodes because she got into an accident, they were even planning to replace her but the drama ended anyway. The writing department suffered immensely, the drama was full of delirious characters. Some complain how stupid Soon Jung is but the real smooth brain is actually Soon Jin, I believe apes have higher intellectual abilities. No wonder why the broadcast ratings were abysmal. Thankfully, it ended early anyway.Was this review helpful to you?
Alone in Love
The writer has a good track record of writing good unique shows and this drama was no exception. The drama stood out for its deep rich story and multi-layered narrative, offering a compelling journey through the complexities of life and relationships. Its strength lies in its ability to delve into the human psyche, exploring themes of love, family dynamics, societal expectations, ambition, and identity with a nuanced hand. The drama had a lot of story to tell and explore, yet it didn't feel bloated. The characters went through a tremendous development and growth during its runtime. The drama was filled with great characters and characterizations, each character is meticulously crafted, with their own hopes, fears, trauma and desires, adding depth and dimension to the storyline. I particular liked the subtle humor that lied in their casual interactions and dialogues. However, despite its many strengths, lied flaws that somewhat tarnished some of its brilliance. There were many things that could've been done better but nothing was too major. The entanglement of love square relationship may have lasted for too long and could've been navigated better, though I still love their unconventional dynamic. The drama kind of ended at episode 15 while the last episode was more like a real proper reflection and a graceful send off, I don't think I've seen something like that before in a drama. Despite some missteps and its unconventional approach, the drama remained a strong compelling watch with a star-studded cast.Was this review helpful to you?
BOO!
The cursed case-of-the-week format! I was more interested in the FL's mother case which is the main case that was developing in the background than whatever case the ML threw himself in. I really wish this was a one big coherent case to follow or at least have the side cases directly connected to the main one. What made matters worse was the poor dynamic between the leads, they just didn't bounce off each other well. There was a weird constant disconnect between them. Thank god they didn't add romance into the mix. The side characters were an embarrassment to label them as a supporting cast. They were just a white noise blended in the background, completely forgettable and faceless. One of the most important things about horror is to set up the atmosphere which this drama forgot to do most of the time. It was more like a flashy horror with some horror elements. This was probably my least favorite Jang Na Ra drama.Was this review helpful to you?
Joseon Attorney: An Immorality
Just like any other profession focused drama, they follow the notorious bait and switch tactic and this drama was no exception. We were introduced to an attorney with a tragic past and a strong motive, he worked on 2-3 cases for the first half of the drama before shifting the drama into a love chase, hypergamy, and hasty revenge. This shift wouldn't have been a problem if it hadn't been so atrocious. Somewhere around episode 9 everything took a change for the worse, including the male lead, who had been a walking disaster since the beginning. Structuring a romance around him was a big mistake; he was unbelievably creepy, intrusive, touchy, and pushy for someone who he met very briefly. His behavior came off as nothing but repulsive while going against the narrative. However, even that changed around the same shift, he began to take the moral high ground without going through any prior development. On another note on the inconsistencies, some earlier scenes had artsy edits which were interesting but none of the later episodes had something similar. It was just a one off thing to gain attraction, again, bait and switch. Overall, the drama had some intriguing elements earlier on but none of them lasted long enough.Was this review helpful to you?
Poong, the Joseon Psychiatrist Season 2
2 people found this review helpful
Poong, the Joseon Virgin
The earlier episodes of the first season were decent and promising but there was a clear and undeniable pattern slowly starting to emerge after a few episodes. The drama was heading in a downward spiral throughout its both seasons. There was no clear direction to its story, I wanted it to remain as a slice of life but even that was not attractive on its own. Each passing episode felt like a downgrade of the previous episode. By the end of 2nd season, my interest had plummeted and it lost any remaining appeal. The only plausible reason for this drama to get a season 3 is if the studio wanted to commit some kind of money laundering/tax fraud scheme. It's never a good sign to adapt something and have its serialization based on public perception. This will most likely result in incomplete stories and padded semi-soft endings unless its creators were to pull through and be the exception. In more than one way, the Anime sphere shifted mostly towards this scheme in the past 6-7 years and it turned into a survival of the fittest type of race. The Kdrama is slowly heading in the exact same direction.Was this review helpful to you?
Not quite there...
It started off with a big war and lots of action. Ships, canons, battles and massacres, but that was only for the first 5-6 before dialing back the clock to the very beginning of the ML's childhood days and turning the drama into a massive snoozefest. That was a massive bait to hook the viewers in. It took 1 singular eternity before the drama managed to pick itself back up. The entire first half was the admiral backstory with little to no action. You don't get to see the admiral in action and you don't get to see what the drama promised until the second half which is way too delayed to stick around for. The production value is acceptable when taking into account that this was made 20 years ago. It's a bit scuffed but they had to work with what they had. It wouldn't matter much because that only shows with the action/battle scenes of which there were only a few (out of the 104 episodes). One of the most jarring things that is holding the drama back, aside from the aforementioned points, is its characters. A lot of characters got benched regularly regardless of their importance, relevance and prior investment. Making emotional scenes less impactful and key characters less memorable. Which also takes away from every climax and transition period. This is due to a combination of uneven pacing, long runtime, and frequent transitions. By the end, it seemed everyone was expendable, other than the male lead of course. On the other spectrum, the drama had a lot of anime-esque villain moments that I wish we had a lot less of.Was this review helpful to you?
Pain is temporary
A poor fantasy that failed to establish a reasonable foundation from the very beginning, it even did a worse job with its brittle world building. The low budget visual effects weren't helping its case either. The cast may seems to be fine on the surface but the characters were as one dimensional as they could come. Its second biggest selling point after fantasy is the romance, of which was the least appealing aspect of the drama. By the end, I couldn't care the slightest about either of the leads and their fate. A cheap Chinese knock off fantasy with gods and dragons would have been better than this.Was this review helpful to you?
Disappointing !
It's disappointing when a drama have potentials but falls apart quickly because of lousy writing. The subpar acting by the kids diminished its value even further. The male lead pulled a tremendous effort to help keeping the drama afloat. The villain was poorly written and cartoonish for this genre. There was a necessity of a better dynamic between the wife and husband given the type of story they were telling. Forget the thriller/mystery bait, it quickly turned into another comical melodrama that lacked any real emotional impact. The last episode was seriously sloppy and rushed it will certainly leave you with a sour taste. On the bright side, the OST was pretty good.Was this review helpful to you?
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Modern-Day Delusional Liberation
The cinematography and visuals were great although they went overboard with tilted shots and angles, surpassing their creative limits. The drama had a decent melodic score that blended with the shots just okay but no particular track stood out. Enough technicality, no matter how I look at it, the drama boiled down to be a cheap mix between Thirty-Nine (2022) & My Mister (2018), lacking soul and a unique identity. The self narration bits were a hit or miss, some lines were brilliant and fit the mood, while others were just nonsensical pretentious scribbles. There was a good opportunity to give these narrations to other characters as well but these were mostly done by Yeom Mi Jung. The end of episode 2 made it seem like a tacky show in a fancy wrapping, signaling that it wouldn't stay grounded and would resort to impractical moves to progress the plot forward and grab attention. This is one thing the drama constantly kept contradicting itself with. I didn't like their approach for the ending; they should've just wrapped it up instead of sneakily dancing around it for way too long. Don't excuse its shortcomings by calling it a slow show. Both the writer and director have succeeded in creating slow shows before, but this one missed the mark and sacrificed other important elements along the way. Even with a very relaxed 16 episodes, most of the characters didn't get the development they deserved, but I guess some slice of life scenes were more important. That one major transition around episode 13-14 was embarrassingly poorly done and was a real cowardly move by the writer to escape the writer's block. It left an unerasable stain for what could've been a decent show. Although there were aspects to like and appreciate, the drama didn't quite reach its potential.Was this review helpful to you?
The Queen for 7 Minutes
Realistically, the drama was mostly about the backstory, the queen for 7 days turned out to be the queen for 7 minutes. The spoiler/teaser introduction and that first episode in general left a bad taste in my mouth. There was no need to show moments from 18 episodes later this early, if their intent was to try to hook the viewers by showing spoilers then they failed. And don't even get me started on that loathsome love triangle that seemed to stain the entire drama. The pacing was all over the place—slow moments that dragged on forever and irrelevant sidetracking. The whole sibling rivalry angle was given a generic development. The not so good brother tried to justify himself but the writer didn't put an ounce of effort into that. Really frustrating writing towards the end.Was this review helpful to you?