When I saw the announcement for this drama the only thing that came to my mind was 'Great, another cliche rom-com that's going to go downhill real fast'. And I managed to predict half of it.
Shopping King Louis really surprised me with its unique take on rom-coms and its unconventional characters. It took a more comedic aproach to the story and I really aprecciated that, because a lot of writers forget that they are making a rom-COM but I gues they have the right to choose. I still really wish that they would have just taken out the 'melodrama' out of their genres list, because a) not a fan of those and b) they did a really poor job at mood changing. It felt like they don't really know if this is a serious drama or are they just making fun of cliches so they kept jumping between the two and it just felt so poorly done. And the melodrama was soooo cliche that the unique feeling they had built up just vanished into the air. And if they had decided to keep up the comedy throughout all the 16 episodes it still wouldn't have been enough, because even if they had a unique twist to everything the story as a whole, the base, wasn't that original, in other words, not enough to keep the audience entertained for 16 hours. Now I think if you watched this drama while it was airing you probably didn't feel like it dragged but as someone who watched an episode per day it got extremely boring towards the end. I felt like this drama only needed 10 episodes, because past that nothing really happened, a lot of boring melodrama took place, the writers did an extremely poor job at combining and switching between comedy and melodrama, the cute romance reached its peak and then my interest in it just steadily dropped.
The characters were all awesome. Bok Sil and Louis were a perfect couple - kind hearted, naive, but not stupid. They were truly two pure angels and I loved them. Adored the supporting cast, all of it honestly. They all were pretty unconventional. I especially adored the details: what Louis's favourite coffe is, that *ahem* sound that Mr Cha keeps making, how Heo Jeong Ran is kind of gangster like, how Baek Ma Ri learns by heart what to say to people and so much more. I like that a lot of the supporting cast grew throughout the show and by the end were better people. But I still feel that the writers really forgot to end our supporting casts story properly. And again no matter how unique they were, the characters weren't enough to keep the story going for 16 episodes blah blah blah...you know the deal.
The only thing I have to say about the acting is how amazing Seo In Guk was in this drama. I watched him act in I Remember You (nice drama btw worth checking out) and I was amazed, because the roles he played in these dramas were both so different yet he managed to pull them off so well. Some actors are amazing but all their roles seem pretty much the same. But he went from a serious - never smiles kind of guy, to a total naive kid and my mind was blown.
Shopping King Louis is the kind of show you can't take seriously, because you'll hate the characters from the first second. (I mean can Loius be even more spoiled?). It has a bunch of flaws and there isn't anything that would make me say that this drama is a must watch. But if you're a Rom-com lover, like me, and you're looking for something sligtly different then this is definitely worth checking out.
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