Jorsias
Redemption
You can't talk about One Spring Night without mentioning Something in The Rain.Because OSN is the result of what SITR could've been. It's about growth to both the drama and especially to the writer. One Spring Night is a take on modern Korea where the youth have to face the older generation, but not with guns or lawsuits, it's all about dialogue.
The first two episodes give the viewer an amazing introduction to the story, something most kdramas really fails to do, and the supporting cast is probably the best of the year. Every single person here has a story, no matter how much screentime they got. I dare to say that at least 3 or 4 supporting characters could easily have a drama to call their own, even if they just appear for a few minutes each episode. The music is soft and the editing makes the transitions between conflicts fit in nicely with the narrative.
Remember when I said this drama is about growth especially to the writer? Well, this drama is not perfect. It has its problems but that's what growth is. It's not a straight line to success. Don't come to this thinking all the missing points from SITR were fixed and that you won't get annoying sometimes. But the acting, damn, the acting.
I don't like to compare performances because I like to believe that actors can't only do so much if the script isn't good. But what an amazing performance by everyone.
One Spring Night is (once again) about growth, and I believe that the best score you can give to a drama is "I want to watch whatever this writer and director are doing next".
For the first time in a while, I feel bad that I can't see a drama on my 'currently watching' list anymore. There's no "I want to finish this quickly so I can watch another one" with One Spring Night. In a world where people consume so much media, not seeing a piece of content as a simple checklist is one of the best adjectives it can get. That's what happens with OSN.
Binge watch it, watch two episodes a week, whatever works for you. If possible, watch it on a Spring Night.
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1 - The Villains - The writer simply didn't know what to do with them. Old characters come back and they don't seem to have learned anything (good or bad) from their experiences from 3 years ago. They're evil just for the sake of being evil. The best villains are the ones that even though you don't agree with them, you understand why they take on such actions, and that doesn't happen here. You spent all the time wondering "Why is this person still doing this? And why is this new person doing this?". Do you know the rule of film, "don't tell me, show me"? Yeah, in this season they neither show you or tell you. The actual medical practice also suffered a lot from this. I didn't count but it was clear that they had a lot more scenes in the OR in the first season than in the second. Sometimes it looked like I was watching a political drama and not a medical one.
2 - Editing - While I agree that both new leads had little to do in terms of development, I blame it mostly on editing. Some characters had huge problems and traumas from childhood shown in the first episodes, and then nothing really happened for the most part just so at the end solutions were brought like they were ready to go all the time. Really huge decisions had little to no impact on the next scene, sometimes even with the same characters (!!!!). The romance also was affected by this. The use of flashback didn't work for most of the scenes between the main leads, and for the most part, the best scenes between them were done when (surprise, surprise) the medical drama was actually being a medical drama. Season 1 was about growth in both professional and personal lives, this one lacks a lot of both, mainly because how OP the male lead is and how the editing treated the female lead as a weak character when that was not the case at all.
3 - Drama, Drama, Drama - I was skeptical when the first case of the Hospital was that big of a deal at the start of the series because you know, " since this is season 2, you need to make everything bigger, am I right?" (/s). Whenever the writer didn't know what to do with a certain character, they would just throw some more drama into the story, which was funny because people in the discussions thread were always so tense about what was going to happen next when nothing really was happening. It was just lazy drama so actors could yell at each other and make us feel like the tension was through the roof.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people who didn't watch this first one are going to find my score strange, that I might be a hater or something, but hear me out.
I highly recommend those of you who didn't watch the first season to do so and then compare it to this one, especially the story. Try to notice how well the story develops while characters grow and learn from their mistakes. After that go back to this review and try to remember how much the leads of this season developed. I just hope they don't make a third season because it would be a shame to hear that they're going to keep doing drama for the sake of drama in this amazing series.
The OST is cool though.
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Interesting plot, uninteresting characters
When you have a title that is this ambitious, it's hard to not compare Awaken to the ones that came before, and in my opinion, Awaken falls short.Episodes 1-6
The plot itself is interesting. The story makes you not only wonder who are the good and bad guys, but also wonder if there are any good guys at all. The first 6 episodes are easily the most cohesive part of the drama. Even though you don't have a lot of answers, the writer feeds you enough to keep you engaged in the story. Since you don't know much about the characters, you actually care about them as they discover things at the same time as you. You never know if a character knowing certain information is actually good for "the good guys" because you're still unsure about their motivations and goals. Episodes 1-6 are done so well to keep you from discovering this and yet being interested, that even if you're not totally interested in watching this, I highly recommend you to watch ep 1-6 and then eps 15-16.
Episodes 8-16 (What happened to the characters?)
It's not about character development. Or is it? I don't actually mind when people turn evil in dramas, or if a bad guy has a change of heart. My problem with this drama is that apart from the main lead... no one does anything... like... mentally. One person has no moral compass, which is ok, but that's the only thing about her personality, another discover things that would make any normal being go nuts(which is basically her entire premise), and yet she has the same bare face all the time. I honestly thought that there was more to this than it was shown, but no, the drama ended and she's still showing that same face. And I honestly can't blame the actress because this is 100% the writer's fault. It's almost as she was forced to write that character. You could easily write the entire drama without her. She doesn't go under any development other than accepting that this is by NO MEANS a ROMANCE DRAMA. After all that happens, the character still got the nerve to say that "it's not too late". Jaime becomes just a side character after the second half, and I honestly don't like the supporting detectives who are too dumb to be working with the special team...even when there's no special team... if you know what I mean. There's one character who at the end could do some serious damage to "The Foundation" but in the beginning, was just a geeky character for was to laugh off. I mean, when did this guy become such a tech-head? We never see any sign of him hiding his intelligence. And even when that happens it was just for that scene and that scene alone. I honestly don't like when writers just create characters like that to help in just one situation because they don't have any other option. And the funniest part about this is the fact that this scene alone wouldn't need to exist because of what happened in the end (and was the main lead IDEA RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING). Oh, right, you need to have these two characters to do something in end, right? Ok then.
The bad - The Villains
Remember when I said that one of the interesting points of this drama was the fact that you didn't know who the bad guys were? Yeah, about that..... After some point, there are so many bad characters that the focus of the drama gets lost. I don't mind bad people taking on bad people, but the writer clearly used this to make a bigger and more evil enemy at the end (which fails by the way because you can easily guess what will happen way before the revelation). With so many bad figures in the drama, the "good guys" are obviously split into small side missions that have very little to the story itself, and that takes me to the good part of the story...
The good - The Music and Nam Goong Min
Nam Goong Min is one of the best actors working today, not only because of his acting skill but also because he knows how to pick a drama. Just go see his past works and you noticed how diversified they are and he nails in every single one of them. I will def check his next work as I will do the same for the actress who plays "Jamie". The music is amazing. Both the sounds created for the atmosphere in what happened 28 years ago to the suspense one whenever stuff goes down for the good guys. Visual effects were also good but the music takes the spotlight here.
Final Considerations
Awaken is a drama that falls short of other crime/thriller that we have seen in the few years. The lack of good side characters makes any time that one or two actually good characters aren't on screen painfully to watch, but it's delivered a good ending that makes sense using the rules it created. But the lack of characters makes me put it in a bar below its predecessors. It's interesting enough to keep you watching but makes you have no emotional attachment to the characters, especially everyone who isn't the main lead. Jaime is an interesting character in the beginning but then becomes another pawn in the story. In the end, you feel like the main lead could've solved everything by himself, which is kind of what happened here. Go watch Life on Mars if you haven't seen it.
PS. the relationship between the main lead and Woo Hyun is probably the best thing about this drama.
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