MattPeddlesden
Kent, UK
If you liked Good Manager (Chief Kim, or whatever you want to call it!) then it's similar humour style to that.
Most of the characters are relatively "normal" but the main lawyer whose nickname is "Goethe" is quite seriously over the top and was the main reason I took a while to warm up - they hit you at full speed with his characters weirdness - but, stick with it, you will almost certainly warm up to his character and it becomes all the more amusing later on when other characters start imitating him to great effect.
Fundamentally it's a legal drama / comedy, there's no notable romance involved (not strictly true, but it's a total side plot), and it's about a law firm called B+G and one of their former team, an ace lawyer Go Tae Rim who is now out on his own and is all about the money money money.
Major high point for me - unlike so many other legal dramas this one excels at pointing out that a lawyers job is to represent their client as best they can, it is NOT to seek out "justice" and the show does a good job to highlight WHY a lawyer cannot do that. Whether the client is right or wrong is not your job to determine, it's the system, if you get a bad person off their charge you're not at fault, the prosecution are for not doing a better job. In this way, Go Tae Rim appears brutal and single minded - but one of the best "true" representations of being a lawyer i've seen in a show.
The FL is amazing, whether it's being serious in the court room, funny and delightful in other scenes or painfully hurt and suffering as she deals with a case she is involved in at the start, the range she shows is fantastic. I'm definitely going to be watching more of her work. She was also in Romantic Doctor Season 1 and a guest on Hotel Del Luna as well as a few others.
The ladies in this are great characters - whether it's the FL who develops from innocent inexperience to a strong willed, strong minded woman who can take on the world, or Director Min, who is already strong but learns how to let others in.
It's a good story, good ending, some good humour and some great characters. Definitely worth a watch.
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A wonderful story with a generally very positive and warm tone throughout (though things do derail a bit, I am not going to classify this one in the "stupid breakup" category because as much as I wanted it to work out without it, its presence added a lot of weight and I think made the story that much more valid).
The history of the various characters involved, particularly the main leads, adds a nice depth and explains why they act the way they do now, and serves to reinforce that you might think someone is a bit odd but there's a good reason why they are that way. The male lead's character in particular comes off cold, flat, intellectual and unemotional and you'll find out why during the course of the story.
One of the most powerful scenes for me was him going from someone smiling as he watches a soccer game, to a few moments later on the floor crying his eyes out, for a character that is cold and unemotional for the entirety of the show leading up to that point it makes it that much more painful to watch and you fully appreciate what he's going through. Brilliantly acted.
The main leads make a fantastic couple (they were paired up as Kim Mi So's parents in What's Wrong With Secretary Kim too, in Episode 10) and I'm definitely going to be looking out for more from them.
The second leads are awesome too, dealing with their own stresses and pressures both within relationships and within the workplace.
Good strong female leads in this in my view, in fact even some of the support/guest actors are filling strong character roles too such as the CEO that offers the female lead a writing contract (she has a bigger role in the story that shows strength in her character too, but I won't go into that!)
Absolutely brilliant, loved this one and it will definitely be on my re-watch list when I come to start looking for stories to enjoy again, the overflowing warm fuzzies on this one are like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket :)
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You've seen bits of it before... but it's still lots of fun
You are definitely going to be getting de ja vu while watching this, I agree with some of the other reviewers - I definitely found myself drawing comparisons with Goblin, Black Knight, and some Doom at your Service.But you know what? It's still an enjoyable watch, I love the sound track and the chemistry between Kim Yoo Jung and Song Kang was excellent.
There's some threat and mystery as people keep dying around the main characters as we figure out who that is and follow that trail, meanwhile the demon is making deals and ultimately all the stories come crashing together and we realise there's nothing random about this at all.
There's one thing they didn't face off squarely though in my opinion and I suspect it was to keep the positive tone particularly in the ending, but it just rang off key for me. Black Knight faced it head on, he was immortal, she was mortal, there are implications for that and as tough as it made Black Knight to watch it finished the story. I kinda get why they didn't go down that route, but it just felt like a bit left unsaid.
Cast are all brilliant. Kim Yoo Jung is always a top star and I enjoy watching her performances, Kim Hae Sook is brilliant to watch as well, and Cha Chung Hwa's character is brilliantly done too, I especially like her cap - which has "GOOD" written on it, but one of the O's is barely visible. I mean, just in case you needed it spelled out...
The show does have one of my favourite lines though, which i'll paraphrase ;)
"People like to think I control everything, but really i'm just a companion on their journey".
I like that, it played off well in the moment too.
It does have a magic button fix-all moment, but I think it worked and was led up to numerous times prior to it happening so it didn't feel like the writer had an "i have no idea how to get out of this, i'll just magic up a solution" moment.
The little bickering bit at the end however just felt really odd. I guess the writer was trying to get a final message in but honestly it didn't hit home for me at all, and just scribbled a bit over the general positive theme.
I'd certainly recommend the watch, I've not regretted watching it in the slightest, though I don't rate it as one of the best they don't all have to be the best!
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Confused Mess
So much promise. Looks like they've set up something really clever."Traditional" time travel is single dimensional - go back in the past, change, and it affects the future instantly, you know, good old cause and effect. Back to the Future where Marty and his family start disappearing from the family photo when he accidentally messes up how his mum and dad meet? That kinda thing. It's classic, it works. Is it the only thought line for time travel? No, definitely not, but it's the one usually covered in stories.
There are other thoughts on Time Travel like - maybe it's multi dimensional, now instead of progressing along a single line back and forth, now you're moving through *time* in two dimensions, which means you can go back to the future version of a past and changes you make there don't affect *your* past because that's a previous version of it! Confusing? Quite a bit... but... wouldn't it be cool if someone attempted it?
I thought that's what we had here.
Nope, turns out the writers just don't get time travel at all. It all just becomes a confused mess, going back to the same moment and playing it out differently (that's multi dimensional!) but then also having cause and effect (that's one dimensional) and maybe not entirely because.. well.. argh. Mess, mess, mess.
... and... is this a love story? because if so it's... wrong. This is mother and son! If it's not a romance, what's with all the romance music (which I liked, hence the good score on the sound track, just really confusing how it was used!).
Apparently the main character has alexythemia (where you have no emotional response, basically) - except, he's crying and feeling bad and so forth lots and lots, so you have to come to the conclusion that he actually is just a bit of a miserable so-and-so and covers it up by saying that. I'm going to try that later I think see if anyone buys it :)
I really enjoyed the actors work, they were the highlight of this drama, some great cast here and they do a great job.
I'm MOSTLY gutted because this had some real potential. I want to think that the writer had a great idea and it got hacked about and corrupted somehow, because there's the nucleous of something great. It's not that the ending was rushed and didn't make sense (though, honestly, it barely made sense) - it stopped making sense about half way through and you begin to realise that... hmm... i'm not sure the Captain of this plane is firing on all cylinders...
I'm going to stop here. Not recommended. Cast were fantastic, music was great, production values were really good too, but... story... the story... yoikes.
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ARGH! This one frustrates me so much, I like the actors involved, it has parallel worlds in different dimensions, it plays around with alternate realities and presents a world where Joseon style royalty remains to a modern "Kingdom of Corea", it has time travel - I mean, this SHOULD have been perfect. So why wasn't it?
Couple of key areas... but fundamentally it really just boils down to there seeming to be far too much skipped out. I found it extremely hard to track where each scene was - one minute you're in the Corea world and the next cut of the camera you're seeing the same person in the Korea world, and thinking... hang on, but that person isn't in both, or is he? few minutes late rit dawns - no, they've actually travelled between worlds, I mean could they not just spell that out?
This is both a complex and a simple story combined. The principals are pretty simple but it sets out a stage that has two different parallel worlds with slightly different versions of the same characters, so Kim Go Eun's character is both Jung Tae Eul (in Korea, our world) and Luna (in Corea, the other). Multiply that up for almost all characters including side characters. Now randomly flip between worlds without giving the player any hint as to which world you're in and try to keep up. It's not impossible, I *think* I just about managed it but i'm positive I missed plot points while trying to figure out if person A is talking to the person B from one world or the other because there's ramifications if it's the other and they're impersonating - which does happen.
I don't mind being misled a bit but it really felt more like chunks of story left out.
Next you've the problem with this Uncle and what his whole game is. He's a bad guy, ok we get that. He's doing bad stuff, yep, with you. But what's his goal exactly and what's his plan to achieve it? It seemed like he was doing "stuff" over the 25 years or so from the original treason to where the story actually picks up - but then there's really no actual pay off or benefit from him doing that at all, or indication as to what it should have been and at what point this was foiled and brought crashing down. Again, I think this is just a victim of the cliff-note storytelling, except it's bad cliff notes as it's clearly missing major plot points!
The time travel was quite nicely done.
The whole thing was set up to be absolutely brilliant, I can see the skeleton of what was intended (I think) and it was an incredibly ambitious project, it had a great cast and the production values on it were sky high. What it needed was either 20 or 24 episodes to actually do its epic tale justice. 16 was just too short for a project of this magnitude.
Some people are upset about it having too much product placement but honestly i'm immune to it, I find it amusing and still prefer it to advert breaks. Sometimes I like to play Product Placement Bingo when I'm watching a drama! :) Perhaps they went too far but... honestly it didn't bother me at all.
My favourite actor in this is definitely Kim Go Eun - big fan of her work anyway - but her character is tough, strong and skilled. She knows her stuff. Sometimes the story does have her be the victim to be rescued but I actually don't see a problem with that either - you can't be strong all the time, and a balanced character will lean on others as much as be leaned on.
Lee Min Ho... comes off as a mix of the strong regal king, and an arrogant ass, but overall I thought it played well for the character.
Final episode was good which just reinforces my belief that his was a well thought out project but far too ambitious to squeeze it into the timeslot it was given.
Watch if you like the actors, particularly Kim Go Eun, but expect to have to pay attention to keep up and fill in the blanks.
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Good to see Go Sung Hee in another drama, i've been enjoying her in the Korean version of Suits as well and was one of the reasons I was keen to pick this up - besides the sci-fi / tech based storyline to this one.
Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, we humans are already very ready to become attached to things, we give our cars names and talk lovingly (or not...) to other tech around the house. We have a real emotional connection to some things - and while I think we're a fair way off it still, it's only a matter of time before the tech starts feeling back.
The idea of the Augmented Reality style "holo glasses" is great and clearly just around the corner (let's forget those google things that just freaked everyone out). Whether we'll be happy to waffle away to a holo-buddy that nobody can see, I think that we're not there yet - a lot of people are still having trouble talking to Alexa in a useful way, though perhaps with more natural language interaction that might improve.
In amongst the side of the story covering human-AI relationships, there's a corporation jealous of the progress that's been made and wants to take over and this presents more interesting dynamics for human-AI relationships and how they might change at the simple click of a button.
Great story, haven't sat and listened to the OST yet but definitely will, thought that the actors did a great job and really nothing stood out as wrong to me. Ending was satisfying, though with an unnecessary wrinkle at the ending which was just plain odd and in a very minor way it diminished some of what had gone before.
Another good one, particularly as it's only 12 episodes it's an easy weekend-watch if you're as obsessed as I am :)
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Waffly bit
This is a medical drama first and foremost, there is romance in it but it's relatively light - certainly not the focus, but enough to keep the Romance-enthusiast happy for sure. What I particularly liked about this one as opposed to other medical dramas was there was a lot more focus on the other unspoken aspects of being a Doctor such as dealing with the consequences of when things go wrong - I don't mean necessarily legal, but the personal emotional consequences, it doesn't matter how many times you can be told "you did everything you could", you're still going to have to handle how you feel about that and get through it.
A common theme is about the choices Doctor's must make, and the choices they must NOT make. You have two patients, the one that arrived first has a lower chance of dying in the next hour than the one that arrived later - which goes into surgery first? What if the one who has a more immediate chance of dying is a violent criminal?
Teacher Kim is the subject of the story, though it spends a lot of time also looking at the other characters, particularly Seo-Jung, Im-Beum, and Dong-Ju. To a large extent the characters are helping to explore different aspects of Teacher Kim's life and history from the viewers perspective as well as showing how he can influence them and develop them as people (as well as Doctors). Seo-Jung is inspired to follow him and learn everything she can, Im-Beum starts out a short sighted character led by his father with material goals but develops into a great Doctor, Dong-Ju is affected by the decisions a Doctor must make at a very young age and it's only when he needs to make those decisions himself he truly understands what a Doctor must do.
Doldam Hospital is a provincial hospital in the middle of nowhere in particular, but is near to a number of highways as well as a large casino - which means that it's far busier than anyone outside the hospital really appreciates but is understaffed and underfunded.
There are a good number of different incidents occurring during the drama including major traffic accidents, gunshot injuries, hostage situations and quarantine situations. The story moves along well. If all you like to see is the medical stuff, there's plenty to keep you interested with various types of surgeries taking place in different situations.
All the characters were great, though whenever President Do or the Chief of Surgery were on the screen I wanted to reach in and throttle them, a sign of good characters well written and acted I guess :) No issues with any of the acting at all.
Production-wise - the echo narration didn't sit well with me at all, I don't think the echo was needed, it rarely is, ever :) Otherwise it was great, nothing outstanding to call out but then nothing felt wrong either.
General - This is down as a 20 episode story, but it really isn't. It's a 21 episode story. If you watch to the end of Episode 20 only, it ends in a really bonkers place - they introduce a new character of some apparent importance and that's it, credits! Thankfully they produced a 21st episode as a special which completes the story about that character - and adds additional dimensions to the "what it means to be a Doctor" discussion, bringing in "Doctors without borders" and AIDS patients. They also then took a little time to talk about how the team in the hospital got together with some nice little anecdotes that just rounded everything off nicely. I'll say it once more - that extra episode is NOT optional, it's a key conclusion to the story IMHO.
Music was good, I need to listen to the OST but it sounded good and I'm looking forward to doing so.
There is a season 2 starting shortly with MOSTLY the same cast. Looks like Seo-Jung and Dong-Ju have moved on and now Teacher Kim finds two new team members - but the majority of the rest of the cast looks the same, so there's a nice bit of continuation from the looks of it. SUPER excited for it.
Absolutely worth the watch, definitely on my re-watch list, and can't wait for Season 2 to start imminently :)
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While there are indeed holes in Tomorrow With You, overall I felt the use of Time Travel was very good though.
Following narrowly avoiding a fatal railway accident Yoo So Joon finds that he can now travel through time every time he uses the subway, forwards or backwards depending on the direction that he travels. Interestingly, where many time travel stories only talk about permitting travel to the past, this one declares that one can only travel to the future and back to your "current" time, so if you travel forwards in time 2 years stay there for 4 hours and come back - 4 hours have passed in the current time. It kinda makes sense as a plot device (because time pressures in the "now" also exist in the future, you can't just come back 1 minute after you left and solve the problem) and means that you don't need to bend your mind around some of the more complex problems of time travel.
A key difference between this story and many others i've seen (all others to date in fact) is that the couple get married really early on in the story, so this immediately isn't your regular story. It's got the kind of tone about it that feels like an arranged marriage where the couple start of marrying and then over time develop their feelings and a close relationship.
The story definitely has different gears though, as it progresses it shifts into these different gears and the focus of the story shifts a little, whether it's getting together with Ma-rin in the first place, dealing with an embezzler, solving a murder or - well, the things that happen even later in the story - I felt that the shifts made sense and really gave a feeling of the story progressing. It takes place over a period primarily between 2015 and 2022 (though there are nods back to 2009 when the railway accident occurs), so over such an extended period you can see why there would need to be some sense of real progression through the story.
What kept me going through this was the relationship between Ma-rin and So-Joon, I loved Ma-rin's character and thought the extreme bubbliness was actually warranted given she's led a largely lonely life and finally finding someone she loves in this way it's like all that emotion is bursting out of her - but she's no push over, and she's not a light headed character either, she's independent and strong as is demonstrated numerous times when So-Joon asks her to change something (e.g. stop being a photographer at a location) because he's trying to prevent something in the future - but without telling her the reason, she stands her ground because it's just a really unreasonable request in any other circumstance. So-joon played by Lee Je Hoon was another good character, somewhat wooden but then again I also feel that since he's had a largely isolated life that's not unreasonable either.
The bad guy - Kim Yong Jim, played by Baek Hyun Jin was awesome, he had a real presence about him as his character - which starts as a nice guy, gradually devolves into - well, what he ends up as. Seeing his descent was really interesting and portrayed well. It's got that "joker" or "darth vader prequel" feel - the step by step slippery slope as a good guy became the bad guy. His whole mannerism with his facial expressions and general posture though, amazing. Definitely going to watch some more with him to see his range.
Finally, the conclusion - without spoiling it. I left the final two episodes (15/16) until the following day as it was already about 3am by the time I got there... and I'm really glad I did. They're emotional, tense and difficult. Seeing ma-rin go through such a rollercoaster of emotions was painful and joyous and I really think it was her character that drove these last two episodes - So Joon was doing plenty too but what Ma-rin was going through, the strength of character it showed and the emotions she experienced were the highlight for me.
This is an absolute must-watch for me and definitely going on my re-watch list.
Music was the only downside for me, and it may purely be because i was so engaged by the on-screen action that I forgot to pay attention, but nothing stood out for me. I need to dig out the OST on YouTube and have a listen, but certainly for the time being the music didn't make any specific imprint on my memory.
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The main character (Shi-on - in the US version his name is Sean) has Autism which limits his social abilities but massively boosts his cognitive abilities. My son has Autism (albeit much milder) so it was interesting seeing the world through a set of eyes similar to his via this story.
The range of characters in the show are great, with some good supporting cast. I really enjoyed some of the sub plots around the hospital featuring the supporting characters particularly the younger patients that he worked with. As with all K-Drama's there's more than one couple forming and they're all interesting to watch.
The pairing of the two leads however was a really beautiful story and I much preferred the journey they took as compared to how the love aspect was handled on the US version.
Definitely recommended. If you haven't seen the US one then it's also worth a watch - while there are numerous elements and facets of the stories that are similar there's way more than enough different to make it very interesting to watch both.
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Fun, clever, but I don't know what that ending was about...
Short: Cast are all awesome, characters are interesting, story is clever but will twist your brain a bit particularly in the latter parts. Music is good but nothing stand-out. Action is fantastic and over the top, there are some really good scenes, but, the bad guys are stormtroopers, as usual. Scenes of a wasteland future were stunning. Ending killed it for me though, made no sense.Detail:
This is a time travel story, which means you have to expect your brain is going to get a bit twisted, but the easiest way you can prepare yourself to understand how things progress is to remember cause and effect - that is the natural order of things, a leads to b, b leads to c. If you change b, then c will be different.
There are many ideas of how time works in the universe, the most common one depicted (and is so here) is that it is a single string, a leads to b, b leads to c, as i outlined above. If you go back in time 10 minutes and meet yourself, put a flower in the other "you's" lapel, that flower is in your lapel too, and was always there. So - Sisyphus is following this direction for time travel.
For the most part it's a sound story, it's got tons of action and much of it is way over the top, which is fine, if you're going to have action you might as well make it appeal to action fans :) This is james bond (1 shot kills instantly) versus the storm troopers (can't hit an elephant in a tunnel with a full load of ammo) type action. It didn't detract, it's kinda how I expect things to go these days :)
The romance between Seo Hae and Tae Sul was ok, there was nothing too burning hot between them but then they're also fighting for their lives and dealing with mind bending situations - so you gotta allow some slack on that front i think.
Kim Byung Chul plays the bad guy really well, utterly psycho, he's a great actor though one I always regret seeing if only because he's going to nail the bad guy every time and make me hate his character :) He toys with the main leads mercilessly and the unhinged expressions and whole body language throughout are brilliant.
However, what matters more so than anything in a story like this is the ending - because you can create all kinds of mess and sticky situations, you can twist the world upside down and look as clever as you like - but if you can't end it properly, then it rather undermines the weight of what came before. This story, in my opinion, failed heartily on that front.
I've read some posts and FAQ's posted by people who are more satisfied with the ending but... I feel they've written their own stories to explain it rather than basing it on specifically what we are told in the story itself. The story progresses to a point very near the end, and then just shows a couple of clips without any context or explanation and leaves it up to interpretation to figure out what is meant by them. So... again, based on what we're *told* in the story, rather than making up new story to try and explain the unexplained, I feel the ending was very poor.
In many ways this is fundamentally a tragedy type of a story - because they're from different times, the main leads either solve the time loop paradox and can never be together, or they stay together but Korea remains destroyed and the time loop persists. I think they could have actually played to that as a strength more, and possibly it is indeed what they were trying to express, but they blew it - in my probably flawed opinion of course.
It's worth a watch for the action, it's worth a watch for the cast, but expect things to make you go "wait, what?" and just pat yourself on the head and say "its ok, just... ignore it and enjoy everything else". :)
So close to being one of the greats, I think.
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This one was cut short from 16 episodes to 12 due to low viewer numbers I was afraid it would have a rushed or just outright poor ending - but it doesn't. If anything, cutting it to 12 may have done it some favours, it's a fairly slow paced drama that deals with the scars and emotional pain that the characters have locked away.
The ML is a tech developer and is working on an Artificial Intelligence project that lets him bring a person to life in a small device so you can talk to them as if they were really there. Yes, this bit is a bit nonsense, and yes the science of it is... drama-full... but let's just skip over that and enjoy it as if it were true, because that's more fun :)
The FL is a sound engineer, working in a studio with various musicians.
Without going into any detail, the AI element is really good and gives you this feeling of being able to talk to those who have passed away.
Both characters have scars from their pasts, emotional damage that they are papering over to live on with their lives but this story pokes and prods and pushes those scars and forces the characters to deal with it. Theres numerous things going on here that are somewhat intertwined, not just with the two leads but with other characters as well.
Through the story we see the characters who are not aware of how closely they are linked in some cases, resolve their issues in a really nice fashion, there's no magic reset buttons in this story. It's almost a little slice of therapy.
I especially liked the ending though it was a tad abrupt, it would have been so easy to say "all is great" and re-paper over the remaining cracks, but they didn't, even in the last episode the characters are resolving their pains. I felt it was abrupt because I honestly just like to bask in the final bits of a story once it reaches its conclusion - whatever that is - you've spent the entire show getting here, let's stop and just rest a bit and take in the feels before we hit the credits eh? Still, a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things.
Lots of Piano in this which I especially liked as it's my favourite instrument. I can listen to the Piano for hours :)
Overall really enjoyed. Music was really good too.
It's a shame it wasn't watched by enough viewers, but I think there's been a lot of the slow, arty, therapy style shows this year so far so it's probably more bad timing than anything else. It'll probably find a better place as people watch it later.
Jung Hae In is playing a fairly similar role to ones he's done before, the melancholy loner who finds love - but for Chae Soo Bin this was somewhat different to her normal role and I think she aced it (but i'm a fan so... take that with a pinch of salt I guess :) )
Lastly, special call out for Park Joo Hyun who plays Kim Ji-Soo, this was her first drama and she only had a movie before this so a newcomer and I thought a very strong entry too (particularly given the unusual nature of this role), definitely will be looking out for more from Joo Hyun.
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Fun, Unique and Brilliantly written.
Short: Medical drama following five long-time friends at the same hospital but in different disciplines. Each dealing with life and death, and then gathering together to play music in a band that never performs publicly. Great music throughout. Happy moments and sad moments cleverly woven together to the conclusion of Season 1. Doesn't feel like a cliffhanger ending or cut-short story. As always, when the kids are on screen, they steal the show. :)Detail:
This one was so different, it's a medical drama and in that respect it's a fairly predictable set of cases for each of the cast to deal with some of which are going to have happy endings and some sad endings. Where this one stands out however is the unique production and direction, and the way the writer has woven these episodes together. The inclusion of the band element where they get together and play music as a group but never publicly is really interesting and forms a great release for them to spend time together as a group and forget the worries of their working lives.
Each of the doctors is in their own field, whether it's kids, babies, brains, hearts or general surgery. This leads to a nice variety of different challenges for them to deal with.
For those who are squeamish, it's not bad, a few blurry shots of insides of bodies but honestly not that often.
There's lots of things going on in each of their personal lives, whether it's within the group, with other doctors, or even outside of the hospital altogether. I felt this gave some nice variety.
I held off watching this one because it seemed like it was going to be a half-story waiting for season 2 to finish it much like Love Alarm was - but - that doesn't seem to be the case, while there are certainly some loose threads at the end they are minor and actually some of them are fresh new threads caused by the resolution of previous happenings. There is one that's left open, and had there not been a season two that would have been disappointing but I would have still felt that this show actually did its job well. Great news is that Season 2 is now here, so now that i've just finished bingeing my way through Season 1 I can click "next" and see what happens!
The cast are absolutely brilliant, my favourite by a long shot was Jo Jung Suk - all the scenes with his son are an absolute joy to watch, he's a comic genius matched up really well with the young actor playing his son.
Definitely well worth a watch. I'm hopeful Season 2 will be great, but this stands up and (mostly) ends very nicely on its own.
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Really good fun!
Short: Short but well paced romantic drama that traces a group of people from their mid teens until their early thirties, focusing on the two leads and their long romance. Most of it is primarily from her perspective, but the final episode is all from his and explains a lot. Brilliant performances particularly from So Ju Yeon who is a young actress who manages to pull off such a wide age range really well. This is just pure fun really!Detail:
To be honest, I wasn't going to watch this one for a while because it's another school romance and... I've watched a couple of school dramas lately and was looking for something a different, but with So Ju Yeon in it I decided I'd give it a shot and see how it went.
Opening scenes and her character is just solid sugar, she's squeaks when she talks and is just a non-stop walking cute-monster - which isn't meant to be a compliment, I wasn't sure how I was going to cope with this character but decided to stick with it.
Took about by the end of that episode for her silliness and genuineness of her character to come through and I started warming to the show and the other characters as well.
This story tracks them from 2006 to current day as they are in school, going through something like four years of school and graduating, going to university and entering their careers. We see a relatively high speed (though it doesn't feel rushed) snapshot through their lives and it ought to be inspiring to younger viewers to see this development in such a short space of time - if you're ever in school wondering if it will ever end, or if what your life will be like afterwards, while it's not exactly documentary-level, it's an entertaining glimpse into the transition that young adults make as they grow, including when things don't go according to plan.
The majority of the story is essentially from Sol I's perspective (the female lead), as she opens the whole drama by declaring her feelings for Heon (the male lead) - who immediately rejects her flat - and then spends the majority of what follows utterly relentlessly chasing him down despite what seem to be his best efforts to gently ignore her.
There's a love triangle in it, and this is the second drama in a while where i've honestly felt that the second lead is an incredible human being in general. Part of me was hoping against the writers wishes that the better man, the second lead, would get the girl, because he really was just a better person in my eyes. Alas, first leads always get the girl, I don't consider that a spoiler, it shouldn't come as any surprise. :)
I had some real problems with Heon's character and his actions. He teetered on the fine line between being assertive and red-flag-aggressive. Maybe i'm just too sensitive to such things, but it was part of what made me start rooting for the second lead.
Up until the final episode of this drama I was going to give it maybe a 7.5 ? Mostly because of my concerns with Heon and the unbalanced nature of the whole thing. Then the final episode comes on, and it's HIS side of the story. I won't go any further, but, balance restored.
I come out of this drama warm and fuzzy, it was entertaining and I was always looking forward to the next episode and i'm a bit sad having spent 14 years with this characters that I now have to say goodbye, but, that's what I have to do. To me, that's the sign of a good story and is why I give it a higher grade than most people seem to have. Swimming against the tide? That's me :)
Characters are all great and the secondary arcs are enjoyable. It's great seeing all their friends later in life and how various stories have played out in the background. There's one moment where there's a bit of a reunion and you genuinely feel almost like you're part of that experience, seeing this characters again and reminiscing about old times.
So - don't be put off by school drama (it isn't all in school anyway), and stick with it to the end - that final episode made a big difference for me and was beautifully written.
Watch it again? Heck yes, this one's full of the warm fuzzies, particularly after you know the full story and can then enjoy it more fully on subsequent rewatches.
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Longer...
The FL is 10 years older than the ML. They've known each other for many years and the ML and his sister have practically been raised as siblings to the FL following their own mothers passing and their father abandoning them... so there's some taboo's to overcome when the FL and ML realise their feelings for each other have grown significantly.
This story is one of love, romance and hardship. Fairly early on the couple are getting together and the way in which they overcome that first hurdle of - who makes the first move - was really nicely done. As the relationship grows, the FL's character visibly brightens and changes, she gains confidence and literally becomes more bouncy. There are the silly childish games that couples play in the honeymoon phase along the lines of "no, you hang up first" with some cute scenes involving him dropping her off at home and them taking a long time to actually separate.
There's the FL's brother, the ML's sister, the FL's parents (who by some extension are also somewhat the ML's fake-parents), all of which are probably going to have a problem with this relationship. These are tackled one by one and I thought handled well.
The FL's mother - probably one of my most disliked characters in a story. On the one hand, she's obviously a caring mother, she goes out of her way to help and OUGHT to be a fantastic mother, but she's so controlling and interfering she becomes the clear "bad guy" in this story (that's not a spoiler, it's fairly clear early on who the problem is going to be!). She's acted well though I have to say.
In addition to what's happening in her personal life, the FL has problems at work with sexual harassment from a couple of the male senior staff. I found this whole aspect of the story really hard to watch, but more because it was portrayed well and therefore all the more shameful - not so much about the actual act of harassing but all the scheming and tactics to try and dodge it, cover it up, pass over the blame etc. Ultimately the story kinda builds to a conclusion on this and then SKIPS it however so you actually only find out what ultimately happened via a reminiscence later on, a huge shame.
None of the sound track really stood out for me, it does all seem to be English lyrics which was interesting. One of the songs is a remake of Stand By Your Man - which plays sooo many times - but I found it appropriate if only because this story is clearly - Stand By Your Woman. The FL is going through so many challenges at home and at work, she's a flawed character who makes mistakes on top, and what she needs most (and, for the most part, what she gets from the ML) is support.
So, was it worth watching?
I'd recommend watching this one because of the first 2/3 being SO good, it goes beyond the ridiculously cute honeymoon phase to further in where things become more normal, to where they upset each other, decisions are made and things happen, there's the happenings with the family and with the ML's sister. There's really only two threads (their relationship and the harassment story line) but they are both quite involved.
This is not a story where good people make only good decisions, be prepared to throw popcorn at the screen and shout "just be honest!" "argh no don't do that you fool!" - but that's ok because in the real world, people are flawed too.
The wheels do come off later, the time skip is unannounced and utterly confusing and contributes a lot to the problems in following the story in the last few episodes. The harassment story line is done a huge disservice by not having its conclusion covered properly too.
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There are lots of strong characters in this one, the main leads are of course there but the seconds are just as present and have good interesting plots and backgrounds in their own rights.
My favourite character by far was Baek In Ha - her character teeters on a fine line between "ugh she's so annoying get her off the screen" and wacky enough to be different and given the relatively flat and understated natures of the main leads, In Ha's stark contrast was actually a welcome shot in the arm. The actress (Lee Sung Kyung) did a brilliant job with an almost constant stream of outlandish facial expressions - this girl wears her heart on her sleeve and hides nothing from anyone around her, but she's selfish, bitchy and clearly has some issues. It was good to see that ultimately those issues got explored as part of the male leads story, and I particularly liked the utter contrast when In Ha has something of a breakdown and ends up in care for a short while as things come to a head in the story. I am absolutely going to look up some more work from Lee Sung Kyung though, I absolutely need to see her talents in other roles!
I can draw some parallels in this story against "Remember - War of the Son" - both stories cover the warped way that chaibol kids are raised and the impacts that it has on them as they grow, how they react / respect the people around them and the impact that it has on those people. Baek In Ha and Baek In Ho are hugely impacted by what looks to be a wonderful gesture from Mr You, the father, to bring them in and adopt them - but they ultimately pay a price because of how it affects them, and that starts to talk to how In Ha ends up the outlandish character that she is.
I've read some reviews and other commentary on this show and it seems a lot of people wanted Hong Seol (the female lead) to end up with the second lead (Baek In Ho), but I must admit throughout I was routing for her to end up with Yoo Joung (the male lead) - throughout the story he is clearly developing as a person, she's dragging him to some sense of reality and she's the one person that he wants to hold on to enough that he improves himself to do it. I enjoyed his transformation including the ultimate realisation of just how far he needed to come to ensure that he didn't hurt those around him any more, and taking responsibility for that change.
For those looking for the fluffy romance, look no further than secondary characters Bo-Ra and Eun-Taek - at the start he jokingly comments that he's her "servant" but wonders when she will release him from being a servant. It's clear that he wants more out of the relationship but she seems dead set on things staying as they are. This is developed and explored throughout and was as well done as some main couple stories. I'm glad this was present in the story, it created some light moments as well as giving you multiple couples to support and hope would find their way to a happy future.
Music - nothing really stood out, I need to listen to the OST to see if I was just paying too much attention to the story.
On the topic of Music, Baek In Ho is portrayed as a character who is a genius with the Piano and numerous times in the story he is seen playing various pieces. The piano is my favourite musical instrument and I was delighted to see it included in this way - some of my favourite scenes were with In Ho and Hong Seol sitting side by side playing a piece together and having fun.
Conclusion - I think it's worth a watch, i'm not sure if i'd rewatch it in a hurry but that's almost entirely down to the absolutely rubbish way they concluded it in the final few seconds. I genuinely thought i'd pressed a skip button on my phone or something. On reflection I think they were just trying to be coy or imply the start of something bigger but having gone to the extent of the setup prior to the final moments (trying to avoid spoilers here) the final scene was just a complete let-down. One more episode was almost needed, at least, in order to put a proper conclusion to this and then i'd have been much happier with it overall.
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