greenteaberry
Writing a review because it was more than I had imagined it would be :)
If you're in for a sweet little love story, wrong place. This is a "omg mood... I feel you girl" sort of story about a girl's personal growth, and about the change in romantic relationships experienced in late teens/early 20's vs. in mid-20's. It also gets philosophical, and the last episode will be a pleasant surprise for you for you for sure.
Highly recommend, especially if you're a girl in your mid-20's. You'll relate, I promise.
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Jieun's best friends (Mina and Mingyu) are also super cute! Their friendship is definitely something to look forward to in this drama!
My second time watching Cha In Ha act, first time in Love with Flaws. After watching these two dramas you'd fall in love with him too. Super young and talented actor that left us a bit too quickly. I was looking forward to watching him grow but then that happened... Rest in peace. We miss you.
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People also will tell you that this would be the one drama where the male lead is the same actor as the second male lead for whom you would get second male lead syndrome. Let's just say the main character's alter ego is also very charming and attractive in his own way and there's a whole fandom for that.
The plot line was super interesting, the acting was superb.
And spoiler alert, Ji Sung and Park Seo Joon won best couple in the drama awards that year. With each other.
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First of all let's talk about the comedy. The plot develops in unexpected ways, and the character actions/expressions are so on point that make it extra funny. Even when they don't reference other dramas/tropes, the characters say the darnest things at the darnest times and kept me laughing throughout.
The romance itself is pretty realistically paced. The script doesn't rush unlikely relationships (coughcough The King), and focuses on letting character emotions develop instead. There are love lines, but they actively avoid typical kdrama tropes like "an ugly love triangle between girl, guy, and girl's ex-boyfriend" or "leads get happily married at the last episode, the end." In fact, they make fun of these tropes throughout the show, either through character dialogue or through a dream/imagination sequence. (you'll see. it's so great)
The main part of this drama is the meta-ness though. There are references to multiple other famous dramas, either through reenacting a famous scene or just having a scene that matches the energy. These references are complete with the appropriate insert song (like hearing Appearance during the Secret Garden reference or the Something in the Rain insert song...) You'll have to have a long history of watching kdramas to recognize all of them (I don't; but I recognized a few... and I googled the rest), but even if you don't recognize exactly where the scene is from, you'll appreciate the humor and the efforts of the production team. Look forward to how they approach the 4th wall and the actor/character relationship. Since the main characters are in the entertainment industry, they talk about dramas a lot, and you'll see some (hilarious) references to the actors themselves or their previous roles. The cameos are also really cool! I lost it when I heard Jung So Min call another character "So Min unni." I swear they did that on purpose. Also like, this is probably the only drama that will make fun of product placement in dramas *as it does product placement itself*.
Finally, just wanted to praise how they took care of the ending. The last episode was gold in terms of plot development, while maintaining the comedy factor. This show was funny and interesting til its very end.
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Keep your eyes open because earlier details will foreshadow later events. Everything is introduced to the audience for a reason that has to do with plot/character development later. This is my favorite type of script because the detective in me loves finding clues and remember them when a later plot twist results.
Ironically, I didn't get much sleep during the weekend I binged "While You Were Sleeping"...
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It was so touchingly good. Everything hurts.
You know with the tragic past / medical dramas that you'd better be going in with a box of tissue.The acting was amazing -- well of course, we got seasoned actress Yoshitaka Yuriko and upcoming rising star Yokohama Ryuusei
And villain-wise we got Machida Keita which was a hugeeee surprise for me <3 (known for Cherry Magic!)
I really like the way this was shot, with some slow and fast development
The best part was seeing that dog grow up LOL. Suku is so cute (and no it doesn't die in case you needed to check #DoesTheDogDie)
The main storyline... Well I don't really agree with some of the things the male lead did, but since it's a movie it didn't lead to an overbearingly stupid draggy plotline so I don't complain
In fact his decisions brought me the biggest crying point of the movie where I continued crying until pretty much the very end because of how touchingly sad everything was.
Anyway, watch if you're ready for a feels trip and enjoy good production value, good acting, and a cute dog. Don't watch if you like happy movies because this is obviously not it.
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Backdrop of 1920's Japanese-occupied Joseon. A couple that cannot be together. Beautiful and mature acting by Lee Jong Suk and Shin Hye Sun. Can't believe this was made in the same year as 30 but 17 lol -- she feels so different there.
The soundtrack is melodic and really adds to the storytelling. The cinematography also handled important moments in an elegant and meaningful way. I would recommend this to anyone who has 3 hours to spare and wants some feels.
PS: Just found out after watching the full drama that it's a true story, up to the very last moment. It makes my heart break even more :(
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WRONG.
Thanks to the top review here about this drama being messy in a good way, I decided to give this a shot. And I'm so glad I did or I would have missed out on this wonderful piece of work.
Yes, you have the typical tropes of someone getting cancer, a rich chaebol's mother playing dirty to ruin her son's middle class girlfriend, rich mother offering a girl money to leave her son, a female lead being caught between two men, etc. But instead of these being the source of draggy-ness, what the scriptwriters gave us was this whole feels trip of "oh, typical trope appears, sigh" and "holy crap did this really just solve the problem?!?!" within 1-2 episodes of each other. The drama is filled with unexpected (and hilarious) resolutions to things, and the fact that all the lead characters are mature adults who make reasonable choices makes it so much better than your typical rom com.
The flashback way of presenting new information also fits perfectly in terms of helping the audience understand what happened that led to the characters making these decisions (without being confusing or repetitive). The emotions also flow very well because of this style.
Let's talk about the two male leads. Second male lead is pretty much a perfect man, but second male lead syndrome didn't happen for me. We see very clearly how *despite the second male lead is, on paper, so much better than the first male lead,* the female lead struggles in between them. We see very early on how the first male lead is flawed -- but he is flawed not in the jerk-y manner, but instead in a way that we can't help but love. So by midway I was rooting 100% for the first male lead (and this says a lot because I'm a chronic warm/nice second male lead syndrome patient). The scriptwriter gave all our lead characters -- as well as the supporting characters -- multidimensional personalities and growth lines. Character development in this drama was superb -- both romantically and professionally. The 24-episode format, and the fact that the script doesn't waste time on unnecessary trope-dwelling, gave the writers time to do that.
The word "jealousy" makes a beautiful appearance in the drama, over and over again. It underlies the answer to one of the biggest questions in the drama. Also, you will not only see one love triangle, but (at least) three -- and a lot of the characters' choices are indeed made based on jealousy. However, the relationships aren't really messy in a bad way (again, 24-episode format helped give things more time to develop) and how things get resolved is also super worth looking forward to.
Now to comment on the acting-- both Jo Jung-suk and Gong Hyo-jin are extremely seasoned actors in the industry, and they really brought the lead characters to life. Second male lead Go Kyung-pyo may be young compared to the two leads, but his mature acting gave perfect chemistry to his relationship with the female lead (11 years older) as well as his bromance with the male lead (10 years older). The casting of other characters is also perfect -- Park Jin-joo (Nurse Oh) is legit best supporting cast in all the dramas she's in! I also especially love Seo Ji-hye (announcer Hong Hye-won). This is my third drama of hers (Crash Landing On You, Dinner Mate, now this), and every time I see her on the screen she is a completely different character. Her character here is super cool -- I thought she'd be a typical second female lead who plays dirty (again, typical rom com expectation), but the way she handled things is so lovable. It's just a shame how she never got any screen time with our Kim Jung-hyun (who plays female lead's younger brother) -- Crash Landing On You fans would understand why this is sad.
Kind reminder to stay for the epilogues in ep 16 and 22 -- you won't regret it :) The high rewatch value is for the comedic scenes and for the epilogues omg I can't get over ep 22~~
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The casting was so appropriate, and the main characters portrayed the complex emotions so well! Special love to Lieutenant Paeng, whom I had only seen as scary villain characters before (coughcough, I Hear Your Voice). His acting here made me discover a whole other side of him!
Only reason why I didn't give this a higher score is I'm more into heavier/more intense dramas, but if you're looking for a lighthearted human drama with comedic relief, smart characters, and amazing acting, this is a must-watch :)
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Cute drama!
I've never read the webtoon so I can't compare how accurate it is.But as a stand-alone drama, I thought it was really cute! Amazing lead characters (the 2 male leads are such heartthrobs omg), cute side couples, great comedy... Definitely go for it if you like rom coms.
You have your typical warm second male lead and evil second female lead, but the two main leads are decently smart and mature in handling their obstacles such that the plot doesn't get unnecessarily draggy and misunderstandings don't take like 1/3 of the drama to resolve.
If you watched Extraordinary You, you'll recognize the same school as well as some major cameos by the previous actors... Keep your eyes out for those! The Kim Hye-yoon + Lee Jae-wook one was especially fun XD
I'd also like to make the point that Chani plays a falsely-accused, very misunderstood character again...
This is his 3rd time? Signal, Sky Castle, now True Beauty. Sosad...
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With the sageuk background, of course there would be a lot of unnecessary power struggles between the main character and the people in the palace
but honestly I watched this for the main couple's romance. And it was worth it.
I'm also happy that the main characters aren't stupid (like a lot of rom com tropes are)
The acting could be better; they're pretty new actors afterall. But the chemistry from youthful (inexperienced) love is there and I was rooting for them so hard!
Would recommend if you're in for some fluff. The male lead really knows how to win a girl's heart.
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I vaguely remember plot point similarities throughout, but rest assured that the Koreans did make it into something drastically different. Even if you watched the Japanese version, I still highly recommend watching the Korean version... The main characters' chemistry was there (albeit very different from my Saito x Ueto feels) and the acting was superb.
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