Vincenzo (2021)

One of the Worst KDramas in history! Period!

I don't even understand where to start with! I honestly, on a very serious note, beg you to not get swayed away by these high ratings on MDL. After all these 26 hours of utter headache, I can very rightly say that all these are either paid or written by crazy, illogical, shallow Song-Joong Ki fangirls. And the entire show just seems to be a total SJK fan-service, and nothing else!

There are several reasons as why to this show piqued my frustrations levels, so let's get to the point with what went wrong with the drama.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

1) STORY/SCRIPTWRITING:
What the heck was with the story??? It merely felt like the show was written by a mere 16-17 year kid expecting the audience to get apalled by lame comedy, which can't even be called BLACK, just dumb lame. The ML just sitting blindly staring at his TV predicts every move of the villain from GOD knows what kind of premonitions. One skinny ken doll crippling an entire mob of gangsters? A middle aged guy stabbing thugs with scissors? The villain killing off all sorts of guys without even bringing a trace of doubt to the public? An international security service police fan-boying a Mafia? Lol even kids can write a better story than this! And don't even get me started on INZAGI!!! Like wtf!! Am I sitting here watching a cartoon in the name of black comedy? The entire point of Vincenzo coming to Korea to come and retrieve his Gold and ends up keeping it back in Korea as a bed for his lover? The main villain can kill off every damn person involved in his heinous deeds, but failed to harm an ant from the Geumgo Plaza? My goodness, it felt like I'm watching some illogical bollywood movie just earning in the name of a Hero!

2) ACTING:
The FL (X_X), I would've been really happy if she was the one killed off first instead of her father! Like honestly, how can you even look at yourself in the mirror after all those indigestible doses of overacting! Like you can call yourself a righteous competitive lawyer and can't even fight a single case with sincerity? All the slapstick comedies from the supporting actors were way too overdone and lame, I couldn't even bring myself to a chuckle, they were all plain annoying! The writer seemed to shock the public with innumerable deaths like some sort of a GOT genre, but failed to bring out even an ounce of emotional attachment for the deceased for such bad character developments! It was majorly Taecyon's and the Female villain's acting that desperately tried to save the show from churning to pieces, but in vain!

3) EXCESSIVE GLORIFICATION OF VIGILANTE JUSTICE:
If some people might be thinking that the core concept of the show was this, let me correct you, it is not. The main character was just an egoistic self righteous dickhead who just wanted to procure his belongings, but got stumbled upon nonetheless. Vigilant justice should be never be, at least in my opinion, ever be justified. There are layers and layers behind any sort of criminal case with loads of loopholes and connected people and it should always be dealt with sensitively with a lot of afterthought. Unlike here, where the law was turned into an entire state of mockery.

4) EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF QUEERBAITING/ HOMOPHOBIA:
The number of times the show portrayed really unnecessary uncomfortable queer-baiting scenes, with the ML being a total homophobe. Even the gay character was portrayed in such a cliché manner with such terrible portrayal of lgbt characters, as if South Korea doesn't have it's fair share of innate homophobia!

5) NO RESPECT FOR RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS:
There wasn't any direct attack on anyone's religious sentiments, but it wasn't even shown in a good light, but was instead portrayed as a mere comedic tool!

WHAT WORKED???
Well, I really tried to find it but couldn't! :( No hate here but there wasn't a single likeable element in the entire show that I felt so far. It was a total waste of my time!

I usually have really high expectations out of any KDrama, cause they have never actually ever let me down, at least not to this extent that this drama did, solely the reason that I pulled myself together to finish this hoping something might pull the strings! But Alas! If would've been my 2nd or 3rd Kdrama I would've totally stopped watching KDramas altogether XD! It is really disturbing to see to what extent people can go just to support and promote their favourite actor/idol, even if they make utter shit! Luckily I've chose my dramas list carefully and trusted my instincts! :P

Read More

Could have been better, but I am in for the BGM

The first 2 episodes can hook you up, however it did not make use the mafia properly, there are mafia story moments however due to culture differences story became the same political story from a person trying to get revenge but the villain has some connections with authorities, another thing is the editing.

The only thing that saved the series is the BGM, the male lead, and the supporting role,

For the story, the writer and the director could have used this opportunity to introduce a different story,
the series is good, but it is not rewatchable I gave it an overall score of 6. It could have been better.

Read More

If I could give it a 0 star rating I would!

The worst drama I have ever watched. Everything about it is just bad. The lead actress is really annoying and the villain felt like trying too hard. The lead actor is far from badass. If any Italian mafia saw this drama they would commit suicide. The comedy is so bad I felt like gauging my eyes out. The genre mixing just made it worse. One scene being a thriller and the next scene being a comedy doesn't make it a Dark Comedy. Dark comdey is a completely different genre. I don't know how in the world does this have a 9.0 ratings. That's just disrespect to other dramas. I specifically opened this account to give it a 1 star ratings. I can't even express in words how bad this drama was. This drama gave me such a bad experience that I have decided not to watch any dramas with these actors in the lead.

Read More

Extremely overhyped

I was ready to drop this drama at ep 9 but the only reason why I finished it is because I wanted to know the reason why it was so hyped up. Even after finishing the drama, I do not understand the hype. The story is not as great as people are making it out to be. It is literally like a typical romcom with action and the only unique thing about this drama are its villains. There are numerous occasions where overacting is done by the people from Geumga plaza and other actors as well. Taecyeon and the actress who played Myunghee acted very well though so I'll give them that. Joongki's acting was good but there's many other actors who could've done a better job portraying Vincenzo and I also expected Joongki's acting to be way better than it actually was. Yes, that's an unpopular opinion but it's the truth. I personally think that Ji Changwook, Kim Soohyun, or Park Seojoon would've done a way better job playing the role of Vincenzo because it would suit them more. Joongki looked too innocent to seem like a mafia member. I could not take this drama seriously because the writers failed very miserably at mixing the comedy and dark theme of the drama. There were many good jokes in this drama but a good amount of the jokes weren't even funny and many comedy scenes seemed unnecessary. The fact that everyone claims that this drama is perfect is very funny to me because I can list multiple plot holes and dumb plot mistakes, which everyone seems to have just ignored simply because they were too focused on the eye candy that this show provided them with. I really wanted to like this drama and I was extremely excited to watch it but it was a big let down. Another thing I disliked was that, although the character is unique, Hanseok's character did not have depth at all. The writers simply labeled him as a "psychopath" and never bothered to give his character more depth. I wanted to know more about the character because he was an interesting character but they didn't do justice to him. Also, Hanseo didn't get justice because he didn't receive a funeral and no one seemed to care much about him after his death. Vincenzo was more worried about Chayoung the entire time and they literally just let Hanseo sacrifice himself without helping him in any way whatsoever. How big of a dumbass does Vincenzo have to be to show up to meet Hanseok without anything to defend himself with? Like he was very well aware of the fact that Hanseok wouldn't hesitate killing someone so he should've thought of something but NOPEEEEE.

At many occasions the story gets repetitive because it's just "oh ok the villains set a trap which Vincenzo is going escape from within two seconds". The episode endings didn't excite me because no matter what trap the villains set for Vincenzo he was out of it within minutes so thats just a way to waste time and mislead people. Also, if Vincenzo is sooooooo smart then why didn't he just set up a hearing device in Wusang because that definitely would've allowed him to figure out Hanseok's identity way earlier. Don't give excuses like "it's not that easy setting up a device in the law firm cuz there's security" because that man and woman from Geumga literally went into the Wusang CEO's office and wrote the letter C using pigs blood. I can go on and on about stuff like that but I would rather not waste my energy. The episodes should have been shorter and the show should've been 16 episodes long rather than 20. One last note, this show romanticized the mafia way too much.

This drama is average in all aspects. I wonder how much everyone would have loved this drama if the cast wasn't good looking.

Read More

Reasons why this show disappointed me in a way:

The first episode of the show was confusing because there were too many characters mentioned and you can't tell instantly what the plot is. Later on, as the episodes progressed, it created a big impact on me. I thought that this show was worth looking forward to because of how Vincenzo executes all of his plans. Adding to the fact that the main villain hasn't been revealed yet, the suspense really stayed in me. The people in Geumga plaza had too much screen time and their humor is really not up to my liking. Each episode should not be 1 hour and 20 minutes long, they kept adding scenes to the people in the plaza which really did not contribute much to the plot.When the main villain was revealed, I really had this expectation that he would act for himself. But that only happened in episode 20. He kept clinging to Wusang, he makes them do the dirty work for him and what's even funnier is that he kept sending bad men to pursue Vincenzo and all of them were easily beaten because it took them a while to fire their gun or attack him instantly? There were a lot of plot armor which do not seem realistic. He was also overly praised for being a consigliere. They created this suspense at the beginning and it vanished when they started adding some random scenes from side characters. Vincenzo also admitted that he could have taken down Hanseok at the beginning but didn't because he wanted to prolong their struggle.I'm giving it a score of 6.5 because Song Joong Ki and Jeon Yeobeen are great actors and their chemistry is great. The plot is so-so.

Read More

How to ruin a good original story

Let’s start with some of the pros:
- Good original story. It certainly had a ton of potential and was a great idea for a show
- The villains, despite being cliche were well written and the actors playing them held true to their characters
- The main actor is very good looking, so that was certainly a plus for most viewers (including me!)
That’s all of the pros. Now for the reasons which made watching this show a huge mistake for me:
- The Italian. Seriously. If you have an experienced team creating a high budget drama, the least you could do was open “Italian for dummies”. That would’ve told the scriptwriter that mademoiselle is a French word and the main character’s repeated use of it on top of his already horrid pronunciation completely ruined any “Italian” vibe he could’ve had. He neither sounds nor acts as someone raised in Europe and the fact that the team is unaware of this shows how little they cared about researching another culture. If the situation was reversed and someone tried to pass off Japanese words as Korean, you bet all these viewers would be up in arms about it
- The main characters. All of them. These are some of the most poorly written characters I’ve ever seen in any drama. The female main’s over the top ridiculousness undermined her character as a smart, competent attorney. The male main (once you get over his looks) has terrible facial expressions. The supporting cast is mostly shallow and illogical
- The superhero complex in this show is out of control. Everyone, everywhere simply loves and is willing to give up their life for a magical man with extremely good fighting skills and perfectly manicured baby hands. Everyday people apparently have no issue with him murdering his way through a country which does not seem to have an actual justice system. By the end I genuinely couldn’t understand why they loved him so much
- The extremely lazy writing leaves so many plot holes it’s impossible to count them all but I’ll try. The guy they scammed as shamans runs the newspaper. In the earlier episodes, they showed a huge court case where the main couple arrived in a sports car and got tons of media attention. Does the owner never open one of his papers? Has no one seen these people on TV after they constantly posed for cameras?
That’s just one example of a circus full of low IQ characters getting away with senseless actions simply because the writer ‘said so’.
- Honourable mentions: Over the top comedy which ends up being unfunny, the ‘talented tenants’ plot line was just too convenient, the main villain’s reveal was underwhelming, the romance was forced and the mid episodes were slow/draggy where I almost gave up.
Despite all that, I watched till the end mainly for the story which could’ve been amazing without all the pointless comedic elements and moronic characters. And to remind myself to never trust a Kdrama’s rating since all these viewers are apparently 17 (at least mentally) and just wish to see a pretty oppa doing cool things in shiny clothes.

Read More

unbelievable plotlines

I just can't give a high rate to this drama. the acting was great especially that of ok taec yeon, i think so far this is the best i've seen him act. non the less song joong ki's espressions were "impeccabile". it would have been more better if the plot wasn't as exaggerated as it was, the story was just over the top. i mean is great to see the main leads not losing all the time to the villians , but it just has little credibility like giving all the tenant special skills that were always usefull to the lead in every situation, being saved by pigeons from been killed for no reason, and the ML being able to in and out of any building on his own so freely without getting caught not even once on the cctv. but they always had proof of other people's actions.
Personally if i were to choose btw vincenzo and chief kim, i would go for chief kim. for the reasonable plotline and acting and choose vincenzo for the comedy line and goodlooking ML and taec yeon's acting. Mi dispiace.

Read More

disappointed

I was actually so hyped about this drama because everyone kept talking about it. So I thought this one would be definitely something special. Oh how wrong I was...

The storyline could be actually really interesting. An lawyer who worked for the Italian mafia flees back to Korea and after some incidents he starts to work with another lawyer to win a case against a conglomerate called Babel Group. Sounds pretty good, right? However, they somehow managed to make it a little bit draggy and illogical. Starting with the most annoying thing, the reveal of the villain. I mean yeah, every villain has to be revealed, but here they just made it too soon. I was pretty shocked but after knowing who the real villain was, the whole story started to repeat itself. It was always the fight between the bad ones and the good ones. Then there was one thing I asked myself so often: Where the hell was the government? Like excuse me but it was a drama revolving around law and rights, but the only lawyers, prosecutors,... were people from the firm which was working with the Babel Group and the main leads. Even the police worked with the Babel Group and were shown very incompetent in the drama. Argh, a lot of things just didn't make any sense. Last thing which got really on my nerves was the lack of romance between the main leads. The chemistry was there, I can't deny it, but the poor writing just made the love story between them look so unrealistic. And before I forget, 20 episodes were way too long, I think only 16 would have been better. This drama is full of wasted potential. They could have do something really special out of it.

To the characters... there are a lot. It's not a Penthouse-like drama where all the characters have their own story and are interesting to the viewers because they have to do something with the main plot. No, many of the characters were unnecessary. Especially the people who lived in the plaza resident. There were to many and all of them had exaggerated and/or unrealistic characters. There were also some "bad" guys who wanted the plaza resident acting always really weird. It felt like they've been just there to make things funnier. Then many lawyers, policemen or prosecutors seemed like they hadn't more then three brain cells. Seriously, so many stupid characters were involved in the main plot. The only person who showed how capable he was, was the villain. Omg, I never saw such a villain before. He was such a psychopath and it suited such a drama perfectly! The actor nailed this role. Sadly the drama tried to make things funnier (and I'm not gonna lie some scenes were really funny) but because of this overused comedy the story seemed too unrealistic. The main characters were also wasted potential, especially the main male lead. VC (male lead) is a lawyer who worked for the MAFIA but I never really felt like he was someone dangerous. At the beginning his character was shown as some ruthless guy who flees to his homeland, but later this feeling just disappeared. HCY (female lead) had a pretty interesting character, I don't think I ever saw someone like her, she was a real crackhead. Sometimes it was just too much where the secondhand embarrassment slowly started to show itself, but overall her character was really interesting to watch.

The music wasn't something special for me. I can't even remember the soundtracks.

Overall, the drama was okay. I actually started it because I wanted to watch something more serious, but laughed mostly at the ridiculous scenes. I wouldn't rewatch this drama again, it just didn't left an good impression on me like other dramas.

Read More

Unexpectedly Refreshing -- Enjoyable Ride

Vincenzo is not what I expected it to be; I'm not even sure what I expected, but when one hears Italy and the mafia, one immediately sets an expectation of mayhem, drugs, and murder. Vincenzo is nothing of the sort, well, at least not yet. It's crazily witty, entertaining, and thrilling all at the same time. I am refreshingly pleased by the writing style, the acting, and the directing. Vincenzo is everything it was hyped up to be and more.

I thought Vincenzo in Italy was brilliant; everything about it was sexy and beautiful, from the people to the buildings but most of all, Song Joong Ki speaking Italian. His subtle yet cutthroat demeanor is enjoyable to watch. But Vincenzo in Korea is where I fell in love with the drama, and the man, especially G Plaza. I can tell the plaza and its quirkily insane tenants (I love them all, even the annoying daughter) will be my favorite place/scenes of this drama. There is a lot of story behind Vincenzo, be it his childhood to what drives him at present, it will all be worth exploring.

Song Joong Ki is fantastic in his role; the last drama I saw him in was in 2016, Descendants of the Sun. It sure is good to have him back. It's also good to see the fine Ok Taec Yeon, the enormously talented Yoo Jae Myung. Despite not being too familiar with Jun Yeo Bin and slightly turned off by her unscrupulousness, I can tell I'm going to like her. I enjoyed her affectionate banter with her father, played by Yoo Jae Young.

Read More

This rating will definitely go down

The style of this drama was refreshing and not something I'm used to or would like. It did keep me watching till the end, so it was an enjoyable watch. It definitely isn't a 9 rating for me though, many a times the events that take place are just too "convenient". I hate convenience plots. I'm not a fan of this style of comedy, the beginning scene had me thinking it would a really cool vibe of series but it focused much more on the comedy element. I didn't find it too funny, some of the comedy was kind of annoying and eye-rolling. I hated the villains and I loved the male lead so acting was on point. Overall, it is enjoyable and different but definitely not so high up on my favourite dramas list. I feel a lot of reviews have shared the same sentiment as me lately so I think this rating will definitely go down. If it doesn't, then these ratings aren't right.

Read More

Just...what?

I know this show was super popular and let be start with the good stuff:

Amazing acting. Seriously...all the actors/actresses are great in their roles and some are playing very different characters than we have seen them in before so that is impressive all on it's own.

The Look - This show looks amazing and was filmed really well.

The not so good stuff:

Story - Interesting at first, but then got super violent and hard to take at times. Started out great, but got really over the top and cheezy a lot of the time. Also it was very hard to watch the villians be so awful. I mean, I know you are supposed to dislike them, but it's really just too much and instead of wanting justice for their crimes, I just didn't care about seeing them at all. And the violence...it's way way too much. Especially in the last episode. That was just a horror show that did not need to be seen. It was awful.

Characters - Disliked literally every character. Even though they were well acted, it was hard to root for the "good guys/gals" and even the side characters were just too over the top most of the time. My friend and I watched this show together and we decided the only "good" character is the pigeon. So there is that. I mean it's hard to cheer for even the "heroes" when they are willing to murder and be awful humans as well. Some of the characters started out likable, but by the end, I was ready to be done with all of them...except the pigeon. Him we could see more of. :-)

So, I can't recommend this drama. It's just extremely violent and hard to take.

Read More

Slap stick and lame story line

The acting of the ML and FL are just so lame and bad acting. The skinny ML tries to act macho and intelligent which is not convincing at all. Tried to be asian James Bond, but not convicincing at all. The FL is just a annoying character and wish she should be killed right from the start. Cant imagine they are coming back with season 2...what a total waste of people's time .

The whole drama is a total flop and messy. Dont understand why people like this kind of bloody and no story line drama. Highly over rated and it is not appropriate to get such rating....I seriously cant understand why people like this drama.

A mafia guy who killed lots of people and could never face problems, like some super man. We are trying to make such a rotten character a hero? Every episode that I watched, I totally felt so pissed and wasted my time. I continued watching is to assess what is the big deal about this drama. There is total no story line...lame and silly !!!

Read More