My Fair Lady (2009)

A good story with a bad focus

This has a good story but a lot of time is wasted on irrelevant events or irrelevant characters leading to less time for actually interesting characters(mainly ML and FL) and character development moments. That's the gist of my whole review, but if you want to know more read on.

Story: The premise is good but the execution is bad. That is to say, the baseline story of a rich spoiled princess turning over a new leaf due to interactions with a crude, blunt and down to earth man and then turning over a new leaf, is actually quite a good premise. This premise offers a lot of room for character development, lot of opportunities for actors to tap into their acting prowess and lot of areas for writer or director to include some heavy emotional scenes. But, sadly, what we get is severely lacking and nothing close to the possibility.
9/10 for premise but the story we got was nowhere near, so 7/10 for story.

Direction: I found it lacking in a lot of areas. Too much time is wasted on side characters and the events that should have taken more of episode time are rushed instead. Pacing is not the issues, proper management of screentime is the issue. Music is good but badly placed. Just playing a song in background doesn't create the ambiance. To create a specific atmosphere you have to play the right part of the song at the right time with a right pace, a lot of other KDramas are a good example of that. The drama seems to also struggle on whether is a melodrama or not. Its the duty of direction to realize the potential of a story, but sadly that's not the case here.
Direction gets a 3/10.

Production: Not lacking but nothing extraordinary too. I found costumes lacking at some place.FL's wardrobe was good but ML's wardrobe could have been better, it definitely was in Secret Garden. Cinematography is decent, they could have used more locations though. In this type of story, tbh, production's relevancy is very less.
7/10 for production.

Acting: I started this because of YSH but, tbh, his acting was erratic in this one, sometimes off by miles and sometimes quite on point. YEH on the other hand acted quite good and carried this. I loved her portrayal of a rich spoiled heiress. Her transformation into a confident and caring person was also quite good. That's not saying that YEH's acting was perfect, I still spotted minor mishaps here and there, but most of them were not noteworthy. My biggest problem though was chemistry between ML and FL. As other reviewers have pointed out too, chemistry between ML and FL felt lacking, and that's not a skinship problem but the actual chemistry was lacking. I don't know if that's due to bad direction or acting.
6.5/10 for acting.

Characterization and Character Development: This is the area where this series should have excelled and it does but not without some problems. The story presents a great chance for character development spread throughout the 16 episodes, but, sadly, character development only happens in a select few episodes where if you have completely missed the other episode, you would have missed nothing. Characterization also falters at points where a character's decision or slowness will annoy you a bit. I would say direction failed the story massively in this area. Still, due to good base storyline and decent acting this area is still satisfying to watch.
8/10 for Characterization and Character Development

Music: As I said before too, OST is decently good but badly placed. Also there's not much variation in OST.
6/10 for Music.

I started watching this for the story and ML (YSH). I continued watching this for FL (YEH) and character development.
Overall its a decent watch, sad part is, it could have been much much better.
Final rating, 6.5/10

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A very funny Drama, the main couple was fantastic in here. This is almost another typical romance-comedy drama, however its strong points are the fantastic couple acting and the great development of the history. The comedy in here is fantastic, the couple did a more than fantastic job with that, it's obvious how well the chemistry was between them. Although both were amazing Sang Hyun deserves a little extra, he played wisely his character and it led to turn typical cliche scenes to something else.

The love history developes as any other, however the background of the characters was enough complex for a bitter way to the resolution. In General it's a show full of charm and frsh hillarious situations.

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This drama exceeded my expectations
I thought it's going to be trivial and shallow
But in the contrary it was good enough to keep me watching

The plot was good
The romance wasn't bad
The side stories wasn't good enough in my opinion

As usual the end was extremely odd and weird
Till now I didn't get why she wants to travel and leave the ML although her grandfather gave her the permission to continue her relationship with him
I think because the writer want some drama and sadness in their relationship

This drama has its flaws
One of them which annoys me much was when they didn't discover the spy inside the palace
Inspite of having lots of cameras at every inch there

The other one when she was the manager she didn't try to learn well from experts
She depended only on her personal efforts

I liked but it didn't leave a mark inside me till the limit of keeping it as many other dramas did

I think 7.5 is more than enough
Because I was enjoying it till episode 11

But many times I didn't like their acting it didn't convince me much

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Binge Watch Worthy

I was hesitant to watch this drama due to its low ratings, but I am glad that I overlooked the ratings.

This was my second drama to watch by Kim Eun Hee (screen writer). My introduction to Korean drama was through "live up to your name" by the same screen writer. I thought live up to your name was absolutely brilliant and since then i have watched 60+ dramas before I came across My Fair Lady (MFL)

I am very much surprised by such low ratings of MFL. After watching 60+ Korean dramas, I have come to expect a certain pattern or formula. MFL is no different. In retrospect Live up to your name wasn't different but at that time I had not figured out KD's formula.

So, given the formula, the ingredients such as Rich FL, poor ML, love triangles etc.. I thought this drama had me engaged almost all of the time. The bonus was that at the end, the story had me emotionally involved and thus my rating of 9.0.

The way first episode started, I was expecting "Taming of the shrew" (TMS) type of plot. Although this story line had some elements of TMS, the plot turned to more of a loving the other person and I enjoyed that twist. Because the mentor i.e Butler Seo came from loving rather than punishing, it was natural to see their relationship develop. It was also nice to see that conflicts and confusion due to love triangles were not forced and developed as the story unfolded.

If you are looking for a ROM COM.. I highly recommend this drama.

I look forward to watching other dramas by Kim Eun Hee.

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Начали за здравие, но от серии к серии все ниже и ниже. Вот вроде бы и не лажали, все актеры хорошие, но не цепляет. Никак. Пока Гг-ня крысилась и доставала Гг, еще было можно смотреть, но к 8 серии началась любовь, ангст, слезы и прочая чухня. И всё. Стало совсем не интересно.
В общем, полюбовалась на любимую Yoon Eun Hye в красивом виде. И хватит. Пойду пересмотрю Кофе Принца.

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