Cheese in the Trap (2016)

I know a lot of people did not like the ending, but although it bothered me, it didn't ruin the drama for me. If anything, I just thought of it as a kind of messed up ending for a kind of messed up story. This kdrama felt so unique compared to all the other ones I've watched. The show showed all of the different sides of the story and how the plot points affected everyone. Like many watchers, the real stars of the show were In Ho and In Ha. Their storylines of broken friendships and what was lost brought so much emotion where I almost burst into tears for them. I never knew who to feel bad for in this show, which was really frustrating, but also shows you how good it is. The ending for the main couple was kind of eh (I hate it when the couple breaks up but comes back together because how unrealistic is it that they have spent all those years just waiting for each other! Also, In Ho cut ties with Seol and her family which was so sad because it was so heartwarming when they accepted him as almost family! And I wish the ending was more like Seol helped Jung change rather than Jung changed by himself away from Seol. Except I liked how the In Ho and In Ha sibling bond was saved.)

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I love this drama. That is. The casts all great. The complexity of the Yoo Jung character is played very well by Park Hae Jin. The drawback is that they decided to screw the last few episodes by pushing the story into a love triangle and too much screentime for the second lead and his piano. It is obvious that the male lead is missing in the story in the second half and is making the fans angry. The original webtoon writer also expressed her dissatisfaction with this drama. The male lead is left as a psychopath without a good closing to his character. I would suggest the viewers read the webtoon to understand the story more. but overall this drama makes me started to notice the webtoon and all the wonderful casts.

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There Is No Greater Enemy Than Yourself - A Cheese in the Trap Review

As this story unfolds and Yoo Jeong (Park Hae Jin) finally comes into terms of how his life was ..starting from a longing affection and acceptance from his dad and family, people whom he thinks are his friends and will be with him no matter what his personality is, to being misunderstood as a growing teenager.

First two episodes, I grew angry at Hong Seol (Kim Go Eun) for not taking care of herself and allow herself to be this vulnerable . I think I have this woman complex that woman can be strong and can survive in a very harsh environment. I am glad that eventually, she’d learn to say “no”, stand up for herself and learn to say things that she usually kept bottled inside. I can definitely relate to her about talking to the many version of yourself to the point of arguing and talking to herself (very true and happening, believe me)

CHARACTERS
Our female lead depicted her character effectively so that I can relate to her somehow. About doing things yourself if you want things done but then again the assignment/ project calls for team effort. I see myself in Hong Seol sometimes that I began to realize how pathetic i can be sometimes .

Our male lead was true to his character as well ... there is no greater enemy that yourself. I think a lot of people can relate to Yoo Jeong and what his world’s like. In my opinion, judging people upfront is what divides us sometimes. A little understanding goes a long way just as Hong Seol is to Yoo Jeong. There are a lot of powerful episodes in this Kdrama and I recommend people watch this and have an open mind and heart while watching this and your experience watching this will really take you to a much higher heights…beyond their love story.

Baek In Ho ( Seo Kang Joon). There is no greater sadness than an unreciprocated love. Being rejected is another powerful emotion that not a lot of people can survive. I hope viewers can draw inspiration from the character In ho Baek that starting from his family, he was rejected too but someone showed him something that he can be good at like playing the piano and draws strength from that. I like that he was able to survive it all and find his own happiness and luckily finds someone that will love him back as well.

Episode 4 made me smile all the way up to my tears. The first experience of attraction by a guy is something that a girl wants to experience over and over. For someone who had gone far through life already, the thought of going back to that moment where life is simple as deciding whether you like a certain guy or not or whether to agree to go out with that guy is something of far memory now . Ahhh the taste of youthful love and crush. This is how this tv show is trying to get us to.. to that experience ... to that first moment ... to that sweet confession and ... to the sweetest question a guy can ask a girl...

Two people not able to communicate their feelings either towards each other or towards how they feel about their situation. They just kept it in their thoughts and bottled up. They talk to themselves and not to each other.

How can this relationship (whatever this is) survive when it didn’t start off with honesty.

The punk or the nerd ??? hahahaha

Episode 12 about honesty. A much powerful episode if one tries to dissect every word that Hong Seol said to Jeong. For people who isn’t keen on admitting some hard truths and letting their significant others know that is something more than mustering your feelings. As the character of Yoo Jeong portrays its is really difficult to admit things where you are most vulnerable . It takes more than a confession of feelings to admit that and make you come into terms of everything that is bottled up inside.

The only flaw I see in Cheese in a Trap is why they have a different ending compared to the webtoon version. I really want to know what the scriptwriter was thinking. As much as the ending frustrates me, I just want to imagine that there is hope for Yoo Jeong and Hong Sol as they deserve to be happy and that their love can survive in our sometimes harsh reality. I just hope that viewers can see beyond what is in mere surface of this K drama

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I still ended up like the drama. It was super cute with a tense, mysterious air . That is hard to pull off.

Story: 7.5/10 because it had a very strong start! It would of been the best drama of the year if they took a different turn from what was given. Some of the sub plots felt rushed, but was interesting.  I'm glad the drama had a faster pace to it. It was a very realistic slice-of-life romance drama about 2 college students who started dating despite their many flaws & the people who were against it. The story felt original until the second half. The subplots, despite some of them were rushed, were realistic as well.

Cast: 9.5/10 because it was the best part of the drama and the characters wanted me to watch more. Kim Go Eun did an amazing job as Hong Seol. She was very realistic & I was able to relate to her so much. She was the best character in the drama. Yoo Jung(Park Hae Jin) was an enigma, dark, mysterious, but interestingly adorable character. I had fun with being cautious with liking him as a character. I haven't seen a drama or movie with this type of character. He's cold, but lovable. He's character was realistic as well, flaws and all. I also enjoyed In Ho as a character too. I really liked that he was friends with Hong Seol through thick and thin. I love Eun Taek & Bora so much. They had cute chemistry & loved their friendship with not only Seol, but with each other. The chemistry between Go Eun & Hae Jin was amazing. I like the chemistry between In Ho & In Ha despite being very distant to each other. In Ha would of been more of an interesting character if the writers wrote more scenes. Lee Sung Kyung was good as In Ha.

Music: 8/10 I really liked most of the music in the drama, but some were not as memorable.

Re-watch value: 8/10 because despite the conspiracy, I really liked the character development. Love the friendship, the family moments, realistic story-line & the romance between Yoo Jung & Hong Seol.

Overall, it was a good drama that would of been the best drama of the year if the drama team kept withe the original script. If you are going to watch this drama & know the conspiracy, then be very open minded about the realistic story line, the chemistry between the cast, the comedy & the friendship that happen in this drama.

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Really good

The drama was really interesting and fun. I thought many times about watching this drama because I really liked the synopsis, but as the rating was low, I gave up every time... But now I feel I really did well that I decided to watch it..
Not just plot but the main leads were also superb.. I never got bored watching the drama, I always was curious what was going to happen between them.
Each and every one's character was unique and cheerful. I will start with Park Hae Jin.. I always have seen him as the second lead in the dramas.. This is my second drama seeing him as main lead.. His role really suited him very well. I had seen him in FOREST, but that wasn't something to be praised.. But here I can't help but praise , admire him.. He wasn't a good friend, but to me he was a perfect boyfriend..With his good looks, acting skill and charming role he really won my heart.
There is nothing to say about Kim go eun.. She always does a great on her every role.. She did let my expectations down.. Her role was also very special and tough.. It was really a great experience watching them together..
I nearly had second lead syndrome.. seo Kang joon's character, and his superbly well suited look with the role made me angry to the makers of the drama.. They placed two excellent main lead together with two unique and wish-to-watch more character. In Jo's smile, way to handle things, sense of responsibility were not something one can ignore. So I loved it..
And then comes In Ha, Lee sung Kyung, was not a joke anymore... Her scary, arrogant, funny, trouble maker character ,I don't know how she did, really suited her...I couldn't imagine her in this role after dr. Romantic 2 and weightlifting fairy Kim bok joo.
The drama was really excellent and well plotted. I don't know why everyone is giving it low rating.. But try watching it.. You will never regret for sure.

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Cheese in the Trap is one of those dramas I didn't expect to like as much as I do now. This drama approaches an unique way of portraying college life and what I love most about the drama is how every character in the show has a flaw in one way or another. This is refreshing to see because it can be tiring to see the main characters being absolutely perfect while the rest of the characters act unreasonably with almost no redeemable qualities to them. I also love the pacing of the show and how it didn't drag the scenes in an unnecessary way.

While I love the realistic nature of the show, I think the biggest issue with the show is the character development throughout the show rather than the ending. I do think the ending left me unsatisfied, but I don't think it was the worst part of the show. Throughout the show, Hong Seol and Yoo Jung as a couple was quite odd to me. The weirdness of their relationship was entertaining and I was intrigued to see how their relationship would progress, but I was left disappointed towards the end of the show. Hong Seol was always angry with Yoo Jung because of his inability to be more open to her. Every fight they have is just her being mad at him for not being honest. Because of this, I expected him to be more honest with her. However, towards the latter part of the show Hong Seol just gives up and Yoo Jung continues his way of being passive aggressive with everyone. I also disliked In Ha. I wished she had better character development because towards the end the show dismisses her selfish behavior instead of evolving her to be more mature.

Overall, the show was good and I would recommend to watch the drama. I would say the beginning of the drama is way better than the latter part. Most of my disappointment is due to the potential I see in this drama. If they fleshed out the characters more in the latter part of the drama, I believe it wouldn't have left me on an unsatisfied note.

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Second lead syndrome hits very hard, my warning to viewers!!!

Second lead , Baek In Ho is one of my fav characters in this show!! I prefer second lead and main female lead moments the most here. In my opinion , i didn't felt attracted to the male lead's character. Baek in ho has much more likable character.
The casting of Park Hae Jin felt quite wrong, not because he is a bad actor, just cause he does not look like a college student . He looks much older than other main characters. The acting was perfect, everyone did their character perfectly.
I personally didn't liked the main character's relationship , i didn't feel anything tbh. Sometime the scenes get so boring but i still watched it .

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my first review on k dramas, ... it would have been great series if she didnt go for messed up,controlling guy over guy who had looked out for her from the beginning. im at episode 8 and finding it hard to watch, relationship between two leads is like pulling a tooth with tweezers. if this was real life im pretty sure there is a diagnosis for the kind of person like the lead male is.


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I'm not an expert at writing reviews on any dramas and this will probably be viewed by 0 people but I'd like to get my rage and a little bit of my love on this drama and explain to you why I rated this what it is. Please take your time to read this, it is helpful haha.

First off, if your planning on watching this... I WOULD recommend it but if you have no patience for dumb girls then don't. So the main character, Hong Seol is this average college student who at first really dislikes Yoo Jung but surprise they fall in love in like episode 3 and start dating around that episode or 4ish 5ish. This relationship absolutely disgusted me. They pretty much just put the antagonist and "protagonist" together. Honestly, it's my opinion that Jung was kind of like an antagonist but still. So this is how the relationship went, Jung would do something bizarre like ruin someone's life or mess with them because they "made fun of him or viewed him some way" or "irritated Seol" and Seol would go crying to him saying it's okay that all that matters is that he can trust her. I didn't get it because in the beginning, she herself called him out for it but while they were dating she found it perfectly okay. The script in no way explained why Jung would do the things he did thoroughly. ESPECIALLY what he did to In-ho I won't tell you about the emotions at the end... but... ugh. All Jung would say was that people thought he was "weird" which I didn't think was a good word for his actions. And from what I saw it was unless he did something really mean that people would view him that way. He acted as if NO ONE wanted to get to know him or thought he was some type of serial killer automatically when people actually tried befriending him. The directors also didn't explain why exactly he would go out of his way to do something so pathetic and jerk-like. He tried explaining his feelings but I had to rewatch so many scenes to still end up not getting it. One clip was with him and a little girl and he managed to get her drunk JUST because she wanted to play with him and cried when he didn't want to? That's exactly what I am talking about when I say people were trying to be nice to him but he always viewed them as dolls putting on a fake smile to just secretly make fun of him, I understood why he was mad at his family but then again I was confused on why his family thought of him the way they did... I can't even put this into simple words because NONE of it made sense.

What I really like about this drama and the rating I gave other than the relationship between Seol and Jung is the background story between Jung and In Ho really wasn't that bad and actually got you wondering a lot about what it was about and personally I don't think it dragged too much at all. And Seol's troubles weren't THAT bad either but I can't say that she's the person to stand up for herself so quickly it took her to pretty much 5-6 episodes before the end of the show to really get out there and her classmates bugged me so much no one there really saw how pathetic they were I really wanted to smuggle them because of how they treated Seol.

Now let me explain to you who In Ho is! My. favorite. character. throughout. the. whole. show. period. He is the reason why I got excited about talking about cheese in the trap with my friend. I swear I skipped more parts with Jung than I did with In-ho... and I skipped none with him. I swear Seo Kang Joon was like one of the first actors in a drama I actually could just not with. His light eyes, smile, and his personality overall in the show was perfect. He had this "bad boy" "I kind of don't care I'm just going about with life" "talk to me when you need to" "it is what it is but i'll keep trying" "she might be petty but I still care about her" personality which was just... MATERIAL and eye candy the whole time. He actually made me smile every time he had a moment with Seol or was just being him. In-ho I had emotions for because of the tough life he had gone through ever since a child and how his dreams were pretty much taken away for one thing that did not have to become so problematic. His sister was TERRIBLE to him throughout the whole show but it wasn't about the present he cared about the things they'd been through together and he himself knew his sister deep down inside and truly cared about her and wanted her to grow for the better throughout the whole show. Even when she stole his money. The thing about In-ho was that he never really let his emotions carry him he still managed to try harder or restart. Things kept going terrible and he didn't get anything he wanted when he wanted it and he had to stop everything to put others in front of him. Ah. Loved him but I can't spoil no more.

The acting was cool. The background story of Seol's friends was... not important you knew what would happen anyway at the end with them at some parts they seemed distance but that didn't matter since many things were already going on anyway. The only reason I would rewatch is because of In-ho scenes and when he came in the beginning of the show and how him and Seol's relationship built up. I hated, and still do, Jung so much but he was always justified by Seol which got on my nerves. The rest is for you to see anyway.

Thank you for reading!

P.S. if you care about music, I just put it at 10 because I can't remember what type of songs were played lol.

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I could firmly say that this is the best drama series that I've ever seen. First of all, the casting for this show was superb, all of the actors were so natural and perfect for their roles. I sang along to the soundtrack all the time and even now, I come back to the OST once in a while. Without spoiling anything I'd like to say that you really need to watch this drama 2 times at least. The first time you're gonna be smiling, talking to yourself and encouraging the characters. Also, you're probably gonna be very shocked as well. The second time, you're going to be viewing those characters a lot differently, but also laughing and hoping for a better ending.
Definitely one of the best Korean dramas out there. With a combination of comedy, romance and drama this will be a great series for a 2-day binge :D

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