Give this drama a try!
STORY: A lot of people's views seem to differ on this drama which I found quite surprising because it is as of now my favorite Korean drama. My 10/10 review for everything might seem a bit over the top but I can't express more so on how much I LOVE this drama. I went into the drama blindly, however with knowing that the main character would be strong as the title states. I see that the reviews usually talk about a messy storyline. I honestly thought that it flowed quite well between romance and crime. Every episode was exciting with me wanting more and the ending was satisfying.ACTING/CAST: Park Bo-young and Park Hyung-sik are amazing in this drama. I've never seen them in anything else before watching this so I was blown away with seeing them act for my first time. Their chemistry was lovely as hell and I was basically a giddy school girl during sweeter scenes. I can't express how strong my emotions were while watching them act. I laughed (loudly), (ugly) cried, and felt literally every other emotion watching them together. The other actors were of course amazing as well since it all felt real the way it was presented.
MUSIC: OH how I love the music! I would, after watching, search up the whole OST after trying to poorly sing along when my favorite songs played during a scene. The songs fit perfectly and introduced me to new Korean artists that I hadn't known about before. It makes you more immersed with the scenes.
REWATCH VALUE: I'm known to rewatch everything that I love too many times after watching it. This is exactly what I did with this drama. Not only did I rewatch my favorite scenes but everything from the start as well and surprisingly felt the same emotions over again like I hadn't watched it before. I highly recommend this drama and recommend that when you do watch it, make sure you have spare time to watch it through in one go since it'll be even more fun that way~! <3
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Creepy And Campy
I'm surprised I liked this show as much as I did. I'm not going to lie - the first four episodes didn't really hook me.❤ I found Bong Soon to be a rather bland character despite her interesting ability. Around the halfway mark she became more of a fully realized person rather than a caricature of a superhero. The show did a pretty good job with her powers, and, for the most part, I felt her natural strength.
❤ God save me from love triangles. They are usually so cliché and tiresome no matter the circumstances. I did like all of the actors so at least I didn't dread every episode, but I much preferred it once the triangle was wrapped up.
❤ The MVP of this show, and probably the only reason I stuck it out initially, is Park Hyung-Sik as An Min-Hyuk. He has to balance between love sick puppy, remote CEO, and slightly crazy anti-establishment asshole. And, my god, does he excel at all three. He completely and totally won me over, and his obvious joy and love for Bong Soon was absolutely adorable.
❤ The side characters are a bit much, particularly Bong Soon's "kids" and the mafia-style antiheroes. Most of their scenes were meant to add levity to a somewhat dark storyline, but it felt rather pushed into the story rather than layered into it. That said, I did enjoy how everyone comes together in the end to stop the big bad of the series.
❤ Finally, I have to comment on the number of placement adds. They are so obvious. It's also interested how the last episode, while giving us a pretty "happily ever after ending," also felt like the showrunners attempting to add as many product placement ads as possible.
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This review may contain spoilers
More than just a super hero movie
9/10 is my rating. This is a 2017 jSouth Korean television series series spanning 16 (67 minute) episodes. Park Bo-Young plays Do Bong-soon a woman born into a family that has a line of women with super human strength. Use the strength for good, and you can keep it. Use it for personal gain or evil and you are right back to being normal (dang pickle jars are hard to open). Do Bong-soon is madly in love with Guk-doo (Ji So) a local police officer. Due to her acts of heroism she finds herself the body guard of the CEO of a gaming company (Park Hung-sik) and the two do not like each other much at the outset. He just sees her as a useful “tool” and she sees him as a meal ticket.Spoiler 🚨 The beginning of the series I wasn't a huge fan of the two main leads as a couple I was actually rooting for her to get with the side character. I also was afraid it was going to be some silly super hero-ish movie with no real plot. But, by the end, I loved her and the main lead so much. They are still one of my favorite Asian Drama couples – so cute together. The only thing I didn't like about this was they went almost too far into the after story. She also became too much of a super hero at the end – it was really different than what she had been about through the whole series.
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Overall review:
If you had to describe this drama in two words, it's 'cotton candy'. Seriously. This is my all time favourite guilty pleasure k-drama. It could be yours too, if you give it a try. It's sweet. It's light. There's HEA. Aand the lead actors are super cute. I mean...what more can a girl ask for, right?
Cast and Acting:
Just fabulous. Like their casting director needs a hefty paycheck kinda fabulous. Watching cute LOVEY-DOVEY kdrama couples is totally my thing, and PARK HYUNG-SIK and PARK BOYOUNG serve us some major heart-throbbing bloody cute moments and just....ugggh. Feel me? You can NEVER go wrong with PARk HyuNGsik aagh...
Things you may not like:
Well the story is kinda cliche for one. Two, I personally believe that the lead cast and cuteness is the only thing that saves this drama. Three, very fairytale-ish gives-you-a-tooth-ache-kinda-sweet. But that is the definiton and the whole point of a guilty pleasure. So four, if cliche cute ass cheesy dramas are not your cup of tea, this is not for you.
General Biases:
I've had friends who kept starting this drama on hold because they felt they can't take a cute faced female lead with bangs and short hair as seriously as they would a little more mature looking female lead in a romcom. You get what I mean? But honestly, Park Boyoung can completely rid you of this opinion and change your mind. So if this is your concern and it's the only thing that's holding you back, puh-lease put that prejudice aside and give this a try. I gaurantee you will enjoy it overall.
This is a legend in the kdrama world and a must-have in your list of watched kdramas if you want to call yourself a true kdrama fan. Hope this was helpful!
LOVE,
A
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Lovely, funny and fulfills all your superhero needs
I tried to write this review without any spoilers in case new watchers stumble upon it, but I have so many things to say that it just wasn't possible. So if anyone's by chance reading this - be aware."Strong Woman Do Bong Soon" came out in 2017 - right about the time K-Dramas had a new surge of popularity within the younger Western audience. You would be hard-pressed to find a person who didn't love this drama (or hasn't seen it), and after watching it, I can confidently say it deserves all the hype and love it has!
SWDBS at its heart is a superhero origin story. It has all the right elements - humour, romance, a dash of complicated family dynamics, a training montage, acceptance of one's powers, a huge cast of characters, small and medium level villains, and of course, the Big Bad. Unlike many others, I wasn't taken aback by the funny/serious tone switch. In fact, I loved it! The cast was very versatile - Park Bo Young and Park Bo Mi (the actress who played Bong Soon's best friend) were amazing during emotional scenes (they are both *spectacular* criers).
Bong Soon's character was another favourite of mine - she was small and adorable, but also loyal, smart, and a bit petty (aren't we all?). While it hurt to watch her deal with daily misogyny and harsh comments from her own mother, in the end, she always stood up for herself - Bong Soon's speech about her upbringing compared to her brother's got me teary-eyed. She fit perfectly together with Min Hyuk (a true imaginary boyfriend <3) and wasn't afraid to kick a**.
The soundtrack was amazing!!! It worked perfectly for the kind of drama SWDBS is - kind of crazy, very romantic and undoubtedly hilarious. Though if I had to mention anything negative, I would say that between the two "official" songs for romantic moments, I liked Suran's "Heartbeat" a LOT more than the other. It was quiet and soft, and the second seemed too loud for me.
I am generally not a negative person, so I'll mention the rest of my complaints briefly: 1) what was the deal with Bong Soon's brother and Guk Doo's ex? Just felt icky and too close to cheating; 2) I did not like Guk Doo - he was a bland character and a terrible police officer; 3) Bong Soon should have beaten the a**hole kidnapper to the pulp in the final fight; 4) the last 10 minutes of ep16 should've been a part of the special episode.
Otherwise, SWDBS is truly a superior drama for actually showing how long patients stay in hospitals, and how much time it takes for wounds to heal :D
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This review may contain spoilers
Well what to say. This drama is driven by characters and amazing chemistry between FL and ML. I really loved comedy in this and all secondary characters were nice to watch.Things I liked:
- FL and ML and fluffy moments between them
- Relationship between FL´s father and her
- Comedy scenes with her power
What I didn´t like:
- Overly dramatic and draggy last 1/3 of story
- Her mother
- How stupid they were acting, for example FL´s friend, so u was attacked and almost kiddnaped a u go again alone in the night? And that scene with sniper rifle? What if he was aiming for her head? And I am not talking about other illogical things. I know it´s normal in korean dramas but in this it was too much.
So overall this is good example that even best actors can´t save hopeless drama.
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Entertaining when you're out of things to watch but undoubtfully loveable
--Very VAGUE spoilers ahead. It won't take away from the show--It seems people are giving this mixed reviews. Some people absolutely love it and some people think it's wasted potential. Here's what I think: You have to go into this not expecting much. Remember, this isn't Crash Landing on You or Hotel de Luna. The plot they run with doesn't really have THAT much substance, but it's the small elements they add that keep you going. I'll try my best to break down the people/groups the shows focus on without spoiling too much.
Bong Soon and President Ahn:
This is what definitely carries the show. The interactions between Do Bong Soon and the President are almost unrealistic, but fits most fantasies of girls in middle school when crushing on a boy. I myself am a straight male in my mid 20's and I still found myself "swooning" with Ahn Min Hyeok whenever Do Bong Soon would make "his heart flutter." They really do well it making it romantic, but also tease the audience with comedy. The comedy, however, is super cheesy that it may not appeal to some, but like I said above, you cannot go into it expecting a top tier drama of the century. It's just your goofy run of the mill rom-com drama that sometimes likes to go overboard and cross the line of cheesy and corny (which appealed to me since I am but a simple man).
Gook Do and the Cops:
Gook Do serves as a good addition to your classic love triangle trope seen in kdramas and even Japanese anime. He and the other cops also serve as almost like your beacon back into the "seriousness" of the show. While the show is corny most of the time, the show has a dark element that I think they took insanely far in the form of a sadistic skin masked kidnapper who just kidnapped women throughout the show, but why not. Like I said, if you have nothing to watch, this show throws every genre they can think of into this hot pot of a drama so why not add a flavor of darkness. When the show gets overly romantic or overly corny, the show will reel you back into "Hey, we had our laughs, back to the matter at hand" with the appearance of Gook Do. On top of being the anchor into the dark part of the show, he also serves as a good love antagonist to Min Hyeok, even helping the show show Min Hyeok's comedic side when it comes to jealousy and protecting Do Bong Soon. He also serves as a good friend to our Bong Soon and can be relieved when he's on screen, even if President Ahn cannot save the day.
Baek Tak and his Goons:
When they are first introduced, one is met with "Oh God. Who is this and how are they going to mess everything up? How hard will they serve as antagonists to Ahn Min Hyeok." The answer is... not at all. The show quickly shows you these guys are just here for comedic relief and honestly shows no purpose in progressing the plot of the show. At first, they proved to be very funny due to my first impression of them and then when I quickly realized they might all have the brains of the middle schooler (even their "brave" leader Baek Tak), some of the scenes start to seem overused, too much, or I simply did not care for. As the show progresses, you see they really serve no substance and end up hindering the enjoyment of some people as some of their scenes prove to be not funny anymore as well as useless. Another note, if you honestly even look at their plot with an actual picky mind, it's literally everywhere. The gang goes through so much changes in the show that by the last few episodes, you're like "What the hell? Why did they even add them." If you don't mind nonsense filler and corny humor that's sometimes overused, you should enjoy these guys.
Kim Jang Hyun:
This man serves as the source of all the darkness in the show. With his sole existence, the show gets to add a dark element to the show. In my honest opinion, it's kind of random. It seems like show the should be focusing on Do Bong Soon's superhuman strength and how it affects her day to day life as well as her love life, but suddenly a masked serial kidnapper is on the loose causing so much havoc. As random as it seems to be, I personally enjoyed it solely because I had an open mind. If I came into it looking for an ace of a drama, I would definitely wonder why they made this element extremely dark in such a cheesy rom-com, but because I expected NOTHING from the show, when they introduced his extreme darkness, my first though became "What the f---? Did not expect that.... what happens next?" This is component will take up most of the show next to the romance of President Ahn and Do Bong Soon.
Noonim's Lackeys:
Now this is the most random part of the show. Unlike Baek Tak, these guys REALLY have no substance in the show. You can watch this whole show with their parts edited out and NOTHING will change about the show. They are there for pure comic relief and honestly, unlike Baek Tak, I didn't get tired of it. They didn't focus on them too much so when they would appear on screen, it wouldn't go past 5-6 minutes. Just a quick laugh that just sits with the show like a shark and remora (neither helping nor hurting the show). I personally found them extremely funny solely because of how their first impression to Bong Soon was to suddenly becoming a cult dedicated to her. The idea of it is so far fetched but in this drama... it makes sense?
Overall, this show just said "let's take every genre people enjoy in kdramas and mix it all together in a corny and cheesy way with insanely cheesy effects." This is what people could probably be seeing in its wasted potential as they had good elements, but didn't execute it in a crazy way... but who said it had to be mixed like that for it to be enjoyable? Would I recommend you watch this? Well it depends. Are you picky and looking for something engaging or with substance, then look somewhere else because this probably won't be for you. Are you scrolling through MyDramaList looking for the next kdrama to watch because you don't know what to watch? Then give this a try and don't expect ANYTHING from it... only then will the nonsense and weird mix of variety suddenly seem appealing.
PS: Her little theme song and the music during romance scenes was good enough for me if you're someone who cares about that, but nothing will beat "It's You" by HENRY from While You Were Sleeping.
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This is a story about a girl who is super strong. Cool. Them adding a serial killer aspect to it, makes it ten times better. The fact that she's a badass who ends up turning into a bodyguard for the hottie CEO is hilarious. This show is definitely a roller coaster for emotions. It had me laugh, cry, scream at the t.v., and pissed off many different times. It was fun. I've rewatched it a few times. I would definitely recommend it to someone just getting into k-dramas. More experienced K-Drama watchers would probably find this decent but not great. I personally have loved K-dramas since like 2006 and this was a nice step away from the lack of plot lines other than "rich guy, poor girl" trope that's been done to death.
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Park Hyung Shik as Ahn Min Hyeok and Park Bo Young as Do Bong Soon are perfectly matched , their chemistry is perfect, their acting is spot on, you fall in love with them from start to finish.
If you haven't decided whether to watch it or not, JUST DO IT! you will not regret it
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I watched it because it quickly attracted my attention on an upcoming drama article. The story seem's interesting and funny : a small cute and innocent looking woman as strong as a super hero…I looked forward to see. Plus I recently saw Hwarang with Park Hyung Shik and I wanted to see more of his acting.
This drama is really funny and cute but it also has a somber part with the kidnaping investigation which is well balanced.
I love the 3 main actor they are really good and have a good chemistry.
The couple is so sweet together it's really nice to watch them.
I will probably re-watch it after some time when I want a drama that make me smile and laugh a lot.
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lindo❤
Um dos meus doramas favoritos. Comedia romântica melhor invenção na humanidade.É divertido, tem uma história boa, o casal tem química, os efeitos são bons e mesmo que tenha gnt que nn ache é uma coisa que passa batido pelo drama ser de comédia. Leve engraçado, queria ter a sensação de assistir de novo pela primeira vez. Queria muito que esses atores voltassem a trabalhar juntos pq eles são lindos e carismáticos.
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