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Perfect romance/chemistry, but overall drama just doesn't work
I try to balance out my ratings with a combination of objectivity/subjectivity. Hence, the highest rating I can give this drama is a 6/10. And that's only because the lead pairings' buildup/chemistry was one of my favorites (my bias is heavily at work here, lol). Even then, the overall drama just doesn't work due to the other three plotlines: Company threat, gangsters, and serial killer. Our leads had to share their plotline with the other three and the result was disastrous. Lol, the gangster/serial killer plots were such a mismatch to the romance that it felt like three different dramas (slapstick, horror, and romance).I couldn't finish this drama the first time around and on my second, I fast-forwarded everything that didn't involve the OTP's romance. The production team had a goldmine OTP and really should have written the overall plot around their romance: Maybe explore the lore behind Bo Soon's powers and focus more on Min Hyuk's relationship with his family or the leads' passion for developing games while building up their relationship during this process. You'll have a much more cohesive drama this way. The gangsters/serial killer plots don't connect well with the romance and should never have made it in the script.
Oh well, at least the creators knew enough to give us plenty of sweet scenes between our swoon-worthy leads. Aside from their story, this drama really is a trainwreck.
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Oooooh Strong Woman Do Bong Soon. The promise you held, the promise you made, the promise you did not keep.This drama is crazy popular, and I admit it. I understand why. It's filled with fun and interesting characters, an infinitely fascinating premise, superb acting, and some Very attractive male leads. I fully accept that I am in the minority with my opinion, and that's ok. I'm glad everyone else was able to enjoy this drama. But as interesting and fun and superbly acted as it is...
A terrible script it was. Great acting and interesting characters and story premises often lift many a terrible script, and I unashamedly admit to loving stories that are terrible simply because everything else was so well done. I think that has a lot to do with why so many people love this drama so much.
But those things just didn't do enough to compensate for this dramas writing for me.
First things first:
The rules of her superpowers were never clear. The first episode portrays her mother losing her powers because she was abusing them to make money off of people. I expected that to serve as a clear indicator of what was acceptable and what was not. That was apparently not so. I spent the rest of the drama (as far as I watched) trying to figure out just what the rules were. What exactly counted as using her abilities for ill and using them for good? Surely beating up bad guys and defending the weak would be considered using your powers for good, right? Wrong. Or maybe not wrong? Bong Soon frequently held herself back in situations where she Clearly would have been in the right to act and intervene, but then at other times, she just let herself go, wailed on bad guys left and right...and still didn't end up losing her powers. So what was the barometer? Helping this defenseless person is ok but helping that defenseless person is not?
As for the romance, Park Hyung Shik is endlessly charming and witty and charismatic and has looks that go on for daaaaaays. He's almost immediately smitten with Park Bo Young's character, and you're always gonna get a happy viewer out of me when a male lead falls first. But damn it if he wasn't super manipulative and uncomfortably controlling! It didn't help that Bong Soon gave him into his demands Far more often than I liked. I wasn't against her having maybe a more mild, and maybe even shy, personality in comparison to her abilities, but she gave in in situations where there was no reasonable justification for her doing so, and it INFURIATED MEEEEEEE. She didn't have to fight back with her powers. I was fully on board with that being considered using them for ill. But she sure as heck could have used her words sometimes and said NO.
I dropped this before the last two eps, so I cannot comment on them, but I heard a few things went a little off the rails at that point, and I'm glad I bowed out when I did. This drama did not follow through on the things it promised me in the beginning, and I just want my trust back.
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The biggest reason I was disappointed by this drama was because there was so much potential here to say something meaningful about the perception of strong vs weak women. Instead strong here is personified by whoever can physically beat the crap out of someone else (see also her mom and how she treats her husband!!). Lately I’ve been watching dramas with strong female leads that are empowered, independent, quick-witted, true to themselves, and these traits are the thing that attracts the leads to them. While strong is the premise of this series, I felt that
the protagonist, despite her superhuman strength, was very much never really in control of anything. It felt like she only used her strength impulsively based on her emotions (which made her come off more like a passive-aggressive bully teaching people lessons than a hero).
Another thing that really bothered me was that the lead was almost like being passed back and forth between the two male leads, never really standing on her own and relying on them throughout the series. They both empathized the desire to want to have someone to protect (eye roll) and they were both constantly chasing after her as if she were a child running with a pair of scissors who couldn’t do anything properly on her own — and she goes with it quietly!!! Obliges, even when they yell at her. Come on!!
So many other dramas that are more riveting and do what this tried to do so much better.
The main guy is cute. That is the only redeeming thing here. +1 star for as he got me all the way to episode 12.
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Sorry. I'm not against dramas poking fun at serious issues and if this one had done it with more cleverness and less ham-handed cheap laughs, it might have worked. I truly felt like IQ points were screaming and dying in my brain as I watched this.For example, I can’t stand the mother pimping out her daughter, even though it’s clearly being played for laughs, and the whole gay-not gay thing seems tonally off to me. (I’ve never been a big fan of the Coffee Prince/You’re Beautiful approach to homosexuality where the writer uses it as a device to advance conventional, heterosexual love. The underlying message seems to be that True Love can override sexual preference, as if homosexuality is a choice and all you need is to meet that one special person. And I disliked Personal Taste because of the male lead coyly pretending to be gay in order to advance his agenda.) Except for Do Bong-Soon and her grandmother, the women are weak and Do Bong-Soon herself isn’t very bright. Those things, added to the sadistic kidnap/murder theme, make me feel that there is a misogynistic streak running through this drama.
ETA: Another thing that bothered me is that stock value in the male lead’s company dives after news reports surface that he is gay. It’s played as if that’s funny. It’s not.
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THE SHOW DOESN'T KNOW WHAT IT WANTS TO BE
THE PLOT was good. It's definitely original cause I've seen nothing like it. I feel like the show kept going back and forth on what genre it wanted to be. The crime aspect seemed like a second thought, which is disappointing because it was the most interesting thing about this. Sometimes dramas go out of the way to portray a strong independent woman and this was one of those dramas. I don't know if this will make sense but I think Bong Soon was too "strong." I kinda got tired of seeing her beat up people. What kept me watching was the serial kidnapper and Park Hyung Shik(that man is stupid gorgeous). The love triangle between Bong Soon and the two leads was funny to watch but I think the romance aspect could have been a bit stronger. I did feel second lead syndrome and thought In Gook Doo should’ve ended up with the female lead. Min Hyuk was very cute, but I felt like the SML was more sincere. On another note, Bong Soon's nosy ass mother managed to get some laughs out of me.THE ACTING was ok. The best actor imo was Ji Soo. At times things got too cheesy for me, and I couldn't stand that group of guys that got beat up by Bong Soon. They got WAY too much screentime and they only existed for some cheap laughs, and not ONCE did I ever find them funny. I just ended up skipping any scenes with them. Park Hyung Shik is literally so handsome I found it hard to pay attention judge his acting in any scene he was in, but he gave a pretty solid performance. He was such eye candy that I had to finish this.
REWATCH VALUE is non existent for me. I won't ever come back to this drama. This was cute and light-hearted but you can never take this too seriously when watching. Wish they had focused on the serial kidnapper more. 7/10
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Strong Woman Do Bong Soon is not a Strong Female Protagonist
Strong Woman Do Bong Soon is perfectly enjoyable and is full of iconic characters and dialogue. It's a fun, easy watch that doesn't require much thinking. However, there is one key element of the show that is missing: a clear message.Granted, not every show needs to have a message. However, SWDBS shoves a theme of "girl power" down our throats without really saying anything about it.
Whenever Bong Soon has to fight with men, they always underestimate her because she is a woman. However, the show somewhat argues that their belief that women are weak is a correct one; Bong Soon is the only strong female character, and that is only because she has superpowers. In fact, she consistently talks about how she needs to protect the weak from the strong, mainly focusing on women. The show does everything in its power to differentiate Bong Soon from "other girls" who are "weak".
Another example of failed feminism in the show is the bizarre lack of female characters. There are no female police officers working with Gok Doo (you would think there would be, given they are catching a criminal that exclusively targets women), no female gangsters, and no female executives at Ainsoft. The main cast is almost exclusively men and most of the narratives surround men. The female characters don't usually get much characterization, and most of our descriptors for them are traumatic things that happen to them or their connection to male characters. They serve no purpose other than to advance the narratives of Do Bong Soon or one of the many male main characters.
The one exception to this rule is Bong Soon's mother, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. She is frequently shown hitting her husband and her daughter, which was deeply upsetting and demonstrated an incredibly surface-level understanding of feminism. Bong Soon's mother has reversed gender roles, with her being domineering and assertive, and this is played for laughs. This is concerning for two reasons: 1) behaving like your oppressor isn't empowerment, and 2) it makes abuse seem like not a big deal.
Finally, the main villain is so over the top and ridiculous that it sensationalized sexual violence and made it into an individual issue rather than a societal one. None of the sexist characters learn anything or change their ways after meeting Bong Soon.
Overall, SWDBS had so much potential to make real criticisms about society but instead capitalized on surface-level "girl power" narratives that maintained the status quo. That being said, it's a fun watch and the chemistry and acting are super enjoyable.
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Why just why?
I completely get different dramas appeal to different people, but I can’t quite wrap my head around why this one is so popular. Story dragged out and was chock full of obnoxious characters and over the top humor that didn’t quite deliver. I get this was a comedy not to be taken too seriously but the humor fell flat and was jarring with the rest of the genres they tried to smash together to create this train wreck.I suffered through the entire series with my finger heavy on fast forward just so I could watch the main couple. Not because I enjoyed Bong Soon as a character or an actress. She was flat, tried way to hard to be cute, never grew on me, and completely undeserving of our male lead. But because watching Min Min totally head over heals besotted like an adorable puppy with hearts in his eyes was the best part of this whole drama.
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Tonally uneven, poorly structured, with an insanely sweet lead couple
I wish this drama was better. There's a lot of potential in the premise, which is fresh and fun, and you've got two great looking and quick good actors as your leads, but the execution just isn't there.Tonally, this drama either doesn't know what it wants to be (ultra sweet romance or dark thriller or farcical comedy?) or wants to be all of the things mentioned and doesn't know how to meld them together into a cohesive whole (there is only one drama that I've ever seen that can blend super sugary romance, serious and dark themes and pure comedy together and that's Joy of Life, but that drama is such a masterclass in writing, acting and directing that it's unfair to judge anything else against it).
What you end up with is a drama that has some great romance, some good action, a hell of a lot of baggy and unnecessary scenes and some comedy that is either deeply disrespectful and homophobic, or gives you whiplash. The ongoing gag of the gangsters that were beaten up by the female lead is funny at first, but when you've got it paired next to a scene where her best friend is in the hospital after being kidnapped and possibly tortured and raped by a serial killer, the gangster stuff starts to feel cheap and ugly.
This drama is a mess. It's all over the place, it has uneven acting and is very draggy in some areas and very rushed in others. I like rewatching it for the lead couple, but I find myself fast forwarding like crazy. That's really the only way I can watch this show -- treat it like a highlight reel. Keep about 30% (the romance! The fighting!) and throw out the rest.
Greatest Weakness: The homophobic 'comedy'
Greatest Strength: The romance between the leads
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I don't get the high rating.
I was really excited to watch this drama. I heard many good things about it and the rating was super, but I was quickly disappointed.this drama is really boring! I skipped so many scenes I was almost tempted to leave the drama halfway into it.
we follow the main leader which is born super strong due to a curse. she tried all her life to help people without letting the world know about her powers.
it could be a good premise but the curse is almost never addressed, only briefly, there is no depth to it.
in the first episodes we get introduced to whom will be the main leader's romantic interest. at first the series tries to imply a "love triangle", but this plot line is abandoned shortly after. the "friend" never gets a real chance even though boon su has been "madly" In love with him for years. no trace of doubts, not for a second.
the president of the ainsoft is kind of a "quirky" character which sometimes Is endearing but many times appears as caricature. he is so over the top. I skipped so many scenes where he basically talks to himself about how sweet his girl is, how cute she acts, even though boon su does literally nothing.
the secondary characters lack in personalities. her best friend, which we know nothing about except that she's from Busan; her brother , which has no depth and a "out of the blue" relationship with another forgettable character.
the whole gangster plot lines was totally unnecessary and frankly boring.
the jokes were corny as hell.
the Indian monk.... I don't even know what to say about that...
the main point of the drama should be the kidnapping case... but that also falls flat. we never get a real motive. the culprit liked a play...and that's it? no backstory, no motives..
let's not forget the "video game" stuff. maybe once in the drama boon su plays a video game, but we are supposed to know that she LOVES games and has always dreamed of creating one...
I don't know why so many people liked it.
the actors are good but the story just isn't there.
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The story line mixes rom-com and action/thriller elements in a very sucessfull way.
I honestly felt like the thriller plot was lead in a very smart way giving depth and helping the story line development without being overwatched nor rushed in the end like other romcoms. Also loved how the comical elements were smartly incorporated in the story without being too much nor out of place. The drama gave me some of my biggest laughts !
Both leads grew on my heart and almost fell for the second male lead ! Loved Bong Soon kirky yet super cute character that you never got enough of but most of all the fact the the charater unlike other strong FL never totally fell fot the ML knight syndrome and remained the show stealer <3
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I have no memory of the music so I just gave that a generic 5.0.
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