Beautiful Drama and an amazing story
I rated Itaewon Class a 10 out of 10 because I really think that this drama is worth the rating. Having watched many asian dramas, there are only two that I have felt deserved a 10 out 10 waiting and this was one of them.The story is heart wenching and had me crying so much at the beginning because I felt so much for the issues that our main protagonist had to go through at a young age and I was so touched at how he was able to rise up to every occasion that life threw at him. I love the diversity of thought and characters introduced here. How some characters were more accepting than others, and how the others had to grow and learn to accept and be open minded to people who saw the world and interacted with the world differently than them.
One of the things that really stood out to me with this drama was how many of the main characters came from single parent homes or they did not have parents at all. The one mother-daughter relationship that was portrayed in the drama, I thought was beautiful done and well portrayed. One of my favorite quotes in the drama came from a conversation that happened between Jo Yi Seo and her mother. The quote is the "That's not how I was raised." In the context of the show it makes perfect sense. Every single one of the parental-child relationships we saw shaped the lives of that child and how they were to ultimately live their lives.
Park Sae Ro Yi's dad raised him to be principled and good. In turn, Jang Dae Hee raised his children to with no principles. The defining moments of this show for me were in the little moments when you saw the human interactions, most especially the father to son interactions.
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short review;;;;
Great show!I joined it being sceptic, but I'm glad they turned it around. This show is def not something I'd expect from South Korea, knowing how conservative and narrow-minded it is. And that's just a fact, for the majority of people there and the media that gets produced as a result. :/ But I'm glad to see something like this getting exposure and being received this well. this shows that steps are being made to improve the inclusivity in drama plotlines going forward.
also I absolutely loved the main couple. Sad they only finally got together so LATE! TT I desperately want a S2 just to see how they're fearing afterwards, but we all know no S2 is needed.
Itaewon Class achieved all that it needed to in those 16 eps imo. a S2 would do it dis-service :(
Chris Lyon's acting could be better, but im honestly just glad they casted a black person that can speak Korean, and that he still did a good job! It was a little cheesy, but hey, it's progress.
the show did kinda feel like there were many things it was tying to achieve, and i rlly was riveted by the little revenge plot going on. i felt like i was watching a manhwa with power scaling come to life.
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strong female lead
I don't know if what I will say can be considered spoiler, so ⚠️⚠️[IMG=BWG].
[C]I just finished watching "Itaewon Class" and it's definitely one of my favorite K-dramas, not only because of the story itself, but also because of the characters (the story is good too, but what I really liked were the characters). It's a K-drama that makes you think from the beginning, at least that was my experience. I think it's a K-drama that brings good representation (although that might be an unpopular opinion). Something I liked is that each member of the Itaewon Class had a moment where we could learn more about them, their backstory, etc. This makes you like and maybe even relate to the characters.
[C]Something I've never had before while watching a K-drama, which is normal for almost everyone else, was the extreme difficulty I had in deciding which ship I wanted to end up together. Like, I was really loving Sae-ro-yi and Oh soo ah in the first two episodes, but then that ship got much weaker, and every interaction between those two made my heart sad because I could see it wasn't going well. On the other hand, there's Jo-Yi-seo (by the way, she's my favorite character), and every interaction with Sae-ro-yi was incredibly cute and funny, so I was like, do you understand me?
[C]In the end, I easily chose Sae-ro-yi with Jo-Yi-seo, I only had that difficulty in the beginning haha.
[C]Talking about Sae-ro-yi and Jo-Yi-seo, they were my favorite characters. Sae-ro-yi is a great leader, I love when he fights against everyone who mistreats his team (seriously, he's amazing). I liked Jo-Yi-seo's personality from the beginning, even though she has many flaws, to me she was amazing, I truly love her haha.
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This review may contain spoilers
Apart from all the regular stuff that we see in a k-drama this one does a great job of exposing the many problems that we face in our day to day lives. Being a member of LGBTQ and a POC in Korea. I started watching this because of the title that seemed catchy 😄 Boy I'm not disappointed. The acting by all the cast members was just brilliant. Especially Kim Da-mi was too perfect for her role. From being a talented and troubled kid who has lost her interest in life falls in love with a person who is the exact opposite of her and then tries so hard to make him fall in love with her and being with him through his troubled times and helping him get his revenge on the people who was responsible for his father's death. Through this journey she also starts to see herself changing. She is simply amazing. The ML Park Seo-joon who was a socially inept guy and lost his father to men in power strives to get justice for his father and to make his words have power and to lead a life with no regrets and consequences. Even with a poker face he was able to connect with us so well through his actions.
The OST was amazing.
Overall it's a good watch. I would recommend this 💯
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inspiring but romantically unsatisfying
OK. Here goes. Start.First, I really liked Park Saeroyi. But even I should have realized that he would have gone way beyond expectation and just do what Park Saeroyi does. There are K-drama romances, and there are K-drama flannigans. This is one of them. Besides a perfect first episode, and an otherwise rocky start, it jumbles and tumbles like Dumbo but on solid footing. Because Park Saeroyi is first shown after seven years, smiling at Oh Soo-ah, wearing his heavy boots and he is almost never shown in different shoes after. The soundtrack was particularly good, K-dramas considered, and the insert songs were beautiful. More than just one I keep listening to after. Start, Still Fighting It (I hope they play it again after episode 14), Someday the Boy, and two others I think, I will have to find.
Yes, while I could finish, I dropped with two episodes remaining. I think watching this show, esp. after the food wars segment, gave me a motivation to make a decision about my life. I have a dream, but it's time to think about what I really want. Why I want it, and then, to think about how to shape my life going forward. I think this was a show that tried to do more than its 16-episode run allowed, but that's OK. I'll just pat it on the head and move on. I'll talk about how this show, until the romance didn't go the way I wanted, hit me.
So again, back to Park Saeroyi. You have inspiring characters, you have stalwart, unchanging characters, and you have good. Truly good - characters. In this, they put together all three. I may have the capacity for being truly good, and sometimes show it, but I need to be good every day. I need to be better, and be so good that even I don't doubt it (although I think that true good thinks it never attains the bar). I have a dream, and for the longest time I thought I wanted it for one reason. But I'm starting to realize what the act of writing really means to me, and that it's OK - perhaps better - to withstand the slings of arrows and outrageous fortune, and keep fighting it. Set a goal for further down the line. And aim even higher. I don't want to watch Breaking Bad for ambition, but Itaewon Class was about business ambition raised around people, the people around us we can't do it with. And maybe there's love too, and while K-dramas tend to "try romance" as a default (unless the premise distinctly forbids it), I saw something hopeful, something proud, in Park Saeroyi's ambition which was driven by revenge. In a way, his story resembles Edmond Dantès, where even he realized how he felt, and how he could go this way. I hesitate to apply this to my own life - this third part - because it's so much more delicate, and I need to get my life together first, before I can truly deserve that, rather than get my life together for someone else. I think in this way Oh Soo-ah, as she was to Saeroyi, is truly inspiring.
Other than Park Saeroyi's Tanjiro-levels fortitude, my favorite scenes were those with Ma Hyun-yi. Complete acceptance. Really lovely to see from a country that's somewhat trailing behind in that department, and I think like many other parts of this drama, a warm nod to the hope and strength and family we can bring to others. Itaewon Class is a powerful show, and while I'm not sure if I'm going to see the last two episodes, because I can talk about the two waylaid sons, the domineering chairman; Toni, who heightens the inclusiveness even further, or the former gang henchman who became a failed comedic support, the former bullied kid who slams at hedge funding, or the epic Kang Min-jung. There are tighter shows. There are "better" shows. But I think this one, more than Twenty-Five Twenty-One's Na Hee-do and My Mister, will make me at least think about the proper steps going forward. What do I really want to do with my life, who do I want to spend it with, and the kind of person I want to be. Thank you Park Saeroyi for showing me.
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Couldn't watch it to the end
This had a really good cast, but a really poor storyline. Surprisingly, as one of the strengths for Korean dramas is the ability of the writers to really develop the characters. This fell very short of that strength. The first couple of episodes were strong, but after that it just went downhill. For me, the weakness was in the believability of the characters to handle their lives. They seemed exaggerated, rather than human. Park Seo Joon's SaeRoy just wasn't believable. To go through what he did and endure such injustice, then behave so apathetic and stoic just wasn't believable. The same with Yoo Jae Myung and Ahn Bo Hyun's characters. To kill someone's father then go after that father's son, unjustly sending him to prison, then once released going after him again for even more vengeance just seems unbelievable. This was a revenge trope theme, and there are a lot of these type of dramas coming out (i.e. Reborn Rich, The Glory) that have stuck with the main plot, yet allowed the characters to show some humaneness even as they are enacting their revenge. I think where this drama failed was the main characters were way, way too exaggerated in their roles, and the supporting characters were way, way too subdued and neither were ever fully developed.Was this review helpful to you?
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Cho Yi-seo queen
Ep. 8 left me in a limbo. It'd be stupid to believe Yi-seo would betray Sae-royi, but I'm afraid that whatever she's planning will be misunderdtood -if it's not planned with Sae-royi.This drama is so perfectly made that I have 0 complaints about it. Yi-seo is mean, selfish and goal-oriented no matter what, which makes me love her since her first appearance. But what I love the most about her is that there is so much room for improvement to her character and that's what I'm looking forward to the most. I don't really know how I feel about Soo-ah yet, but I definitely don't like her as much as Yi-seo. She's a strong woman who lets nothing stand on her way too, which I love, but I'm not entirely sure about her stand yet. Also, the fact that Yi-seo and Sae-royi are complete opposites makes their dynamic so much more interesting.
On the other side, I hope we can see some character development on Sae-royi as well. We see him as the perfect man: emotional, but cold-headed enough so he plans everything out; goal-oriented, but also incredibly empathic and people-centered, so he can manage a group to reach the goal. He is perfectly balanced and has been planning his strike back at Jangga for the next 15 years and can overcome every obstacle that gets on his way without losing focus or his values. He is way too ideal, even has the perfect amount of emotional character. There MUST be something to improve on him.
Of course we've seen him grow from a hot-headed teenager who was about to kill his father's killer with his own two hands, into a man with a perfectly-planned goal for his future; not to mention that he was an asocial boy with troubles to make friends, but who now is the owner of a pub in which his main focus is to reach his goals alongside his workers who he thinks of as friends.
There has definitely been some development in his character from teenager to adult, but I'd also like to see some improvement during his adulthood, but I just can't think of what could that be because he comes off too perfect.
Anyway, I'd still need to wait until the end of the week to see what on earth is Yi-seo planning after meeting Mr. Jang. It had been a long time since a drama made me this excited while waiting for the next episode.
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It’s just bad for many reasons
1. The only likeable characters are the male lead and his friends who most of them belong in minorities, so that’s the only positive thing that has as a kdrama. The diversity.2. The female lead is so unnecessary mean. Not only that she’s racist and homophobic/transphobic and the only reason she “changed” towards the end is because she wanted the male lead to like her, which I find very wrong. You will say she’s a sociopath so that’s why, but please that’s not an excuse for everything.
3. The way the story goes on is a bit frustrating because everything happens fast and there’re throwbacks and then back to present, escalates at the start and at the end only. A bit messy I would say.
4. The love story between the leads is very forced because it gives you a very blunt ending. Not only that there’s a big age difference with the characters which makes you wonder are they really … gonna be together now!? Meh
5. The villains are not likeable at all obviously haha (you know sometimes you guilty like them) but in the end they’re the only ones making this kdrama interesting.
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Good plot, romance and FL r weird
I felt like I had way higher expectations of this drama that what it actually is... so this is not a typical story and it has its sad background but overall it's all about hope persistence and hard work and they show that really wellMy only problem with this was mostly the FL, the actress is really good but the character was so unreasonable violent and ill-mannered and while she gets better as her development she was still really annoying (to me)
Another thing is the romance... when pairing a couple with an age gap usually they show how the younger one is responsible and the older one isn't mentally old but here it wasn't like that and it was kinda hard for me to like them and it got to a point where I didn't want to see any romance at all (coming from a rom com obsessed teenage girl) hence my low rating
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way too overrated
i pushed off this drama for so long and finally gave it a shot and man... i initial gut feeling of feeling like i won't like this drama was right lmaoinitially i was slightly interested in it for the whole revenge plot and the idea of a diverse group of characters but wow all the excitement for those aspects just got watered down so fast. so many annoying and bland characters that are clearly written for the sake of creating drama.. like come on... the whole love triangle whatever is so bad,, so so bad... i legit lost all interest after ep11 and just started skimming through the rest. the whole show was so predictable and frustrating in the worst way, like it wasnt even entertaining it was just pure aneurysm.
anyway, i dont recommend, just watch a recap if you wanna know what happens but honestly we all know what was going to happen anyway from the beginning.
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