This review may contain spoilers
Spoilers - Discussion and Analysis
First off, I sign-up to Mydramalist to review this drama. Second, I really get this drama, or at least I thought I have. Third, this was condensed into 12 episodes because of low ratings but to those who get this drama, it's gold. Fourth, the soundtrack is superb. And lastly, I hope you enjoy the roller-coaster ride of emotions.These are my thoughts on the matter, I hope this would give you a better understanding of the drama.
1. Ha Won's mom died during snowstorm. She died because In Wook misinformed her of the whereabouts of Ji Soo and Ha Won. In Wook's wife Ji soo died the same fate 10 years later when she returned to apologize on his behalf on the tomb of Ha Won's Mom.
2. When Ha Won was grieving his mom, Ji Soo made him look out the ceiling where the shadows on the trees are reflected, soothing him. Years later, when Ji Soo dies in Norway that same night, Ha Won looked the the sky with trees reminiscent of that fateful night when he was soothed after his mother died.
3. Seo Woo first had a memorable first meeting with Before Dawn when he was at the studio. While Ha Won had his memorable moment when she was looking out the window on the studio, eventually meeting her when Ha Won went in the studio to look around. Ha Won noticed her first. And he also readily know that Seo Woo suits Ji Soo... thinking the two can become friends because of their personalities.
4. Before Ji Soo died, she was "gifted" with a friend, Seo Woo. In less than 5 meetings, the two have become close enough for Ji Soo to give Seo Woo a gift. A plant. She also inadvertently have given Ha Won someone to love in Sae Woo's person.
5. That plant that Ji Soo gave symbolizes the feelings Ha Won and Sae Woo have for each other... at first it was dying, which also reflects why Seo Woo even mentioned that she only had 1% chance of Ha Won's Love. When the plant was thriving after Soon Ho took care of it, it was later on destroyed or the pot was shattered because of In Wook. In Wook also shattered Sae Woo's feelings for Ha Won when he told her that no one can come between Ha Won and Ji Soo. (Planting a negative seed in which is one of the factors that broke down Sae Woo's resolve later on.)
6. When Ha Won confronted In Wook of his misgivings, he mentioned three things. Do you know what you took from me (his mom), what you trampled on (Ji Soo, In Wook's Wife, his friend) and what you crushed? (Sae Woo, Ha Won's beloved).
7. When Ha Won discovered his AI's point of reaction, he thought it was because of his regard to Ji Soo. Ji Soo was afraid of lightning and thunder. It was later on revealed that Ji Soo was not his point of reaction. It was his mother who always plays the piano when there's thunderstorm brewing. Perhaps, he associated Ji Soo with his inability to move on even after 10 years but in reality, it was his grief for his mother.
8. This grief was also factored in with Ji Soo's sudden departure in his life. He was left without a family and the one person he considers family has also been ripped away from him. Hence, his moving on was slow and painstaking.
9. Seo Woo and Ji Soo phone call when the latter was in Norway ended in a tragedy. While Seo Woo in South Korea and Ha Won in Norway phonecall gives hope of their love. Ha Won came home to Seo Woo.
10. When Ha Won was finding crumbs and clues of where Ji Soo have been before she died through her IG account, it was as if Ha Won was slowly finding all the places. And at the same time, ending the journey of loving Ji Soo and finally giving Seo Woo's love a chance.
11. Through the course of the series, they had their fair share of having just to let the other go if they can't be together due to work or to personal reasons. The willingness to be with each other is there, but they don't dominate each other to stay.
12. Ha Won's mother died of snowstorm, did you notice him being cold? Seo Woo's parents died of forest fire, you can see her as a warm person... thawing Won's heart in the process. O_O.
13. The first act was sold-out by Ha Won confronting him about previous' mother's death. This was a show of power and boldness (Ha Won had it in him from the start... I'm just amazed at how powerful he is and rich). In Wook in his recital at the near end proved that he's a gifted pianist also. He was able to channel all his frustrations and regrets in his craft and was awarded by applause from the people from the second act.
14. When Seo Woo went home to her hometown near Misiryeong, she played the recording of Ha Won's mediocre recital as a tribute to her dead parents. When Ha Won went home in Norway to visit his old home, he played Seo Woo's average performance in the piano as an homage to his dead mother. Both are orphans.
15. When Ha Won told Ji Soo to call, Ji Soo did not call or even plan to call. When Ha Won told Seo Woo to call when she sorts herself out, she called him. =)
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Just... very mellow healing.
But this drama is good at that.
The layout of the script is confusing at times -- just like how real human emotions are complex. Every character has their own trauma they have to overcome. Yet despite how incomplete each of these characters feel on their own, they heal each other. Watching the journey of Ha Won and Seo Woo warmed my heart.
I watched this for Jung Hae In, but I was blown away by how good the female lead was too -- Chae Soo Bin is pretty young but her acting is quite mature, especially spotlighted in a show like this one.
Not for the excitement-seeking kdrama watcher. But if you like something relaxing, slow, and mellow without stupid kdrama tropes -- I would suggest this series.
PS: That AI device is pretty badass -- if only they existed in real life!
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I will say however that leaving the writing situation aside, I think the drama was good but as the story is rather simple we have no build up and I don't think I personally would rewatch it only because it got to a point where it all was resolved and I was fine with it. I also think that even without 4 episodes, the ending had an unnecessary situation, so that speaks for itself as yet another case of bad writing.
On good notes, love the main actors here, even though I feel Hae In's skills are bigger than this specific project. Love the soundtrack and the photography.
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PLOT: - It okay. I can't be more straightforward than this. The beginning felt like the middle of the drama. It was confusing. Apparently, the male lead already knew the female lead, but we don’t know how. It’s a drama with HUGE loopholes. Plus, there’s no real substance to it. Yes, it’s slow. But I don’t mind that. One Spring Night was pretty slow, but it was also good. This, one the other hand, is not. You have a guy who is obsessed with his past love. That obsession is creepy AF. But he gets over it.
There isn’t any AI stuff other than a device which when given a sample of a voice turns into a brighter version of the person whose voice it is using. The device sort of becomes that person – with their memory as well. Being a computer science student, I honestly don’t get how this algorithm is working. How does just a sample of somebody’s voice give information about their past?
The romance is cute. It is also the only reason I’m still watching the drama. Both the leads are experiencing the world of dating for the first time. So, they’re awkward but also straightforward. It’s cute and the chemistry works well. Their romance is calming.
ACTING & CHARACTERS: - All the characters are obsessed with one thing or another. Moon Ha Won with Kim Jisoo, Han Seo Woo with Ha Won and Jisoo, Moon Soon Ho with Kang In Wook and Kang In Wook with Kim Jisoo. Overall, all, all except Han Seo Woo are weak. But I guess the worst characters are Kang In Wook and Moon Soon Ho. I just don’t get them. They seem forced characters and if you took them out, the drama would flow just fine. Kang In Wook is an extremely despicable character and Moon Soon Ho just needs to get a life. She has no role and no purpose of her own.
Acting wise, they’re all doing a good job with what they have. But I do feel like this is Jung Hae-in’s third drama playing a hopeless romantic. It’s a shame because the guy is capable of doing so much more.
OTHER STUFF: - The OSTs are all nice. The editing goes with the vibe of the drama. I love Han Seo Woo’s wardrobe. I also love how aptly they used the colour green.
Overall, I’m watching it for the romance only. I’ll update this after the ending, but I wouldn’t recommend. I honestly think Jung Hae-in made a mistake doing this drama.
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This review may contain spoilers
'A Piece of Your Mind' was one of my highly anticipated 2020 dramas as I love Jung Hae In and Chae Soo Bin a lot and they're both great actors, so I was excited when I found out they'd be pairing for a winter to spring romantic drama, but I should've known since the very first episode that this would be a complete mess. Episode 1 was incredibly confusing and boring, I didn't understand anything about it but I thought that may be the director's intention, so I thought I'd stick to it and check how the story developed. Episode 2 was a bit better but Episode 3 went back again to being boring and confusing. Then the main leads started getting closer after Episode 4 so it became a tiny little bit interesting. Again, I thought I should just keep watching because how much I liked the leads and also, well, quarantine, so there was not much to do anyways. I said I wouldn't drop any drama this year, so I definitely wanted to keep watching it but it was such a chore to do so, I shouldn't have even started it at all to begin with.
Ha Won and Seo Woo are far from being my favorite couple, contrary to what I would've expected because of how much I love the leads. Their chemistry was definitely there and that's probably the only thing to highlight about their characters, to be very honest. I liked Seo Woo until she started being too nosy and acted up against In Wook, becoming more and more like Ha Won who until the very end I couldn't stand one bit. I don't think I had ever disliked a main character so much, despite loving the actor this much too. He was selfish and jerk-ish at the beginning, and didn't change much towards the end. Sure, they both fell in love and left some of their struggles behind so they sort of moved on, but their characters were still so annoying and boring that even their romantic moments (a simple kiss and a few hugs!) felt boring and produced nothing on me ---I must say this part is very telling about how I feel towards this drama because mostly any main couple interaction makes my heart flutter but I never felt anything with Ha Won and Seo Woo, not even when they were in that cherry blossom path. I was simply not attached to any of them at all.
I'm probably on the unpopular opinion side that liked In Wook and Soon Ho's story better than the main couple. I mostly never enjoy the second couple more than the main one, but even though I didn't exactly enjoy the second couple here, it was at least more interesting than the mains to me. In Wook was a depressed man who had his own struggles and were shown all through the drama, but the writers decided to brush him off as a jerk who didn't care about his equally depressed wife simply because he was the second lead. I hated how much they made him be the villain when he was just another victim of one's own mistakes that haunt us forever. He was a kid when he told that lie to Ha Won's mom, so why did no one ever address this for him so he would forgive himself? They just let him struggle to the end until he decided to forgive himself, but the closure that he deserved was never given. Soon Ho wasn't my favorite character either and I don't really like Lee Ha Na's acting, as I have always seen her in characters that are pretty stupid, clueless, intrusive and have 0 tact, so this wasn't the exception, but at least she was part of a more interesting story than the leads. Kim Sung Gyu definitely did a great job with the crumbs he was given, and it's a shame that his character was there simply to thicken the plot.
The side characters served no purpose in anyone's life. The people at Eun Joo's homestay were boring and existed just to fill some scenes and make it look like the drama wasn't only about the main leads, but they were the most unimportant side characters one could ever have, just like Ha Won's co-workers. After they cut the drama down I kept skipping every scene with any side character because they were just so not important and boring that I didn't think there would be a reason for me to keep wasting my time watching them on screen.
The amount of nonsense this drama had stood out incredibly to make me remember it forever. The device was full of b*llsh*t and made no sense at all, it was the main reason why I couldn't enjoy this drama at all. If you're giving me a plot that makes no sense from the get-go I just wont' enjoy it, and that's exactly what this device did to me; it could store someone's personality and memories just by doing some voice tests? What kind of b...? I think the writer saw the many negative reviews about this nonsense so they decided to give it some sort of mediocre explanation by the end when Ha Won said something like it didn't actually have feelings but you needed to stimulate it to make it think it had feelings... That still did not explain why the devices had memories and could recognize whoever tried to trigger it and "wake" whoever the device was made of.
Overall, nothing about this drama made sense to me and I definitely feel like I wasted 12h+ of my time on this solely because of how much I love the leads. I will never recommend this drama and I'll just try to act like it never happened (I bet tVN and the whole cast would do the same, lol). I will never understand how anyone can rate this drama over 7.5 (and that's being very generous), or say it didn't deserve to be cut down, OR that it's the best drama they've ever watched. If you're one of those, I strongly recommend you to watch better things because I assure you there are tons of other things to watch that will actually have an impact in your life, not like this mediocre and half-assed drama.
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But I love how Ha Won and Seo Won crossed path and develop feeling for each other. Their lovestory has no huge confessions, no dramatic kisses just warm hugs and beautiful conversations because they both find comfort to each other. Medyo boring jud xa gamay ky very solemn iya genre ug madala ka sa ilang heavy hearts. But happy ending pa rin for Seo Woo and Ha Won.
*I really love their OST esp the "Rain or Shine" by Elaine.
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If you want something different that will move your heart and want to feel warmth then just go for it.....
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Failure is an option
For a slow drama to work you need a tight and controlled storytelling otherwise it will turn into a tasteless picture of which this drama fell into constantly. This notion was only amplified further by poor character writing, poor plot devices, and poor attention to details. The writer must have been utterly delusional thinking she was writing something "good". The final blow was delivered with cutting down the number of episodes. On the bright side, it ended early!Was this review helpful to you?
Slowly Fall by Ha Hyun Sang & Rain or Shine by Elaine (OSTs)
These OSTs sum up the first 3/4 of the drama perfectly, the lovely heart breakingly touching part. So if you are in the mood for these songs, you are in the mood for this drama. It teetered a bit towards the end and felt less slice-of-life. It got shortened to 12 episodes from 16 so I can understand the writers had to cut their original plan and (because I knew that) I can tell the direction they wanted to head in if they had the time. I don't even want to call it minor plot holes because they were that minuscule, I only remembered because I was looking out for it. So if it were given the 16 episode chance it could've been great or it could've been the opposite and bombed. I didn't like where I think it was heading with the minuscule plot holes (it could've been tiresome and repetitively dragged out) but this drama surprised me from the start so it could have surprised me at the end. Because they had to cut it to 16 episodes I feel sorry for the writer who couldn't fully deliver the story they wanted to deliver but unfortunately they cut out too much of the ending they wanted to tell. Instead of trying to squish it all in they basically ending up with nothing in the last few episodes so it was dragged out anyway. Which is why they decided to cut it because too many people were dropping it.Jung Hae In is killing the slice-of-life genre and I've loved Chae Soo Bin since I first saw her in Cheer Up! They did not let me down and I'm keen to watch both their next roles. Outside these two though the actors were passable, they fulfilled their role but they didn't surpass it and Moon Soon Ho annoyed me, especially when she started getting longer scenes towards the end. None of the characters are meant to be perfect, though Moon Ha Won is pretty close, but Moon Soon Ho was too much. She was realistic, annoyingly realistic! Ignorant and pushy and so annoying. Sure she doesn't know but please stop making comments, I wanted to shush her, like how I want to do that to people in real life. Including myself sometimes.
This story is one of healing, love and loss with amazing music so if you aren't in the mood for either I don't recommend it. "A memory which becomes a button to elevate your will, everyone has a memory which allows them to survive, which cheers you on. Something. A piece of one's own mind." - Moon Ha Won.
A key thing to note is to not take the sci-fi part too seriously, they don't really explain the device and it's very much not possible (or is it).
Quote:
It's not a big deal, just a person I've seen for the first time. He came in as though burrowing into my heart - Han Seo Woo
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This review may contain spoilers
This is a philosophical drama that explores “the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct” of the main and supporting characters. Through the fantasy element of the creation of a voice activated AI apparatus, the leading man, Moon Ha Won, is comforted as he creates an application that will help patients that have gone through traumatic events as he himself has. This drama evolves in super slow motion due to the unresolved feelings of important characters which, in one way or another, get their lives entangled through their interaction with Kim Ji Soo, an ephemeral character that leaves a complex and almost disturbing experience on everyone related to her. Then, there is also the lead female character, Han Seo Woo, which on the drama’s synopsis, is described as a person with “an open and optimistic mindset, believing that all things happen for a reason”. Most of the time, Seo Woo was ridiculously unreasonable, intrusive, impulsive, and insecure. Also, she develops a bizarre connection with Kim Ji Soo just after a few brief and almost nonsensical exchanges. Although the lead couple has good chemistry, their beautiful connection and developing love is wasted by Seo Woo’s antsy feelings toward Ha Won and her constant running away from him. Overall, the producers, writers, and editors missed to bring out a meaningful drama out of a potentially great story. Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
The first 5-6 episodes were incredible. I have fond memories of the anime "Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai", but this show has a more mature story and a better sequencing of events, up to the half way point at least. The actress playing Jisoo did an amazing job, I really felt drawn to her & later on even as a voice actor she was phenomenal. Feels weird that she is supposed to be a supporting actress, however Lee Hana is credited as the second lead. It's not like Lee Hana did a bad job, it's just that the writers were not kind to her character. After episodes 7-8 the writing has become aimless. I mean I get it, the ratings were bad & international audiences don't matter, so they tried a bunch of haphazard ideas to improve ratings, but I don't think that ever works, but it kind of ruins it for the rest of us. (same thing happened to When The Weather is Fine) They focused on Kang Inwook's character way too much to up the conflict, but I don't think anyone cared about him at any point in time. Ultimately the ending is reasonable (not great) and they did deliver on the sad boy meets sad girl & then they heal premise. The title of the drama is "A Piece of Your Mind", to me this means that if the writers have had the chance to develop their original concept we could have gotten a lot more focus on the AI devices. I'm thinking that the old lady that tuned the piano would have had a lot more screen time as well..We had stunning audio-visuals and good acting performances, but then again there are quite a few side characters that had meaningless storylines. Other than Jisoo & the OTP I did really not care about anyone else, which is a shame, because the cast was great. As for the main leads, they had average chemistry, but their acting performances were great.
One big plus is that even though the "final confrontation" was dragged out, things didn't devolve into full on makjang..
Overall the 8/10 rating seems reasonable for a show this memorable despite the numerous shortcomings.
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This review may contain spoilers
Story is a mess
This drama would be perfect if not for the lack of coherence plot-wise, the background story is well defined and it had a lot of potentials.After a couple of episodes, it felt like the production was throwing punches in the air to make sense of events.
The main one being when Jee Soo dies. She called Seo Woo when she was about to die, Which is just straight-up unrealistic because when someone is in a life and death situation they do anything to survive. She should've called Ha Won who knew where she would be and would've been able to contact local authorities and rescue her.
The second one is how Ha Won deals with his mother's murderer. He's basically just crying on a corner when he should be doing anything to get back to him or at least settle things with a punch or two. Either he's an ANGEL or I don't know.
The last one isn't really bad per se it's just that I find it annoying. The way Soon Ho handles knowing Kang was guilty of the death of Ha Won's mother. It's just infuriating to see her take the side of someone with who she has no connections other than wanting him to feel better or something.
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