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Good, BUT ONLY IF YOU BINGE WATCH
For me, this is a confusing one. I managed to binge the first 12 or so episodes and then had to wait for the next episodes to be released. From episodes 1 to 12 I loved Private Lives pretty much. I thought it was great, although in some parts a little confusing. But when I had to wait a weekish to watch the next episodes, I just found myself lost and alot less interested in the story and characters. Although the acting and chemistry was superb in this, I thought how characters were introduced were not the best.Anyways, follow my advice and I'm sure you will love it to the end. Private Lives is definitely a great watch as long as you are consistent with it and don't wait too long to watch the next episode.
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Left in a state of confusion
Poor production/directing .The first 5 episodes were great but then i don't understand what happened next. There's too much story within a story without any conclusive consistency.
I still don't quite get what happened. It could be that my observational skills were lacking or the poor directing or both. Either way this drama was very much confusing, the last episode did not make much sense either.
However, i must commend the cast they did an excellent job in portraying their characters.
I would only recommend This drama for people who just want to pass time.
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This review may contain spoilers
Wasted potential in the drama, but pieces together nicely
Overall, Private Lives had a lot of wasted potential, in my opinion. The characters, in particular, lacked a deeper character development and depth that I hoped would emerge throughout the 16 episodes. Exploration into the characters’ purposes and how/why they see the world as they do would have been nice. For example, Lee Junghwan’s background is briefly mentioned and shown throughout, but it didn’t fully explain to me exactly how it shaped him into who he is. Same situation for some of the other characters and their relationships. Sophia Chung/Jung Bokgi/Jung Yoonkyung and Cha Jooeun’s connection was a bit odd to me, like they looked like they started to get along so well and then suddenly Sophia Chung is off and doing her own thing without Cha Jooeun, then they’re working together again….? Maybe it was just me, but it seemed a bit disconnected.The structure of the drama was another weakness as it was quite confusing and difficult to follow at the beginning, which is one of the most important parts of a drama. First two episodes were quite confusing, more than most other dramas’ introductions. I’d recommend thinking of the first two episodes as simply setting up the stage for the plot, even though it seems like they could be part of the plot already. The drama also uses a lot of flashbacks to explain things as the drama progresses, but the timeline was not very clear (once again, mostly in the first few episodes) and was difficult for me to follow, even as someone who usually doesn’t mind flashbacks in dramas and can generally keep up well. I would say the plot really started becoming clear around episode three or four for me, so this drama took some determination to get through haha. Honestly, I could see this drama being shortened to 14 or even 12 episodes and be fine. Certain areas were dragged on a little too long or were kind of boring, while I would say that ep 16 was a bit rushed to tie everything together. Some plot points were also overused (like the “faking a death” thing…a bit too much to use it three times in one drama imo).
I’d say the two main points that made me keep watching were the plot and the cast. The plot had flaws that I mentioned before, but it did piece together well at the end (if you make it that far, that is). It had a few surprising twists and was decently intricate once it was fully revealed. Second, I loved the cast. Seohyun and Go Kyungpyo’s chemistry was amazing. I actually watched the behind the scenes clips first before I started Private Lives, and it was one of the main reasons I watched Private Lives. I’d love to see Seohyun and Go Kyungpyo together in a drama again, except this time a romance drama, because I thought their chemistry was great both on camera and off camera. Kim Hyojin, Kim Youngmin, and Tae Wonseok also did great as their characters, so the acting was definitely a good part of the drama.
Final note: I was hoping for a bit more out of Private Lives as I feel like the cast and plot had a lot of potential, but it was a nice revealing of a puzzle, if you’re into that and willing to piece things together. I binged the drama in a few days so it was a decent story to pass time with, but I don’t think I would’ve stuck with it if I watched it as it aired.
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1A scam within a scam!
What happens when a group of scammers seek revenge and become embroiled in a scam that has roots in high political circles? This is the premise of Private Lives.On the surface, Private Lives might seem like the classic crime-team where several people collaborate to try to get what they want. In reality, the drama leads us to discover a political thriller where the scammers act as if they were the players of the game, unaware that they are pawns manipulated by powers that are far above them. When some of these pawns decide to go their own way, things get complicated unleashing a trail of action and revenge that leads to unpredictable events for the viewer.
If the direction favors us by trying to focus on individual characters, even with beautiful cinematic cuts, the editing decides instead to respect the 2020 trend. Even Private Lives has in fact chosen to tell its story in a NON-linear way, this means many different timelines that overlap each other to the point of proposing flashbacks in matryoshka style. I do not deny that following the plot during the broadcast was quite difficult, especially for those like me who follow many dramas at the same time, for this reason, I think that this title is more suitable for a good binge-watch.
As mentioned above, the drama tells us the story of five scammers who try to survive, but who gets involved in a plot bigger than them that gets further complicated when old wrongs and grudges lead them to act alone, often one against the other, rather than joining forces. Although I appreciated this type of concept, I must say that the drama suffers a little from the lack of team-bonding that usually accompanies this type of storyline. In the same way, I appreciated the idea of introducing a bit of romance, but I must report that the plot is so twisted that there was no room to develop this element properly. On the other hand, the interpretation of the cast is excellent. In the face of these two underdeveloped elements, the romance and the bond between the characters, they still managed to propose crazy chemistry on the screen.
Along with the acting, among the positive elements, I certainly include the cuts of scenography and the excellent camera work, especially during action scenes. The script, which although it did not go where I wanted, still managed to propose an interesting and captivating plot. For the record, I must say that the quality of the episodes is fluctuating, almost always one is quieter while the other reveals important plot implications. The soundtrack goes well with the rhythm of the drama, but in my opinion, was a bit repetitive with the usual 4 songs.
Overall Private Lives managed to tell a story of scammers in a very different and eventful way, the cast gave their all to convey all those emotions on the screen that are easy to lose sight of when the plot is so full of events and secondary characters. . Unfortunately, it fails on the editing front as this production too, has chosen to overturn the narrative chronological order.
- Translated from my Italian review -
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I loved the 2nd fl! she was just ADORABLE! I loved the potential of the FL and I really liked the actress but they wasted her worth. the sismance was 1000% better than the romance.
loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong draggy plotline, no real character depth or growth, not enough solidarity in the romance, not enough 2fl, 2ml was a wasted potential (I had a serious crush on him after WOTM and running man but here he was just an old man obsessed with his dog.)
not enough teammance, not enough connections, like mad dog survived on the team, this was just random people going after a vague thing? not enough evviiilll, or scheming, I even watched a little from a next or nextnext ep and it was just one old guy nagging that he schemed stuff
at some point the ml was just selfish and a loser, he blamed the fl when he did more wrong to her. and basically I just stopped caring, I thought maybe a fast being would help but I don't think I ever paid attention to anyone but the 2fl
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Meandering, waste of potential
If this drama has stuck to the pathos of the first two episodes, we might have had a really decent show about the world of professional fraudsters. The set up was neat. A family of scammers who do small time "documentaries" (the euphemism for an orchestrated swindle) who come undone when they are taken in by a bigger, more clever fraudster. Their daughter, who has kept herself out of her family's less than legal methods of attaining wealth, attempts to take revenge by learning all the tricks of the trade, only to fall in love and decide that she must be the one to leave this world behind.There is a great story to be told in this summary alone and it's a shame the show decided that it would shelf it for something with no clear direction, populated with a cast of characters who have no clear motives, with a timeline that jumps back and forth so frequently it's hard to track whether we are watching a scene from the past, or the present.
The writer seems to think that a confused timeline equals a suspenseful show - but it does not. It just leads to a directionless plot with an inordinate amount of time rehashing moments that were already clear and meeting (then meeting again!) people we care very little about. The pacing is so slow, it is a wonder this is supposed to be about the fast paced world of scams and clever fraudsters.
Watch the first two episodes to get a taste of what this show should have been about, then drop it and write your own fan fiction - it will probably be better.
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Definitely different but the storyline gets messy, would be better to watch it all at once!
I watched this drama as each episode came on Netflix, and that sometimes really weakened my link to it. The drama has a strong start and it piques your interest. However after probably the first half, the plot gets messy and there are too many things going on which could easily confuse the viewer.Few other problems that I noted:
-Joo Eun and Jung Hwan (Seohyun and Kyung Pyo) had great chemistry (check their bts and you'll realise why I say so) but their storyline was not well fleshed out.
-Joo Eun and Sophia Chung had an interesting dynamic which was not explored well.
-The show would have definitely worked better in a 12 episode format.
-I still have many questions that need to be answered but somehow I am still okay about that part.
Why I kept going:
-Strong Female characters who had distinct personalities.
-Sophia Chung was a SCENE STEALER! Whenever she would come on screen my attention would always divert to her.
-Sophia and Edward had the most interesting love line in the show (additional scenes of the two could have helped the show).
-Everyone acted very well from the main to the support cast.
-Funnily in spite of not having as many scenes as some other characters, the righteous policeman Myung Hyun really caught my eye. I was interested to see how he gets involved and helps our leads (also his dynamic with his fellow female officer was fun to see I was kind of rooting for them).
-I was curious to see how it all comes together.
Had I watched the whole thing at once I would have been more engaged and enjoyed it more! In spite of the problems I mentioned in the beginning, I still enjoyed the show.
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Overall, I'd still say that this drama is 'good'. An interesting story that lacked proper execution I'd say.
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UNIQUELY INTERESTING!!!
The plot is really unique showing a blurry present while slowly revealing the past bit by bit in each episode. Each episode revealing more and more about what truly happened to the main lead. The chemistry of the leads is off the roofs on screen and off screen. The first 12 Episodes were FANTASTIC but the final 4 were slightly confusing. Writer nim definitely had a hiccup towards the end but the suspense and build up of whats going to happen through out the drama will make you stick with it. JUST give it a shot AND YOU WILL LIKE IT.Was this review helpful to you?
The leads chemistry are the best thing here
I follow this drama since episode 1 cause I found this's interesting & different. The chemistry between FL ML and SFL SML were really on point, those are the best thing in this drama.But the development of the story was confusing a lot, there're too much that we (as the audience) didn't know, and too much mystery (some of them were answered on the following eps, but still it's too much). It's getting more confusing for me, because I have to wait a week to go to the next eps, meanwhile there're a lot of details that I already forgot. This drama is better to be binge-watched, so you'll understand more about the story.
From the first until middle eps I think this drama was cool and somehow hooked me, but after I watched the ending, phew.. I don't like it. Unfortunately some of the mysteries have not been answered until last eps. For me it's frustrating and wasn't as cool as it supposed to be.
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This review may contain spoilers
Intense!
I initially watched this drama for Seohyun and I definitely now see her in a new light. She and the other stars did an amazing job. The plot was super awesome, but it is sometimes not obvious to other people (as I've recommended this drama to other people and they were confused as to why the con artists called themselves "actors").I love the chemistry between all of the characters, but I was definitely confused with the second couple's relationship along with how the main character suddenly ended up being in cohorts with the woman she wanted to get revenge on. Not sure if it is something that can be overlooked, but I did enjoy every aspect of this drama regardless.
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