Nahhh!
Combinedly produced by ‘Hi Ground’, ‘JS Pictures’, and ‘Great Story’, “Becoming Witch (마녀는 살아있다)” is a modern makjang-styled dark comedy drama with little mysteries. Written by Park Pa Ran and directed by Kim Yun Chul, the drama was broadcasted on TV Chosun.The story follows the wrecked married lives of three friends in their 40s, as they set to put an end to the aggravations in the already-frustrating situations when things become unbearable at a point. Gong Ma Ri (Lee Yu Ri) is a housewife, married to the star anchorman Lee Nak Gu (Jung Sang Hoon) and has a daughter, finds out about her husband cheating on her. Chae Hee Soo (Lee Min Young) is married to a rich household, and takes care of her bed-ridden mother-in-law, is unable to conceive and thus having a bitter relationship with her husband Nam Mu Yong (Kim Young Jae). Yang Jin Ah (Yoon So Yi), a widower, lives a luxurious life with the money she got from the life insurance after her husband Kim Woo Bin (Ryu Yun Suk)’s death.
Other familiar faces in the drama are: Ye Soo Jung, Kim Hyun Jun, Park Yoon Hee, Jung Ah Mi, Sun Byung Sook, Han So Eun, etc.
Plot development was stable for the first half with several peaks which in the second half hit the shambles, particularly the last 3 episodes did dirty to the show. The beginning started impressive, it was a package of mixture of different elements: comedy, melodrama, melancholia, mysteries, etc. The progression was also a bit interesting as the two sides in the life of each of the 3 friends started going hard against each other. The problem was when all these soon escalated into the highest peak and it felt like they were quickly gonna run outta context, which actually happened.
The debutant writer has way more to go and learn. They did a good job establishing the pilot episode and the follow-up by adding attractive elements like the badass female leads, their fashionable outfits, suspicious behaviors, and shades to their individual stories. I was glad at the fact that the character assessment for the leads have been kept brief while elaborating more on behavioral psychology. The downgrade in writing could be a result of inexperience in handling the stress or something, for which the show felt exaggerated with some repetitions and became boring in the 2nd half. The way major twists were unveiled was entertaining.
I don’t know the director nor do I can judge his style of working but this wasn’t a good experience in overall. While the sound-editing and sequencing are up to par, the overall execution hits low by the end and the show stop making sense. The camera shots were likable ngl.
There are 6 OSTs…
# “Shut Up” by Kim Boa
# “Kill My Love” by City Noise
# “Every Morning” by ID: Earth
# “Now or Never” by Weki Meki
# ”I’ll Be With You” Kim Bo Young
# “Take Me Home” by Navi
Definitely not the best performance of Lee Yu Ri but this was a different kinda character from her previous roles and she aced it, every bit of it was interesting until the arc turned annoying. Happy for how Lee Min Young has improved and she carried out the misery of Hee Soo very well. Jung Sang Hoon was crazy.
Oracle’s café and the element of her being a badass feminist did intrigue a lot and loved it for sure. That part was exciting and thrilling at the same time.
Final Remarks… Pretty mediocre from every aspect, this drama pretty much missed the littlest of scope that could have been rethought and improved by the makers. The actors did their job but the lacking in the direction made it worse. My reason of starting this was the poster and Yuri’s look in it and was expecting something out of t but had t somehow finish the 2nd half for the sake of finishing. Not recommending even for one time watch.
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Unique dark humor.
This is really underrated and under appreciated, a few terrible comments and reviews almost stopped me from watching it..This is a unique show, no matter what you everyone thinks this is something you'll only experience once in your kdrama life. People watch and accept regurgitated kdramas with all the same cliches and troupes, but criticize something unique so harshly.
The cast was superb, especially Lee Yoo Ri, and Lee Min Young.
It starts off with dark comedy (imo one of the funniest I've seen) but gets more serious on later episodes, with the consequences from all the comedy riling up. And has a little sad touch in the end.
All these parts are well written, the story is not very realistic, but serves it's comedic purposes, the seriousness and the sad plot in the end is good enough to tear your heart apart. The ending closure was great and left NEARLY nothing to be desired. (There are some loose threads).
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‘Entertaining But Empty’ Is Spot On
The acting carried the show. Somehow I found myself finishing the show despite the severe “what am I watching?” feeling I had throughout. The performances carried the overwhelmingly lacking script. Certain plot points ended up being super repetitive, and without a convincing reason behind the character’s motivations and actions. If not for the acting, I would’ve dropped the show long ago. The ending/resolution was also a bit anti-climactic, which is disappointing enough. I was hoping the writer would somehow stick the landing. To the reviewer that tagged the show “Entertaining but Empty”… truer words have never been spoken. Kudos to you for succinctly describing this entertaining train wreck of a show.Was this review helpful to you?
Wasted potential
I gave this one 3.5/10 for its promising start. The first 5 episodes were well played black comedy with a real emotional core. After that, as others have noted, it was makjang meldown time, and all the good work of the setup in the early episodes was wasted. This was especially true of Lee Min Young's character. She was the most sympathetic of the 3 leads, and the pathos of her arc could have grounded the show, but sadly her character also fell victim to the "must make more makjang" I would not recommend this to anyone, except fans of mediocre makjangWas this review helpful to you?
Witching!
This turned out to be a lot of fun. Don't be so hung up on the details and the ridiculousness, after all it's a mix of black comedy and satire, and it did a good job in that regard. It showed a lot of interesting ideas but one thing irked me was its lack of commitment to some themes, sometimes it kept it tame and didn't go all the way through. Although the trio had a great dynamic but Chae Hee Soo always ended up being the third wheel in the relationship and in the allocated screen time which is unfortunate because there was a lot of room to get her more involved. Right at the very beginning the drama tell us that one of them will die but it was a bit obvious who. That small section involving the departure and grief at the end was a bit too brief, I wish the drama gave it more focus because it fit the theme just right. One more thing, it was a bit long and some elements got stale.Was this review helpful to you?
