Queen of Tears (2024)

the best k drama of 2024

surely the best K-Drama of 2024.
Talking about the character of the villain Yoon Eun-Seong. It was a very well-developed historical construction. A villain who, in essence, is not created to be hated but pitied. From the beginning to the end of the drama, Eun-Seong dedicated himself to doing the best he could, the best he knew and learned how to do. A character who grew up with a very strong trauma of abandonment and rejection, always on the margins and forgotten, living in the shadows, praying to be remembered by his mother figure. He spent his life developing a very strong identity crisis, basing himself on a perfect image in order to be recognized by his obsession, our dear protagonist Hong Hae-In, and also by his mother. In addition, he has had to confront his greatest enemy, not the protagonist Baek Hyun-Woo, but himself. And every time Eun-Seong had to face the fact that Hyun-Woo was ahead, he felt even more inferior and lost. In the end, the story of our villain himself is a real drama. The result of an accumulation of childhood traumas and distorted self-image. Yoon Eun-Seong, you should never have felt so inferior, you never lacked anything that was left over in your classmate, you just lacked therapy (k).
The script for the main couple Hong Hae-in and Baek Hyun-Woo is designed to be relatable. If, for a moment, we put aside all the ramifications of the story and focus only on the couple, we spend the entire drama identifying with one context or another of the moment they lived through.

Read More

Fabulous casting, but the storyline fell short.

I was captivated at the beginning. Then, like a lot of other K-dramas — it became too makjang-y and fell flat towards the end. I would say the acting carried such flawed storytelling all the way to the finish line. Kim Ji Won and Kim Soo Hyun are fantastic actors. The supporting cast does not disappoint as well. I'm still miffed at the wasted potential of the story, though. I think I felt totally disconnected from it by episode 13 and only continued watching because well, I was just 3 episodes away from the end. OST is great and hits you at the right moments. No rewatch value for me as I found the storyline too frustrating with a lot of elements that it could really have done without, especially in the last few episodes.

Read More

Queen of the Tears of Baek Hyunwoo, The Family and then the Audience

Progressing into love? Nope, put it in reverse. Queen of Tears starts with the intention of filling us into a swirl of being a third person in the middle of broken married relationship (marriage! right away! phew, I am not even started dating yet!) How to make a painful marriage ends? How to successfully cut ties with the family of your toxic wife as a lucky middle-class guy coming from the rural area? Surely, there is not many romance drama that started with falling out so quickly like this one.

With the thought of freedom is the only thing you want, I think Hyunwoo just put us being so empathetic with him so quick. Surely, shoved with how unlikeable Haein's family is and how they are so so so rich draws this huge gap that we are on his side quickly. That until we started to see that both of the characters sharing the same quality, also until we shared the common enemies.

I root for the main characters as time grows because the direction of the drama is really good. We are given the reasons to approve Hyunwoo idea's of divorce but then also realize that the key is only to revive the communication and terms between them. Anyway, isn't it natural to losing 'sparks' after all that love is not exercised? What starts to begin as enduring divorce as Haein heals has become how to revive both Haein's health and as well as the romance. One strong point this drama has is also how the side characters are charming and we all can see the growth of them making the happy ending are relieving news broadcasted through TV (literally.) At some points, it gives me as the audience that I am following a big gossip through infotainment (with the spices and hint from people inside.)

My friend told me that the making of Queen of Tears has exceeded many years that some of parts are not relevant to the present. I can see the similarity Queen of Tears shared with the common soap operas in my country that 1.) The family is really rich, it quite gives the boring idea that they do not have any struggles until they are being tricked into crime and lose all of their assets, 2.) The erasure of villains as conclusions and how black and white the characters seems. And so it has become my disturbance that Hyunwoo is so clean at the end. He has been abused, overworked (but I don't think he's underpaid), restricted from his rights, put in jail, almost get in attempted murder and HIT BY A FREAKING CAR yet his only concern is to live with the love of his life. I think it is given that way to par with Haein's incurable tumor, being lied to and tricked to lose everything he has worked hard for, wait also being kidnapped by a sicko obsessed guy...probably it was necessary to ripped all over their walls like that to see that they only need more time to be together to understand their love and fix how being a family was...but still I think it is not fair compared to Eunsong who we only known his motive was growing from being a traumatized child and ended up being so evil (alongside with his mother who we know so little the background of.) The weight of black and white this story has somehow leads to happy ending we expected but we need to get through to sooo many circling ways. The focus change in the drama is good as it expands to discovering many conflicts for character buildings but I think this drama could have less episode while making use of the characters background a little more.

Despite knowing how hyperbolic sometimes the plot is, Queen of Tears has offered something so good to experience, and that is to love and being loved is trully the most important thing in life.

Read More

Definitetly a K-drama to watch.

What a beautiful story full of twist and turns (and yes cliches, it's a k-drama after all) but ultimately it's talking about life and family. Harsh realities of marriage and difficulties of preserving family ties. I wish it was longer at the end to truly give us a complete closure but the ending as it is, is perfect, and also because I was a bit disappointed in some of the story points.

The story itself is not out of the ordinary, on the contrary, you'll find many other kdramas or dramas with similar storylines and plots. I did find myself skipping some parts about the Queen's company's legal problems. I feel like this kdrama had sooo much more potential to truly elevate it beyond what we have already seen. The main villains are very one-dimensional and you just hate and despise them to your core. I was expecting more from their stories and to truly understand why they behaved like that, but ultimately they were basic power-thirty and money-hunger villains. The best stories are the ones where the villains' actions may make sense. In the case of Queen of Tears, the villains are just placed there to be obstacles to the main lead and the family and a way for them to grow closer. I would have enjoyed more substance to those characters. Some also complained about the insane amount of plot twists and cliffhangers, while it is true ( being a consequence of the weak storyline about the queen's company), it does help to keep us captivated and invested until the very end. It's hard to find in kdrama nowadays with so many people dropping shows due to boredom at the end or lack of depth. Something good that comes out of an evil.

Nonetheless, What makes this drama truly special is the characters and the chemistry between them. You find yourself truly rooting and caring for them. The main cast for the couple is just perfect, couldn't think of a better match than Kim soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won. This drama is LITERALLY what some people mean when they say that it's the characters that makes or break a tv show.

This drama contains it all: comedy, action, drama, mystery, cliches. But everything is well executed.

Yes, it could be too much at times but everything comes together ultimately.

Honestly, one of the best parts of this drama was the weekly wait. I've never been more invested in a community than in this drama. Everyone had their theories and speculations. It was just overall a fun experience.

The Episodes are long but they go by fast. I would suggest you give it a go because I understand it could be a hit or miss for some.

Read More

A very entertaining watch

Queen of Tears is the story of Hae In, a chaebol heiress looking to get into the Billion Club. She is someone who is unable to express her feelings properly and is not very aware of the feelings of others. Someone like this would be a nightmare to deal with in real life, albeit this is a drama, and we have the advantage of seeing her side of things too. She is an excellent character, overall one of the most iconic FLs in Korean dramas. Her improvement over time is for me one of the best things about QOT. Kim Ji Won does a great job of portraying her.

The ML is a stereotypical cardboard romance ML, a perfect man who is good at everything and loves the FL because of reasons. He has zero goals and dreams except loving and helping the FL. Like the FL, he doesn't cover himself in glory in the beginning but he quickly gets his head straight and becomes the FLs anchor. Those who are concerned about my description, don't be, Kim Soo Hyun's magnificent performance elevates this character at the same heights as the FL easily.

The cinematography is top-notch, OSTs are memorable and well-chosen. The acting here is second to none.

The only bad thing about this is the writing. The author is very talented in writing emotional scenes, but horrible in developing a decent plot.

I already rewatched a lot of scenes and I click on the videos from QOT more often than not when they pop on my youtube feed, so I would say that this drama has a high rewatch value overall.

And one more thing I would like to add, the ending scenes were some of my favorites from all the dramas I've ever watched.

9/10 from me. Everyone should watch this!

Read More

Amnesia trope but actually done well

To be honest I wasn’t expecting much from this K-Drama when I first started it. I don’t think I was planning on watching this when it started promoting, but I was looking for something new since I was bored, and this just happened to be there at the exact time I needed it.

I have no complaints about this K-Drama really. I’m not a big crier when I watch media, but this K-Drama tugged on my heartstrings so much. My biggest enemy is the death trope and this whole show made me get thousands of heart attacks by making me think one of them is going to die.

The love story between the main characters was so beautifully done. From the beginning on how they fell in love, to how they fell out of love and then doing it all again, fighting through their rough patches. It was genuinely so well done.

Granted it was a little frustrating because the couple kept misunderstanding each other and the entire time i would scream “just say it!!!”. Some of those scenes were a little too frustrating to watch, but it was worth it in the end.

I’m not the biggest fan of amnesia plots but this one was a little different since it wasn’t only centred around her losing memories but more so of the process of her losing them until ultimately doing so.

The actors had such an amazing chemistry between each other, I honestly loved them as a couple and I rooted for them throughout the show! Since I’m usually a huge second lead lover, this time the second lead had zerooo chances against the ML. The ML and FL were truly made for each other.

And also, I kinda dislike the constant “they met each other before when they were kids” storylines, almost every K-Drama has this nowadays, c’mon now!! Let’s be original and leave this trope alone!! And not only did the ML meet her when he was a kid but so did the second lead LOL its just stupid really. Second lead made sense but the ML meeting her two times in the past? Yeah alright…

And another thing I wanted to comment on is how well they hid the advertisement in their show. Usually they’re super noticeable in K-Dramas. When they whip out Kopiko and eat it with the dialogue following it like “Hm I definitely woke up from this!”, In queen of tears the way they implemented ads in there was barely noticeable which is why I got so immersed into the story. Although I did notice the blatant Subway advertising LOL.

All in all, this K-Drama had a lot of twist and turns, its a lot- and I probably missed out on a lot what I wanted to say because there’s just so many storylines and plots going on in there, but it keeps you entertained and engaged. Sometimes it would have boring scenes but they pass by fast and are followed up with interesting ones right after. Its well done, I loved it.

Keep in mind its a very heavy K-Drama, and if you’re very sensitive, this K-Drama will definitely make you cry!!

Read More

This show beat my prejudice towards it

I heard about this show from the several blogs and news articles about the record viewers and also the high ratings. I'm usually very critical of this, especially because usually my personal taste clashes with that of the general K-Drama audience. But wow, what a surprise this was.

I'm not going to do a spoiler review here, because I believe part of the joy of this show is to see the events unfold. Many common tropes were used, but that is not a negative when done well. I really took my time to reflect on the characters and their choices as I went along, and it was a really enjoyable exercise. I find myself enriched after this show, although with a clump of nostalgia and sadness somewhere within, like losing a dear person you won't be able to meet again. I really enjoyed the male MC, maybe a bit too perfect, but someone I'd aspire to be as a man in many ways.

Regardless of it all, I suggest you give it a shot. The episodes are pretty lengthy, but that is something I learned to love of K-Drama.

Read More

mostly disappointing but the ending DESTROYED me

i think the story could’ve been amazing if the writers actually took time to think about it. they never explained the magic side of it, how haein had visions and appeared in weird places (having a brain tumor made zero sense for that matter), then she was so sick and had 3 months to live bc her case was so rare but suddenly there was a cure. one time they were in germany and she was an old man in a grave that hyunwoo didn’t see and it was predictable that it was hyunwoo in the future but how could she see him?!?!? overall the plot felt rushed and like not much thought was given into it HOWEVER even tho it was so predictable that that old man was hyunwoo the ending still destroyed me and i cried so much bc their love was so beautiful ❤️‍🩹

Read More

Best acting of 2024 as of now with a "could be better " plot wise!

To be fair, for me the rating is actually something like 8.8/10.

As i said earlier, the acting is really good on this one, the whole cast did a FANTASTIC JOB, but the LEAD COUPLE was really really well casted! a round of applause to them, i think they actually carried this drama, i hope they will win a lot of awards, they deserve it.

There were too many cliches, i hope this drama was more original, less predictable....
Some characters were unrealistic, like come on, in real life this would have never happened.
The villain could have been written better. I hope Park Sung Hoon will get the recognition he deserves and maybe play the good guy next time lol.

I actually recommend it, watch it and make your own opinion of it, don't be swayed by the bad reviews. It is not the perfect drama but it is enjoyable, and Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Ji Won are the lead! like come on, what else do you need to give it a try!?

Read More

Mediocre about marriage story, but the acting was fantastic, especially the main CP

Queen of Tears is a melodramatic K-drama about the love story of Baek Huyn Woo and his wife, Hong Hae In. A boy meets and falls in love with a girl from a well-to-do family, and the dysfunctional dynamic that their family embarks on ruins their relationship.

My Reviews:
1. The main CP acted awesomely, especially the ML, Kim Soo Hyun.
2. The story is okay, nothing special. Typical Romantic Comedy with a melodramatic twist.
3. I didn't like many of the side characters in this drama, where I FF their scenes and only wanted to focus on the main CP.
4. The story started slow and draggy in the first 7-8 episodes. It gets more interesting when FL is diagnosed with a brain tumor; through the matter of life and death, she and her husband rediscover their love for each other.
5. It is a good drama, and the acting is exceptional, especially the main CP. I wish they had more screen time instead of too many supporting casts who steal their screen time.

I give it an 8.5 rating for exceptional acting from the cast.

Read More