Not SOOO Disappointing,Not SOO BAD.
First of all,i'm just seeing Very low rated reviews so i thought i should say something about this drama in a review.I'm actually rating it more than average but i know exactly why everyone is so disappointed at this show,i realized you have to shut off your brain and be in a particular state of mind to like this Drama! I also started watching it while ongoing and dropped after ep 7/8 and skipped many scenes later and just focused on Ryu Shi Oh (byeon woo seok was always my favourite) and finished it...That time i was actually very busy with my life and couldn’t afford to relate with the silly comedy scenes.But what happened later was,in 2024 i mean in this year i was jobless and in a very Depressive state in early months so i thought i would just shut off my brain and watch something not-so-serious and started Re-watching Strong girl nam soon..& very surprisingly i quite loved it,the story was tight,but how It's shown has It's questions, they wanted to keep the show ''lighter'' but ended up being silly..but indulged in depression these silly comedies helped me to feel good actually ..The grandmother's love part was the only thing i couldn’t bear myself to watch but the rest of the cast actually did very very well..Ryu shi Oh's character, how It's written, how It's portrayed is SO good and sooo intriguing..(I miss this kind of well written villains' character in kdramas all the time).. Also, the ML & FL did well (FL has certain type of characteristics that people here on MDL really find annoying but that's actually how her character was written,naive,talkative,giving cutesy vibes)& she did good portraying that..the side plots were many and interesting too... ML's team members and related comedies were good.
I later searched on naver to see if it was popular in korea and not to my surprise, it was!! The ratings were good and it was well received by korean audiences.If you want to start this drama,start it,it is NOT THAT TERRIBLE, you might start loving it like me or end up falling hard just for the villain,just like everybody else.Happy Watching!
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Fun, Fun, Fun
I cannot understand all the bad reviews for this show. Its just a fun show that never takes itself seriously with the possible exception of the bad guy. If you start with the framework that everybody in the show is crazy then you will undoubtedly enjoy it. I laughed all the way through Namson's naivety and cluelessness. The lack of logic in her heroic deeds was just part of the weirdness.Her beautiful mother, Guem Joo, was equally as reckless and crazy with her "save the world" obsession. Most of the other characters were no less quirky, especially the totally dysfunctional family.
Anyway, I watch a lot of K-Dramas and the characters in this one were some of my all time favorites.
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Promising and Fun Start that became Unwatchable
THE GOOD: The show was really amusing for the first several episodes. A superhero premise demands suspension of disbelief and this one is almost a parody (which actually made it better and a lot of fun). Enjoyed the BA mom, naive/pure daughter, and comedic relief grandma . The boy toys were a satirical reversal of older superhero shows. CGI was in keeping with the overall campy vibe. It all worked... at first.THE BAD: Unfortunately, the characters became one dimensional and grating, especially grandma. Romance lacked chemistry and credibility. The villain was boring. The plot line was unfocused, tediously slow, and increasingly uninteresting. Although this is subjective, the daughter's hair cut made her significantly less attractive--the actress is a beautiful woman and mom has unlimited money, so how could she look worse after the makeover? The actors deserved better writers.
THE UGLY: By Episode 8, there was a growing evangelistic worldview being preached that is out of place in a light, entertaining RomCom. Socialism = Good, Capitalism = Evil (which seems odd coming out of a divided Korea that clearly displays the opposite). Women = Strong/Intelligent, Men=Weak, Dumb, and/or Evil. (Etc.) When the sermonizing outweighed the entertainment, I quit watching.
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don’t buy into the hate - it’s an entertaining show : )
y’all are a bit weird!! why the hate? I don’t get it. Yes we all have a crush on Byeon Woo-Seok but it’s kinda cuckoo to base our opinion only on that. He was playing a villain after all. albeit one who actually had a heart at times and had a tough upbringing, still a villain though.Personally I would like to say that this show was entertaining!! i liked it. I laughed, I shed a few tears, I swooned and I wanted to to know how it would end. I ain’t disappointed. it’s not perfect, it has its loose ends and so on but it’s definitely entertaining, kinda cute too. I really like Nam-soon ‘innocence’ - it was refreshing and it made for some funny scenes. There are lots of characters to discover, surely you’ll appreciate at least a few.
my only negative feedback would be that this show is poorly titled it should have been ‘strong women’ as it really about three generations and not one.
I have yet to watch the first one so can’t compare.
that’s my two cents. Give it a try if only for the beautiful landscapes of Mongolia and to have a few laughs.
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This review may contain spoilers
disappointed
I was looking forward to this drama as swdbs was the first drama I've watched and my fav. I have been disappointed.The first episodes were so good! I kept looking forward to saturdays and sundays. But I feel like the story was focused more on the grandma's love life than nam soon's. The chem was so much better with the villain than with the ml, that I started to lose interest. At ep 10-12 (I think) the relationship between nam soon and hee sik started developing too fast that it was superficial. I was team ml but i hated the fact that it was so focused on the villain. I understand that they did that to enhance the effect of breaking the villains heart, but it overpowered the chemistry between nam soon and hee sik. + I didn't like how the fl acted like a child. at first it was cute or wtv but later it felt like hee sik fell in love with a child.
I'm not saying Its super bad, but I wouldn't waste my time watching it if I were you.
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Decent but lacking in many ways
Strong Woman Do Bongsoon is one of my favorite dramas, so I was really excited when they announced Strong Girl Gang Namsoon. Unfortunately, they did not really deliver with this follow-up series.For one thing, why is it called Strong Girl Gang Namsoon when for a majority of the show it feels like her mother, Hwang Geumju, is the protagonist? While I liked that we got three different storylines with three different generations, I often felt they preferred Geumju over Namsoon for the main story.
Namsoon was incredibly irritating to me for half of the show too. She was so headstrong and never thought before she acted, but there was rarely a consequence to her actions. It was annoying to just see her doing what she wanted with no repercussions despite being constantly warned. She felt very much like a Mary Sue.
I hated the storyline with Bread Song. It felt so disconnected and annoying for the entire show and for it to lead up to a cliffhanger in the final episode was even more irritating.
The only good thing about this show was Ryu Sio, played by Byeon Wooseok. His character’s backstory was incredibly interesting and made him very sympathetic to me. I kept hoping there would be a bigger evil that would give him a chance to become a hero, but it didn’t happen. I was disappointed especially in the way that his character ended and finding out that Binbin, his only friend, was alive and still evil.
The romantic bits between Namsoon and Heeshik were cute, but it felt like they instantly fell in love within 3-4 episodes and no time was spent directly developing their relationship. While it worked for me, it was not the strongest. Also, why did they never come back around to the fact he got hit in the head with her horse’s bell?
I really am disappointed that the show ended by setting up for another one. It left too many loose ends, which is not something I’m used to with k-drama. I’m blaming it’s rising popularity in the West that’s leading to things being done in parts or seasons instead of just finishing up a show in one go like they used to.
Overall, this series is quite funny and had some great storytelling, but had too many plotlines going on that made it convoluted and silly. The final episode feels like a speed run to tie up loose ends and also set up a follow-up series which left me feeling disappointed. Aside from the name and concept, this show is really nothing like Strong Woman Do Bongsoon and it barely deserves to be considered related to it. If you are a fan of the original series, you really won’t miss anything if you skip this one.
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So much potential
I’m not sure what happened because the first 2 episodes had such potential! By episode 4 I was tired of the “10,000” additional and unnecessary storylines that it definitely destroyed any possibility of this show being any good. I couldn’t help but start to cringe at On Seong Wu’s acting. As talented as he is, there was no way he could salvage it and the rest of the cast (minus Byeon Woo Seok) was less than entertaining too. It was disappointing for all the actors involved.The only redeeming character was the villain and Woo Seok did a good job bringing that character to life. Sadly, he deserved a better show with a better villain role. Honestly, I skipped through most of the episodes just to watch him and still know the whole story in the end.
Bottom line, it was predictable, and tried to play the “cute” card that honest Park Bo Young and Park Hyun Sik are masters at, too many story lines and no originality. Please let this “franchise” end with this one.
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Not a very good Marvel version of K-drama franchise
This marks the second K-drama from Netflix that I've found myself unable to finish. The first was "King The Land," a series that turned my favorite actor into a rather bland Disney character."Strong Girl Namsoon," on the other hand, feels like a Marvel show with a Korean twist. While the original show placed a heavy emphasis on character development and their emotions, this one seems to prioritize the superhero aspect without delving into substantial character growth.
The male lead and the grandmother are undeniably talented actors who manage to shine with the material they are given. However, the female lead feels one-dimensional, lacking any significant depth or emotional complexity. Surprisingly, she doesn't even have any abandonment issues, despite being left with adoptive parents.
My breaking point came when I witnessed the antagonist resorting to a blue drug for superhero abilities. It felt like a significant departure from the tone and direction I was hoping for, leading me to decide to drop the series altogether.
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This review may contain spoilers
After watching 20th century girl and seeing all the Ryu Shio edits, I was quite intrigued to watch this series, but decided not to due to all the negative comments. But now that I have watched Lovely runner, I decided to give it a try for Byeon Woo Seok. Unfortunately I couldn't finish it, even for him!Why did I drop after ep 8 (+ep 9 only Ryu Shio scenes)?
- FL: I believe they wanted to make the FL innocent and naive, but she ended up being a 6-year old child in an adult body. At first I found her cute, but then when the whole spy thing started, she was just dumb! Someone mentioned that this series audience are kids, and that's really true! Who would hold a watch with hidden camera like that? And why didn't the cops give her any instructions regarding the computer, usually in movies they put an USB stick into the computer to get access, but here she is stealing the whole computer... I think it's supposed to be funny, but it just felt stupid.
It's so sad, she could have been a very cool & cute character...
- ML: The actor is cute, but character is very bland, boring and uncharming. Also he didn't have any chemistry with the FL. The romance didn't really make sense to me, like how & why did he fall in love with her?
- FL's Mother: It would have been great to show that she succeeded as a hero & businesswoman, but as a failed mother (not sure if that happens later in the drama), that would add more complexity to her character. And then we could have seen her redeeming herself.
- Villain: Him verifying FL's identity and ML being able to hide voice recorders in the building was very sloppy for someone who was part of Russian mafia. He also wasn't as cold as I expected him to be. However I didn't watch the whole series, so maybe after watching the whole drama it would make sense...
As for the rest: I didn't care about the grandma at all (was kind of expecting her boyfriend to be an enemy, but read somewhere that that wasn't the case). I was disappointed that FL's brother and uncle were very weak and had nothing to themselves than being "ill". At least her father showed some kind of character...
So, overall this series is not good imo (even w/o the comparison with Do Bong Soon). It failed to capture me. I'm actually a sucker for cute FL, but it has to be done right, which this series couldn't. I fail to see the good points of this series...
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you'll fall in love with the characters!
I absolutely loved this drama but the thing I liked the most was that every single character was likeable, even with their flaws (and believe me, all of them had a lot; but that's the fun part, they didn't tried to hide it). Gang Nam-soon it's the best and she's also amazingly interpreted by the actress. BTW, every main actor/actress here is great!But if you are looking for something policial/suspense/too much action, you'll get disappointed. It's part of the plot (and it's well done) but it's not the main focus. It's much more fun, light-hearted and many times, just straight up silly.
I completely recommend it but you must watch with an open heart, to fall in love with nam soon, hee sik and ryi o. it will bring you good laughs, heart warming moments and, just sometimes, a good policial suspense. Recommend it!
(English is not my first language)
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Just watch with no expectations.
I think way too many people are watching this drama and comparing it to Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon which is AMAZING, and so, people are getting disappointed. My only advice is that you start watching with no expectations and you might be able to enjoy the drama the way I did.I personally enjoyed the plot: the drug-case. I think without Pavel, Ryu Si-Oh, and the police force, the drama would've been a flop. That main storyline was the main thing holding the drama together, but I have to admit, it was quite dragged- I think a 12 episode drama would've been sufficient but I don't understand kdrama productions' obsession with 16 episode dramas.
Like everyone else, I loved the character of Si-Oh (the way he was written, his backstory, and how well Byeon Woo-Seok played the character) . What I don't understand is why Gang Hee-Sik was the BLANDEST character in the drama even though he is the ML. Namsoon, Si-Oh, Geum-Ju, the grandma, Nam-In, Hwa-Ja, and even the homeless people all had a side-story or backstory that made viewers feel attached to them but the ML didn't. I don't understand the writers' intentions. Moreover, I think Hee-Sik was a knock-off Ahn Minhyuk: Ong Seong-Woo both resembles him, has a similar voice as him, and the same mannerisms as him. I think he was casted purely because of his resemblance to Park Hyung-Sik. The drama didn't do justice to Ong Seong-Woo's potential acting skills. Also, the chemistry between the ML and FL was crap compared to the FL and SML.
Absolutely adored Hwang Geum-Ju and thought she was badass as hell! Strong, motorbike rider, rich, cool mum. What more could I ask for?
To summarise, I enjoyed the drama but found it too dragged and was disappointed with how the ML was written. Good time pass drama though. Looking forward to seeing more Byeon Woo-Seok in future dramas.
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This review may contain spoilers
this IS beterr than strong girl do Bong fór me to childhs❤️
this IS beterr than strong girl do Bong fór me to childhs❤️ i like strong female lead badass female lead And love at first sight .... #No love triangle! as soon as I see two men fighting in a drama, it doesn't seem real to me at all... that's why I don't like bong so! I really like namso, it's not annoying at all and the characters are very mature, which I love, they're not children at all...this drama is one of the best for me, great choice of actors ..the plot is also amazing. I like the villain very muchWas this review helpful to you?
