Frankly Speaking (2024)

A ride that starts with fun and chaos but ends up being a mess by the end.

I still remember watching Jim Carrey's "Liar Liar" and how a laughter riot it was filled with chaotic moments. When I read the synopsis of this drama, I knew it is gonna be a ball of chaos and that is exactly what it has been to most extent.

Go Kyung Pyo is a great casting for the role and damn he is humorous with his expressions and acting. Looking at his past dramas with him pulling off different types of characters, he has improved a lot.
I always wanted to see Kang Hanna in lead roles, so was quite happy to see her in this drama.

There are some cliche tropes used like the love triangle between ML,FL and SML but even with the triangle, things are kept humorous and simple instead of going for overly dramatic confrontations and stuff.

The first half of the drama is full of many funny, chaotic and dramatic moments but the second half is a mess with unnecessary storylines being added and finished rapidly. The story turned into a total healing melodrama with nothing to do with the main highlight of the title. It did become somewhat boring by the end and I am glad they only kept it till 12 eps cuz looks like even the writers knew they had no idea on what to do with story or how to end it.

Overall It is a decent watch.

Read More

Great concept, messy execution (where'd the comedy go?!)

They had such a great set up—a news anchor who is forced to be honest. If you look on Youtube for news anchor goof ups and bloopers, you know they had so much potential material here. Yet, they immediately drove that concept into the ditch and set it on fire.

To do what? To turn it into subpar dating show with watered-down melodrama.

Reason for rating: I know it's a romcom, but is it too much to ask for a well-crafted romcom? The show dropped the humor and failed to develop reasons to emotionally invest in the characters. Production quality, tropes, and good actors are not enough to justify a decent rating. I'm so sick of predictable romcoms that lack romantic tension, excitement, risk, and forget to be a comedy, too. (Do main leads and second leads always need to be paired up? What about a romcom where they realize they're better off friends and end up with a second lead or supporting character?)

There was a real lack of romantic chemistry between them... and the lingering stare while the other wasn't looking did *not* building romantic tension. I just didn't really "get" why they were into each other.

I can say, it's not for lack of a good cast, characters, or premise. I absolutely love the actors, and the characters have so much potential... I just wish they were doing a bit more with them!

All in all, this show just doesn't deliver.

Read More

Your heart is more important than your appearance

There's so much about this show to love and is refreshing for an SK show.
It's short, sweet and has awesome chemistry amongst the entire cast, with a satisfyingly happy ending. It starts as a perfectly played slapstick-leaning comedy, but builds pathos as it progresses.
Shows like this are worthwhile in being a gentle challenge to our world view.
Issues that were played naturally without being made into a trope: (though not a comprehensive list)
●Diversity in the casting
●The problematic nature of being expected to present a mask to society.
●Single parenting and single parent dating
●Middle aged romance
●Realistic work friendships
●Burnout
And the absolutely lovely underlying message: Your heart is more important than your appearance (in all its permutations)
Don't hide your emotions. Don't hide your true self. Tell people you like and love them. It will mean the people around you can do the same.

Read More

Disappointing

The most frustrating thing to see in a drama is to see a writer who fails a good cast.... a bunch of hard-working actors....

The first two episodes started very promising and I was excited to see how they would spin the whole "frankly speaking" superpower. But then... the story starts spinning in a direction that is so absurd and crazy to the point that, I have never been disappointed in a writer as much as I have on the screenwriter of this drama.

It starts with an innocent and hardworking announcer being bullied at work by his superiors because he is too nice to be honest about his feelings and too nice to fight for his rights. So he has this super weird accident that made him speak honestly about what is in his head.... so what we normally would expect is that this announcer's life would turn better when he starts to be honest right??? BUT NOOOO!! He gets even more bullied when he starts to speak the truth to the point he quits the job!!

And so the story spins in the direction of this person, Song Ki Baek, joining a dating variety show, and then what happens??? we get to watch several episodes of a dating variety show!!!! How did that relate to his weird frankly speaking superpower???? almost little to nothing......And I was like....okay? a variety show?? That sounds fun...let's keep watching.....

And the story spins in an even crazier direction..... they introduce a first love that was not mentioned ANYWHERE before!! And I was like... okaay?? Hopefully, this will turn out to be interesting.... BUT!!! WAIT FOT IT!!! They suddenly spin off this "First love" into a jealous, obsessed bitch, who screwed off the entire production team and ran away to France!!!!!! ................Thats it!! THATS IT!!! And then her character just disappeared never to be seen again... At this point, I am like... wth......

But it doesn't even end there!! There is the female lead, On Woo Joo.. who came out with this dating variety show, which turned out to be a hit and was unceremoniously kicked out of the team by her boss without even THANKYOU! All because she joined the variety show herself to try to save the whole project in the first place!!!!! Does that make sense??!!!

Okay things do get even crazier! So the writer wants to patch up the estranged family situation with Song Ki Baek and his family, so you know what happened??? there was a DRAMATIC CAR ACCIDENT... mom in the hospital!! and then the family got much closer.......

Tell me which part of all this relates to one another??? Nothing!! The writer just randomly there out scenarios that make absolutely no sense, no story line, no nothing. It is okay if they went for a comedy, but this is NOT COMEDY!! this is not light comedy! This is not dark comedy! This is no Comedy!!

Read More

Not bad, but not good. It was a okay drama with underutilized cast.

Ep 1: The leads first meeting was anything but romantic. Kinda reminds me of the lead from the drama "Love with flaws" & "Mad for each other". The FL calls the ML poopy pants, because their first encounter was when they were stuck in a lift and the ML had flatulence. It was embarrassing to watch, so skipped most of that elevator scene. I admit that parts of it were funny, but this is not a good start for the drama. So far, it seems more like a childish prank show rather than a well put together drama. And what the hell is wrong with everyone, his co-worker was the one who had an affair, so why are all of them hell bent on him taking the blame? Make it make sense!

Oh thank god for the last 15 minutes of the show, otherwise this drama would have been put on hold forever. Even still, it could have been so much better. But like I said, it did have a quite a few funny scenes. So, hopefully, there will be more of that in the next episode. I'll keep watching for that.

Ep 2: Nothing much to add. Things are still going slow even thought it is a short drama. The story and the setup would have been more suited for a longer daily drama. At least we see some interaction between the leads. There's something that's keeping me from dropping the drama but I'm not very moved by the way things are going.

Ep 3: Kept up with the same pace as episode 2. Things are moving too slowly. I wanted to hear the ML curse out the guy who kept him hanging for the position. However, he just whispered those curses in his ears. The thing I liked the best is the gradual growth of chemistry between the two leads. The SML seems more interesting at this point, I wonder why they broke up. (From their current dynamics it seems like it was pretty much his fault)

Ep 4: The leads have started taking interest in each other. So, I'm kinda okay with the romance part of the drama so far. The next week's preview looks promising at least. I wonder what's up with the little kid, who shows up now and then to motivate Ki Baek. The most relatable part about the series is the work environment both Ki Baek and Woo Joo have to deal with. When you are position at the top, everyone either envies you or tries to pretend that you didn't deserve it. They talk shit about you behind your back, and never apologize if they are caught doing it. They usually double down. While some have the luxury to quit such toxic places, some just have keep working and turning a blind eye becoming one with such systems. Anyways, finally, looking forward to the next weeks episodes.

Ep 5 & Ep 6: This was fun to watch. The FL is writer of the variety show, for a variety show creator, her & the team are very bad at planning. It has very few people with not enough power to pull in the ratings. Right now, Ki baek is like a polar bear that actually found its way amongst penguins. (Got to learn that fun fact today) But at least this episode was interesting to watch. Looking forward to the next one. Episode 6 was pretty much the same, the contestant on the show discovering each other. One thing that was revealed was that even in school both the ML & SML had same tastes in woman. Ki Baek clearly rejected his first love in this episode, I'm not sure why he next week's preview shows that he chose her instead of FL.

Ep 7: One moment Ki Baek was confessing his feelings for the FL and other he was choosing his first love, albeit only on the show and she blackmailed him. The variety show ended with the FL not choosing anyone. The FL and her ex didn't really have a heart to heart that would make up for the tension between the two, so a lost opportunity there. We get a short time skip to one month later when he finally tells her why he didn't choose her. It is kinda meh at the moment.

Ep 8: Man the woman who turned out to be the first love of all male contestants is nasty. I mean not only did she make such a bitchy move but had the guts to double down when called out on her shit. Nope. Met women like her in real life and they are not anyone's friends. I think it is about time Jung Heon starts getting over Woo Joo. It is finally the start of the relationship between the leads and its beautiful to watch.

Ep 9: It was a nice episode with Jung Heon & Ki Baek bonding over past memories. I like how Jung Heon is being a nice guy despite him having feelings for Woo Joo. Ki Baek is such a cutie, calling her pretty all the time. Woo Joo must feel so good to be appreciated genuinely like this, especially since everything else is falling apart for her. Her career has always been on the rocks, now her mom might have shown up.

Ep 10: Things are looking up for the couple, but with only 2 episodes left you can't say anything for the certain. Jung Heon is still miserable living as a star and I think it is absolutely getting to him. He looks so tired and listless. Ki Baek's family is a bit weird, I don't understand how he fits in with them. His father is a little better than the rest of them. We are still to see how Woo Joo deals with her biological mom.

Ep 11 & 12: The drama is sadly underutilized the cast. The story wasn't interesting enough, had it not been for the chemistry between the three leads, it would have been more of flop. My brother also watched the drama, he liked it so maybe it is about tastes. At times the drama had similar undertones as Call It Love, but it failed to match the feelings elicited by that drama.

Read More

An Endearing but Slow Paced Romance

This was simply a comfort show that made my midweek bearable!

I wasn’t anticipating a great story line from this show, when I first started with it. So, we can’t say, it rescinds on its promise of delivering a phenomenal romance. Somewhere down the line, the show does turn cliche and harbors every overused trope in the book with unwarranted twists & turns. And despite these odd nothings, I did enjoy the show nevertheless. I guess different people have varied tastes and some may beg to differ. This show strongly focuses on familial love, it could be found family or struggling with your real family dynamics. Handling family affairs can be tiring, but that doesn’t mean you don’t love them. The show is a chaotic mess with haywire characters; you can’t hate them nor love them endlessly!

Read the complete article here-

https://kcdramamusings.wordpress.com/2024/06/07/frankly-speaking-series-review/#more-899

Read More

Messy writing, started good and gets worse the more you watch

What happened here????? I'm so baffled by this drama, how it managed to destroy or not develop properly anything that it started, everything is introduced and dropped. This drama was either a writing exercise using a dart board with random words and they hit some random ones and had to connect them in the story somehow or a "pass the story" game the writer had with their family one Saturday evening after a couple of drinks where each person was trying to add any absurdity to the plot they could.
If you read the premise of this show above please just completely ignore it because that's just about the beginning of it and it's dropped very quickly.

At the start I thought it was interesting as a concept, not necessarily new but I welcomed to see what they would do with it. Clearly they didn't know what to do with it. After a couple of episodes with more comedy (although some quite juvenile for my liking), they completely dropped it and moved to the couple dating show. At this point I already started wondering what was the point of it. ML's issue is put to the background so quickly and at times even forgotten. At points there were some better moments but many others I started feeling I was watching paint dry.
What was the point of the time jump after the dating show? I really don't know. I don't like when I'm invested in a story, or trying to be like in this case, and there is an unjustifiable time jump, doesn't matter how small. It felt very "ok that's done now, let's do something else". But the "something else" they do it's just going in circles achieving nothing. The romance falls short, the friendship between ML and SML falls short and it's never explored in depth other than showing some past disagreement. Everything is pretty much left half baked and you keep watching hoping something comes that makes you change your mind, but then it slowly creeps into melodrama territory with the adopted trope and the bio mother appearing (what was the point again? it doesn't add anything to the story or personality of FL) and then proceeds to do what happens at the end of episode 9, what was the cherry on top and by that point I was simply done with it. Then somehow not only they managed to introduce even more melodrama with the father getting scammed and then having an out of the blue action bit at the end with him and the three sons but also somehow they tried to evolve a bit the story of FL's mother last minute mentioning the engagement but actually nothing happens? And then to top it all off we have 15 minutes at the end with a children's play with a similar plot to the original premise of this show with flashbacks I don't need to see because I've already seen them.

Why are there so many characters? Somehow there are so many but they make me care about none. FL at times felt like background character because she was so plain I just didn't see the point. Her whole personality was just trying to write the next show and not much else. As I already said introducing the bio mother was cliché and boring, but also very annoying that once again they're trying to excuse or forgive abandonment. I have seen only a few dramas where this is tackled in a more realistic and correct way. Most times it's just forgiven because "blood" and it's a trope I highly despise. In this case while there wasn't complete forgiveness it wasn't really tackled in any engaging way, it's not even discussed why. It was very pointless.
ML had personality and there is more in-depth to his character but his issue as mentioned previously was massively underutilized and we're only told about his thought process as an afterthought, like for example when at the end he decides he doesn't want to do news anymore. We were not taken for the ride of his development, we're just told later. At this point I do have to mention Go Kyung Pyo's acting because I've seen him in other stuff and I liked him but here I just don't know what they were going for. I say "they" because I can imagine that's what the director wanted but the moments when he couldn't lie were bad, and he would just become an expressionless statue. Only when he would have an outburst he would be more human. So he spent most of the drama being a robot and it wasn't engaging, nor funny or entertaining, it was just awkward. The "issue" shouldn't even have been there anyway as mentioned previously because it was only used in the beginning.
About the SML, who cares? I just couldn't care about his character. He was introduced as the second love interest to make the cliché love triangle but after, why follow his story further? Sure, they do tackle some issues with his character but it all felt very superficial and the outcome is not fireworks worthy to spend that much screen time on him.
Secondary characters on the FL side are a big what's the point? and on ML side are plain annoying. FL's friend with the kid only there in the beginning to make you think the kid is FL's and then after she's just there so she can be the love interest of ML's brother. The kid is only there for the same reason, and I still don't understand the point of his "power", not explored, you don't even know if real and overall added nothing to the mess.
ML's parents had an interesting background and story with their struggles but even at the end I didn't feel like there was much consideration to the fact ML had been used for a long time and their parents took it for granted and they spoiled the two younger ones big time. They're trying to sell me at the end because of the pity party that was the accident that they're great parents but they're not? And it has everything to do with their attitude and nothing else.
ML's brothers were pretty awful spoiled people and again, they try make them better by the end but I felt nothing, nor did the "romance" of the middle one with FL's friend. No chemistry and I feel bad for her since he gives the vibes of man-baby.
Talking about chemistry, the one of the main leads is not quite there either. At some points I thought they were cute together but most of the time I felt nothing. I did like at points their romance was a bit more mature and straightforward but overall even though it's one of the supposed main plot points of the show it felt background many times.

Personally I can't recommend. I know already when I start skipping scenes that this is not going to be a pass for me and in this case I used it so much especially in the last two episodes. It's a complete mess writing wise and I can't think of any element that would justify wasting the time since everything else like music, characters... are either just passable or mediocre.

Read More

Anti-Climax

It started well, it was fun and engaging and it had a good starting point.
The main problem I believe is the storytelling. The notion of show not tell is completely lost on this K-drama. The last episode, with the children's play, is a true representation of that. They show us the story we just watched and include the story we just watched again. It's like saying the audience isn't smart enough to take a hint.

A lot of the plot points were too forced. Everything was conveniently placed or things conveniently happened, like FL having to enter the dating show. I didn't mind that if it continued to be fun but it wasn't.

There seemed to be no romance outside of the love triangle. Once the love triangle stopped, the romance turned into a friendship.

The most important part was the emphasis on mental health and the importance of being honest with oneself.
I believe it was mostly a story about how harmful stoicism is and its implications for our mental health and our relationships with ourselves and the ones around us. So, don't bottle it up and don't go through hardships alone. We can be trees but we're also a forest.

Read More

Every week I'm looking forward to a new chapter, I'm really liking it.

I like that the protagonists do not fall in love at first sight and that they do not use a thousand clichés to make them close in the plot, they do not know each other before, they do not work in the same place, they are not super rich. Their story does not revolve around a romance that arises out of nowhere, on the contrary it is a romance that they build little by little.

The two are at a time of uncertainty in their lives and are going through real obstacles in their relationship, such as money problems, existential crises and work problems, everyone can identify with them.

The message is clear, how to deal with lies? They use a fantasy power so that the protagonist cannot tell lies and we see how his life turns out with this, if it becomes easier or more difficult.

It may not have as much comedy, but at the end of the day it is still a drama, because of the plot I don't expect to always be laughing at what happens to them or always feel their love, because that's not what it's about.

Every week I'm looking forward to a new chapter, I'm really liking it.

Read More

The multiverse concept has gotten out of hand

The story starts as a slapstick comedy then turns in to a dating show soap opera and then a slice-of-life melodrama before a spin through a family healing journey and wraps up as everyone gets a happy ending fairy tale.

It would have worked better, more coherently, if it actually was a multiverse vehicle and every time it switched to a new parallel dimension, there were some Star Wars lightspeed cgi effects and some electronic beeps and bloops and throw in an alien or a dinosaur and switch up the background from Korea to a space station or a ancient wizard fortress so it's transparent that the show has switched modes.

Seriously.

Go Kyung Po and Kang Han Na can be effortlessly funny and thrive on energy and chaos. Just see Go Kyung Po's guest spot in episode 1 of "D.P." and Kang Han Na's tour de force in "My Roommate is a Gumiho". But they spend eighty percent of this misguided mess being angtsy and mopey. It's inexplicably bad design by the writer. And unforgivably poor execution by the director.

There's a long list of talented supporting cast members too and, given moments, they bring a bit of a pulse to the action, but it's all recycled, aimless storylines.

[beep beep boop whoosh] Punch it, Chewie. Maybe there's better dramas on the other side of this jump through hyperspace...

Read More

Drama which could've been way better

So, when this drama was first announced, I was pretty excited because it had one of my fav actress, Kang Han-na.
When the first episode aired, I had high hoped from this drama. The idea felt new and the pairing also felt fresh.
But as we ventured into the second half, it became evidently clear that the writer had no clue of how to proceed with this drama. Some of the things that made this drama interesting were gradually faded out in an effort to make it more "romantic".

1. The idea of a person suddenly developing ability to speak truth is a already used in Hollywood, but I guess this was pretty fresh in Kdrama universe. So, yeah the plot appeared to be nice.

2. But this was the only good thing about that plot. Halfway through it felt like the writes have altogether forgotten that they have a ML who is incapable of telling lies because in no shape or form he looked "very uncomfortable".
This lying thing could've been churned more to induce more laughter. But after 2 or 3 episodes, that laughter vanished. It went from a romcom to a seriously romantic drama.

3. Another interesting thing about this drama was that fictional variety program. It made mid episodes very interesting. But this barely went for 4 episodes and then we were slapped back to slice-of-life romance. This thing should've been explore mode and perhaps should've been central plot along with lying thing.

4. Second Male Lead was a pretty boring character and there was no "strong antagonist". While I am love dramas where there are no villains, but the thing about this drama was that they introduced a vamp kind of SFL and she just disappeared after 4 episodes. It was a pretty dumb move. If you are introducing a villainous character, make it a stronger one.

5. Drama is 12 episode long which felt way too less for the story to fully develop and end satisfactorily. This is ongoing problem in kdrama. Drama that require 12 episodes are being somehow stretched into 16 and dramas that deserved to be long are cut short.
This same problem was with NKM starrer The Veil.

6. The cast was good. As said, I'm fan of Kang Hanna. I found her very cute and charming in this drama. ML was also fine but need some polishing.

Overall, this drama isn't bad, per se. But it could've been so much better. The cast and the audience is let down by some seriously ridiculous writing.

Read More