My Sweet Mobster (2024)

A Fabulous Drama

Afer hesitating from watching this Drama because of it's title, I decided to give it a try. It didn't tale long to totally suck me in.

I laughed so much It had me in hysterics. The Story was inspiring and the characters were stunning.

I loved the main Male lead who was so awkward. The female lead was a walking disaster who created many hilarious situations, usually to the Male leads detriment. She was lovely and so was He.

The Acting from everyone was truly superb, especially from the Ex Criminals who brought so many emotions.

The story was inspirational. The Male lead was a wonderful Human being.

The Ditzy Female brought it to life with her insane behavior. I laughed so much. The poor unsuspecting Male found himself in unknown territory. His body took a lot of hits. I loved this Drama. It was compassionate. loving and altruistic. Cannot praise it enough, even the silly bits. Hope to see a Part 2 as th
ey were addictive.

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A Sleeper Hit!

I LOVED this one! I had some preconceived notions about what such a titled series would be about, but it over-exceeded my expectations.

The ML’s acting was just amazing, he’s so versatile! And the FL was sweet, with a touching storyline. Nothing felt unrealistic for me, just human. And I absolutely LOVE the concept of having a company that employs ex-convicts, especially those that are remorseful and want to change their lives for the better. The ML’s vision is so ahead of his time and the gang was just too loveable.

Before I watched it I was on the fence about doing so because I didn’t want to be a part of anything that glamorised being a gangster, but I honestly came out of watching this, a much better and more empathetic person. The acting was top notch, the humour was side-splitting, the romance was riveting, the story was just beautiful and the character development was excellent. I don’t know how they managed to make such common tropes like childhood friendship and first love so exciting and fresh but the did it. And big ups to the supporting cast esp. Jae Soo, they DELIVERED and made this story a classic for me. Kudos to the entire team!

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Romantic Comedy Of The Year

MySweetMobster and it’s giving 2006 ~ 2016 cliche kdramas and in a good way

Seo jihwan who's a ex gangster part-time ceo of thirsty deer and full-time loser baby girl only to his eunha :)

drama casting, storyline, the balance between funny and serious scenes, character background story are perfect!!! Loveee and adore this drama so much!! <3

I know that we all dreamed of their wedding and that the ending would have been perfect like that.
but I swear that their romance was perfect for me, I can't complain

I'm going to miss MSM a lot. I'm grateful that he introduced me to Uhm Tae Goo. <3
MSM never deserves low ratings.

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Ji Hwan Y Dangerously

Making a reference to a forty year old movie is probably not the ideal method of appealing to the younger demographic on MDL. Perhaps something iconic like "Breakfast Club" or "Beverly Hills Cop" would spark the right nostalgic vibe. But a forgettable, middling, sophomoric mess? Terrible idea but here goes anyway.

"Johnny Dangerously" was a 1984 movie meant to capitalize on the emerging stardom of a young Michael Keaton who had just exploded as a comedic star after back-to-back hits in "Night Shift" and "Mr. Mom". Pairing Keaton with Amy Heckerling, the Greta Gerwig of the 80's who established herself with the scintillating "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" should have been a can't miss project. It was a massive failure though. Probably because the concept was a parody of the incredible mafia movies of Coppola and Polanski. "Johnny Dangerously" was both a critical and popular bomb.

"My Sweet Mobster" encounters some of the same problems. Meant to be a comedy starring a zoot suited gangster that meets the girl of his dreams and wants to do right by his family, both start strong and score genuinely funny moments. And both don't really know what to do beyond lampooning the tough guy stereotype. Once the joke about the gangster not being such a big, tough, heartless guy, but a kindhearted softie gets played a few times, there's got to be somewhere else to go. It's fun at first. The more chaotic and frenzied it is, the more at ease Han Sun Hwa is. And Uhm Tae Goo is legit a delight as the flummoxed suitor. And Im Chul Soo takes his nemesis to an absurdly sketch comedy level. But at some point, "My Sweet Mobster" can't squeeze any more gags out of the cute, awkward gangster likes the bubbly kids streamer. And the options are:

1. Cut it short. The big secret gets revealed. Happy embraces. Roll credits. But it's a 16 episode contract, so this is a not an option.

2. Keep going back to same well. This was the route taken by "Johnny Dangerously" and it did not work.

3. Revert to stock drama storylines. Triangles. Hospitals. Roadtrips. This is where "My Sweet Mobster" goes and while it's not entirely unpleasant, it goes exactly to the exact destination and along the exact route in the exact manner as any regular viewer of k dramas can expect. Which is unfortunate because the two leads had a lot of promise if they had just avoided doing exactly the usual, typical, same ol', same ol' familiar stuff. It's also just a drag to go from light, fun romance with a supporting cast of fairly lovable goofballs to family angst and corporate & legal melodrama.

4. What could have worked was investing more screen time in the aforementioned supporting cast. Kim Hyun Jin isn't going to win any awards (see my review for "Peng" where he was one of the four horsemen of the borepocalypse) but the one night stand with Moon Ji In that becomes something more is terrific. And there are hints of other potential subplots with Moon Dong Hyuk with Song Seo Rin and Kwon Yool with Shin Soo Hyun (like repeated, explicitly telegraphed, unmistakeable flashing lights saying "LOOK AT THESE TWO. RIGHT HERE. THAT GUY. WITH THAT WOMAN. THEY'RE GONNA BE A THING. JUST WAIT.") Do these go anywhere? No. Foreshadowing with a payoff? When there's sixteen hour long episodes to insert said payoff? If drama malpractice was a felony, this crew would be behind bars for a long time. Then there's the backstory for Park Jae Chan and his first love? It's there but to what end? None that makes any sense other than make life more miserable for Ji Hwan. And the most endearing of the supporting characters, Yang Hyun Min's Jae Soo, gets used for cheap laughs, reduced to a plot device to set up a final conflict and transformed in to a blubbering weakling.

Had these supporting characters been given meaningful and fully explored subplots in a more ensemble style show, "My Sweet Mobster" could have been a massively charming and entertaining watch. It's still good but it simply can't turn a cheeky, cute romance in to a riveting sixteen episode run.

Recommended but with cautions that it will get frustrating to watch. Perhaps if it had a love broker* though...

*see Michael Keaton in "Night Shift"

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My Overly-Sweet Mobster

I pushed through but I think I regret it. A bit of an unintentionally frustrating show.

The comedy is definitely the main point of this show, despite the fact that it's not really that funny. The humor is very silly to the point of it being cringe, and many of the side characters (like the mobsters) are so obviously supposed to fill a specific comedic role, but the character development and execution is so poor that it just comes off as cringe and completely see-through when it comes to the writers' need to include every single rom-com trope. So many scenes with the side mobsters felt completely unnecessary simply because I wasn't given any real reason to care for them as characters. Sure, they were given brief backstories and introductions, but none of it felt genuine or realistic given the comedic nature of the show, so we're just left with empty surface-level characters and are still expected to care about what happens to them and their relationships with the leads.

The ML is an interesting character being a mobster and all, but is portrayed as child-like to the point that I couldn't imagine any realistic scenario where someone would be in a relationship with him and not be put off by his exaggerated reactions and fear of human contact. There’s a scene where he’s sitting on a bench next to the FL as she tries to scoot closer to him and he reacts so over-the-top to the point that he’s literally shaking out of even the thought of making physical contact. This made me completely disconnect from the romance. The FL spends too much time lingering on feelings for a boy she knew as a small child (yet another "destiny/fate" trope), which to me feels like a simple way for writers to create drama and "emotional" scenes without having to actually put in much effort, because the trope writes the narrative for them. On top of this, the ML does the typical ML thing of not being able to communicate properly which leads to misunderstandings and angry FL scenes, which ultimately leads to him having to apologize.

The FL is not much better to be honest. She’s silly just the like other characters and does not act her age, has trouble communicating like the ML and instead gets upset but doesn’t try to talk it out at first, and continuously jumps back and forth between the ML and 2ML despite “rejecting” the 2ML. Not really in a romantic way, but definitely feels off when the 2ML is already so head over heels for no reason and doesn’t know when to give up even after being rejected.

The 2ML is rather annoying, but I guess I just don’t like love triangles. It’s your typical love triangle you’ll see in like 90% of rom-com dramas. And of course his name is coincidentally the exact same name as the boy the FL has been looking for. I feel like his devotion and lowkey obsession with the FL doesn’t really make sense. We’re not really given a solid explanation as to why he’s so committed to winning her love despite being rejected. The constant jealous ML vs. 2ML scenes throughout the show got boring and annoying very quickly. Sometimes it felt like the writers were trying to find any reason or opportunity to insert the 2ML into the scene, even if the scene would have been better off without him in it. The ML even expressed in a scene with the FL that he didn’t like how she was hanging out with the 2ML all the time, yet this didn’t really change the large amount of screentime the FL & 2ML have together throughout the show. I nearly dropped the show after the scene where the FL is in danger (as usual) and the 2ML swoops in and takes the blow for her. I really didn’t want to have to sit through an entire episode where the characters have to take care of and feel guilty for the injured 2ML, especially when the ML was already going through so much with the conflict in his company. They should have focused on the ML’s conflict instead in order to give the ML & FL an opportunity to develop their relationship instead of shifting the focus on to the 2ML again. There’s also a 2FL, but she’s barely in the show and honestly doesn’t contribute much to the story or the love triangle.

The side relationship between Ju Il Yeong & Koo Mi Ho was admittingly pretty cute despite its flaws. Sometimes I felt more excited to see them together than the leads. Still not really enough to overlook the basic plot and tropes. There’s also a villain played by Im Chul Soo who does a good job in acting, but his character is so intentionally evil that I can’t really take him seriously. It seems like the writers wanted him to be a Joker type villain with all his mannerisms, even down to the “why so serious?” line in one of the episodes.

Overall, almost everything about the show just felt uninspired and recycled. Like the writers had a formula for rom-coms that worked in the past, so they decided to just switch out the characters and call it a day. The plot progression always felt like it was playing out exactly the way the writers wanted it to play out, but in an unnatural way. It’s like watching the script unfold scene by scene without any real emotion or excitement behind it. Maybe I’m just experiencing drama burn-out considering the amount of positive reviews for this show, but there are definitely plenty of flaws nonetheless.

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An Endearing Romance Between an Ex-Mobster & a Sweet Content Creator

A bittersweet romance between a soft-hearted ex-gangster and a kid’s content creator!

When I first started watching this show, I thought it was so silly. The female lead’s hijinks were epic and hilarious, paired with the other ex-convicts in the makeshift family she moved to, “My Sweet Mobster” was endearing and adorable. It was also my first time watching main leads Uhm Tae Goo & Han Sun Hwa in a romantic setting, and they didn’t fail to impress. The show might not appeal to those who like fast paced love stories, but the irreplaceable charm related to slow-burn romances is rather underrated. The same goes for “My Sweet Mobster”, our sweet couple take a lot of time finding the middle ground for their budding yet delicate relationship; and yet you can’t help cheering for them from the sidelines. They are just so darned cute, I fell in love with the whole concept of a gangster trying to reform his life and founding a new family. The strongest trait of this show wasn’t the romance between the main protagonists or the unwarranted love triangle they were caught in; it was the familial ties they formed with the other ex-convicts in the house; that sort of bonding is truly inconceivable.

Read the complete article here-

https://kcdramamusings.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/my-sweet-mobster-series-review/

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