✒ ☕️ Snack on Cotton Candy & Put Stalkers On Ice °6.7° °good°
Assistant chef, Jin-Hu (Lee Suk-Hyeong from Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha & Lovestruck in the City-7.3), is walking down the street in a tucked-away neighborhood. His boss's new restaurant is set to open there. He looks to the left at passersby: 'That woman shoved a man's body in a refrigerator with the help of' (his head moves from 🕘9 o'clock to 🕚) 'her daughter and' (🕐) 'granddaughter'. His head turns to 🕒. 'That woman tried to stab someone last night.' His head keeps moving right to 🕠. 'And that man struck a pedestrian with his car and attempted to bury him alive.'Tough neighborhood. What do you even /feed/ a crowd like that?
Eun "Gye" Hoon & No "Da" Hyun: Here's 2 people living a very unhealthy lifestyle. She can't sleep (stress, bills, past due notices, unpaid rent, lying to her mother about her office job - she quit - Oh, she's got a stalker, too). He can't sleep because he has this weird synchronicity thing where he's suddenly feeling her emotions. So, when stress keeps her up, it keeps him up, too. When she cries he probably won't be able to hold back the waterworks. He's a chef, so he cooks to settle himself down. They aren't sleeping, and they are eating in the middle of every night.
That's not the beginning, though. As Link opens, Gye is buried in grief ever since his twin sister went missing, presumed murdered, at age 10. His family died that day. The family of his friend, Ji Won-Tak (Song Duk-Ho - May I Help You, Cheer Up) also died that day because Won-Tak's father was accused of the murder. Even though he was acquitted, the stigma remained. The phrase "insufficient evidence" is not sufficient to clear a person's name. Da is overshadowed by a shady past - it's literally shaded from her view. She has no memories of her childhood. She's only partially present and living. They are each a half.
Link is a 2022 release that is rated 87 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of 16 60ish-minute episodes. Yeo Jin-Goo (The Crowned Clown, Hotel Del Luna-8.4) is ML Gye. His voice is delicious. Gye is a high level chef. ("When the cook is emotional you can taste it. I won't tolerate any personal feelings in MY kitchen." He sounds rough, but a moment later he tears up and passes out. What is that about?) Mr. Yeo looks completely different from his HDL days. The shape of his face used to be triangular; now it's more round. Triangle or circle, he usually plays a square, & he's pretty uptight as Link opens. FL, Da, is brought to life by Mun Ka-Young (Welcome to Waikiki, True Beauty).
"These aren't my tears I'm crying right now." Gye is 😭 and 😜 all at the wrong moments. He's been through this before. He once had synchronicity with his sister. He experienced her emotions and reactions as if they were his own. Now it's happening again. His sister couldn't be aIive, could she? No, he's certain she's gone. He felt it. He could feel her terror, and then the connection broke; that was 18 years ago. Now, he must get himself together in time for the Gourmet Fair.
'You shouldn't be too perfect or you won't be approachable,' Da's mom points out. Little does mom know that Da is far from perfect. That company job that mom is so proud of? Da quit that a long time ago. She scrambles to work part-time jobs and she is behind on all of her bills. Hopefully she'll bring in some good tips from the Gourmet Fair. Soon she's slinging too many trashbags and dirty 🍽 to even think. Love? Notta thought. Da has never had a good man in her life.
Link is cotton candy, not gourmet fare. It's loosely linked together, but it will pass the time pleasantly for many. It wasn't until the later episodes that it started wearing on me. Here's yet another show that suffers from too many bread crumbs in the meatballs. They don't have enough good content for 16 episodes, but its problems go beyond a good edit. After 10 eps or so, it degenerates into decline & collapse mode, like a botched soufflé. The supposed premise of the show, his synchronicity with her and his ability to feel what she's feeling, adds very little excitement through ep11. It's almost besides the point. Perhaps it helped draw him to her, but people fall for eachother anyway. Synchronicity need not apply. They don't clearly lay out how he knows he's feeling /her/ emotions. The first couple eps are slightly haphazard. The logic behind some of the actions, reactions, and motivations is weak, unconvincing, and downright tasteless. I was stuck in Link's terminal lukewarmness - it wasn't bad enough for me to abandon but neither was it good enough to enjoy. By the end I lost hope that it would recover and was dreading watching the 1 ep/day I forced on myself like bad leftovers. Worst of all, Link attempts to lighten the load of heartbreak, but it comes right up to the line of making light of heartbreak. The plot is sad, and what happens stings. What's most sad is that it could have been better.
It's ironic that this show features a top level chef, yet the show itself is barebones. No extras. No garnish, no special sauce, no BAM. The premise of the stalker and the refrigerator is a tad weak. Jingeun is irritating. And how does Da's family even make enough to live? Nobody is ever in their restaurant. They should have some weirdo regulars. They don't do a good job building up the tension. This is a town where everyone should be a suspect. We should get to know each one and be shocked when the true killer is revealed. The bad guys shouldn't drop from nowhere when the show is 60% done. It feels like cheating. We don't know this person. We know this person has done bad things but we are detached. We don't hate, like, or fear this person.
Formulaic is a criticism, but there are formulas for good storytelling. If show creators want to deviate from the formula, it had better be good. Link isn't all that good. Ep15 is VG. It starts out weak because it must clear up a mess left by previous eps, but it puts the show back on track. Ep16 is also good. It's mostly a wrap-up, something sorely missing from too many Kdramas. They also had more opportunities for laughs and better romantic moments. Hong Jong-Chan also directed Her Private Life-8 and Live Up To Your Name-7.6, two shows that are rock solid with few deficiencies. Writer Kwon Ki-Young's Hello Monster & Suspicious Partner are quite popular. This is just an off project for them.
Link Is not fusion food; it will only feed romance junkies. It doesn't cross genres well and it will not attract new regulars to Korean programming. Anyone who doesn't like romantic and somewhat sentimental features might want to skip it. Still... I believe it's worth watching once. Some of the tastier selections include Da's Oma and grandma, who seem like they have a dark side🔩. Grandma turns out to be a profoundly good person. They manage a plot twist or two. Their 1st date is urgent care and a CT scan😆. We learn that we can't bury /everyone/ who bothers us - the problem is there's not enough land. I like the 2ndary relationship with the cops.
"I don't have the courage to be happy," Gye admits. Truth is the 1st step in healing. The average person tells 3 lies a day, and some psychologists say that we lie more than 200 times a day, we're told. That includes the lies we tell ourselves. The most common lie that people tell is: "I'm okay."
"Some people don't look forward, they look backwards. They live with regrets, bitterness and longing." It occurs to Da that these people do not see her, they see someone missing from their past; Da is just a placeholder.
In ep15 they cover if, if, IF ~>> Endless self-reproach, accusations, and regret. One character had faced cruel and entirely unfair judgment and cannot forgive h/hself. There are a couple of characters who feel a weight of responsibility when they did nothing wrong. In a vat of self-absorption, they feel compelled to turn themselves in, and it is less than convincing.
The vibe is somewhere between offbeat and strange. The characters are only half-baked. Mom and grandmother are a bit inconsistent but they grew on me. They're somewhat ridiculous but charmingly ruthless (Ye Soo-Jung from Stranger and Mine-8 is always good, and she's clearly having the time of her life in this role). This is not Gordon Ramsay's kitchen, it's more Flo's diner. However, I appreciate the good, which outweighs the bad.
It does contain some of the most romantic words I've ever heard: "Do you want anything to eat? Whatever you want, I'll cook for you." Whew. 'Scuse me while I sit and fan myself...
QUOTES📢
Yummy food brings you joy.
Life is a comedy in the long-shot and a tragedy in close-up. ~Buster Keaton~
Questions are more important than answers ~Einstein~
〰🖍 IMHO
📣6.5 📝6.5 🎭7.5 💓5.3 🦋5 🎨6 🎵/🔊7.3 🔚7.7 ♦ 🌞4.5 ⚡5 😅2 😭6 😱4.7 😯3 😖3 🤔4 💤3
Age 14+ Scary and violent elements; Language: $h!+
Re-📺? This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again....
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Mad For Each Other 7.8 ~silly fun;
Crazy Love 7.8;
Love to Hate You 8.9;
Touch your heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10;
Private Lives 8.1;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9;
Love Struck in the City 7.3;
When the Camellia Blooms 8;
Tunnel 8.1;
Signal 8.6;
My Mister 9.5;
Flower of Evil 8.9;
The Man from Nowhere 8.9;
The Cursed 8.3;
Black 9
Originally 〰️🖋 5/2024
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Top 10 for 2022
For 2022, this is going to be in my top 10 of the year. This was an unexpected drama that took me on a rollercoaster of a ride... It started off a bit scary, then a lot of twists and turns and maybe it gets a little slow and sickening in the middle, but in the end, the ride comes to a stop and you're overwhelmed with emotion but definitely satisfied. I walked away learning that when ppl face real danger, they take it on without much logic or reasoning or much regret, I think that's the message I'm going to take away from it. This was also my first drama with Yeo Gin Goo, so I was just stunned by his stellar acting. I think that also contributed to my high marks.Viva la fridge!
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One for the crying Yeo Jingoo enjoyers
While the overall show is quite usual --young adults having a relationship with a mysterious connection in their childhood, a loose murderer and on (1) fantastical element, it has some refreshing aspects that make it maybe a bit more meaty than your usual romance.Well, first, the showrunners knew that Yeo Jingoo is great at crying, so he cries often, and he does it well. Gotta love it when the strong points of an actor are xeploited. This does not beat his mournful sobs in Hotel Del Luna (what a scene that was!) but it's still nice.
What's more, for ONCE, even after the main characters have both admitted that they like each other, the support cast (and as a consequence, the support system of both characters) does not just fade into the background! They're still here, they're still super important to the characters, and it makes for a MUCH MORE enjoyable and believable relationship. I also loved the interactions of teh entire neighborhood with the police. Most normal cop treatment I've ever seen for once (the cops do nothing for the sexual violence until it is too late for them to do anything, following what they say that well they should have been told earlier. You love to see realistic stuff instead of copaganda), and their closedness growing over each episode really plays into the sense of unease you're supposed to get about the whole neighborhood.
Overall, quite a fun watch, and pretty satifying as romances go.
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Good Enough
Korean Drama " Link: Eat, Love, Kill " is a fantasy, romance drama with lots of food.The drama had a bumpy start, but finds quickly its footing. And even though the romance is weak, fueled by the fantasy element that was awkward, cheesy at times, and not well explained, the friendship between the characters was enjoyable, as was the family bonds between the mother, grandmother, and daughter.
The criminal case was pretty interesting as well, very dark and twisted. It was what kept the interest high, as the romance and the rest of the story got boring and full of cliches.
The performances, in addition, were all great and the couple had chemistry.
So, overall, six out of ten.
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If you love the genre you go for it or maybe if you're curious of what happened just watch the last 2 eps. Everything is there. Also a small dumb FL alert.
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Got better at the end
In the middle of the drama, I had to start listing my complaints about what was happening. I never do that, but there was so much I was irritated by. Some of my issues: Soooo many red herrings! Everyone in the whole town is suspicious, and only one person is a culprit. The townspeople seem like cartoon characters, each is more strange than the last. Trying to fit too much in – romance, drama, comedy, thriller, mystery – so much that it doesn’t do any one genre justice. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched something that made me yell at my tv with the implausible things going on. There is a stalker on the loose, but you go wandering in dark alleyways by yourself (every night, it seems). The stalker appears and no one recognizes him?!?!? Her saying, “Let’s end this”. She repeats this in numerous episodes. What are they ending, exactly? They aren’t in a relationship.Midway through the show, I was thinking that I would probably rate this show a 6, maybe a little higher due to the excellent acting. Upon completion, my rating had to go up. I loved the way they tied up everyone’s storyline and the ending wasn’t totally rushed. It’s been awhile since a drama has made me cry, this one got to me. I got stuck on, how do you move on from a tragedy of that magnitude? I loved the voice over work that let us in on some of the internal dialog of our main couple.
Once we were let in on what happened exactly, the behavior of the townspeople made a lot more sense, and I kind of had to say that I forgave their ridiculous antics from earlier on.
Acting: The acting was good by everyone, though as mentioned before, the townspeople (and her family) were over-the-top. Yeo Jin Goo as Eun Gye Hoon – he does understated very well, because he doesn’t have much facial expression. Expressive eyes, however. And the episode early on where he laughed out loud? So cute! Moon Ga Young as Noh Da Hyun – I love this actress. Her character, I vacillated back and forth between she was full of naivete or she was just stupid. I have to say that her hair bothered me (dyed VERY black). Special mention to Shin Jae Hwi as the stalker – oh my goodness he was excellent and creepy. He had a knack for changing his facial expressions from friendly to dark in just a moment and it made my flesh crawl.
Chemistry: Cute chemistry between the main leads, though, again, too many “let’s break up” moments.
Music: I loved the music. There were some really beautiful songs. But strangely, the standout to me was Unknown World by Janet Suhh – kind of a whispery, nursery rhyme-y scary song played at the end of each cliffhanger episode. I found myself humming that…a lot. I found myself appreciating the music a lot more in the episodes toward the end, when there wasn’t so much going on. It’s a wonderful OST.
Rewatch value: If I need a Eun Gye Hoon or Moon Ga Young fix, I’d watch some of the scenes, but they could have cut this down to 12 episodes to make the writing a bit tighter and the whole drama more enjoyable.
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This review may contain spoilers
When Everyone Around has a bit of psychosis (even the "good" guys) so whodunnit is not a slam dunk
ReviewMy rating: 8.5/10
I really enjoyed Link: Eat, Love, Kill - it wasn't perfect but it was a solid watch. It’s a very good serial killer mystery that does a phenomenal job of making so many of the characters slightly psychotic. This made the “who could it be” aspect much more difficult, as I could genuinely see multiple people being capable of violent acts. This was often revealed in darkly humorous situations that fit the storyline perfectly.
There are a couple of romances, including of course the main romance between Eun Gye-hoon (male lead) and Noh Da-hyun (main girl), and they all are paced believably and completely feasible. The show is exciting enough that I didn’t find any episodes unnecessary or boring. If you like murder mystery-type dramas, darker humor, and a darker overall tone—or if you’re a fan of either of the main actors or the supporting cast—you would enjoy this. It was well-acted and well-scripted, a really solid offering in this genre.
Spoilers
One of the things that bothered me the most was Noh Da-hyun’s (main girl) total lack of self-preservation. She knows she has a stalker/killer after her and she just walks down dark alleys completely oblivious. Her mother who is so concerned for her still just waits for her worried when simply sending someone to walk with her would have made anything bad happening less likely. It’s hard for me to buy that she would put herself in so many powerless situations all the time. Having a stalker is terrifying, wise people do not put themselves in situations where they could be alone with their nemesis, but she did it time ana again. Her lack of self preservation was further evident toward the end when she does get attacked by the killer, she’s not going full force, which doesn’t make any sense to me. She’s scared but she’s fighting for her life, so that was a little bit disappointing.
There were also quite a few storylines that were started and I didn’t feel were ever completely resolved, like around the stalker. One thing that was really confusing was how he kept gifting her that box with all these items in it, and then it turned out later one of the items was a scarf. Given his girlfriend (who he had more likely than not murdered), he never really got that direct tie. He just knew he was going out with her, said the weird thing to the sister about her not coming back, and then they find her body—but it never directly linked it to him. That left an open question of whether he did that and kept that souvenir from her like a killer keeps items of their victims. Were the rest of the items in that box souvenirs from other victims of his? Anyways, it just completely drops out as if it’s no big deal, and I felt like that was a huge deal. Wanted to see him at least questioned in that case (maybe they would have found out about other victims) but we never got that loop closed.
Then you have the killer guy. I realize they were little kids so they didn’t want to go into too much detail, but it wasn’t clear at all why he took the little kids in particular. Most serial killers pick a type of victim, but for him it was like little kids and then older people. Why those little kids specifically, or was it just any little kids? Did he just want to end somebody and little kids were easier victims? I mean, I know you can never fully know what a psycho’s true motivation is, but usually there’s at least somewhat of a psychological profile to it, and that was completely lacking. He wasn't accused of being a pedophile, didn't show him creeping around little kids, but they seemed to be implying he was—so was he a pedophile or a killer? It’s just weird that we didn’t know more. I know they were trying to carefully approach the subjects, but we never knew what really happened to the sister or what happened to the dad. Since they were buried near each other we can assume the dad discovered who it was and wound up getting killed himself. We never got to know how they ended, and that sounds morbid but you kind of want to know. It just is part of the overall profile of the killer—of how and why, some of their motivations—so that was frustrating.
It’s also hard coming from a culture where self-defense is an acceptable thing if you ever have to use force. It was hard to understand how the mother (Noh Da-hyun’s mom) was in so much trouble when she was not only defending her daughter (Noh Da-hyun) but she was also defending the police officer who was about to get shanked by a chisel. To me, it was proof that such laws are pretty ineffective because they were always disarming themselves with other things—which you would if you couldn’t use a knife or a gun, then you would find other things if you felt in peril, which is exactly what they were doing. So you don’t end people ending other people; you just change what they choose. I have watched a lot of true crime and I would be very concerned about hammers. So, the self-defense and what constituted a weapon were very much outside of my own culture.
If anything, I did like that surprise with Noh Da-hyun’s (main girl) mom’s husband—Noh Da-hyun’s dad obviously was abusive to her, and the grandmother chose to take her daughter-in-law as her daughter rather than maintain a super close relationship with her son. I thought that was very admirable of her.
Korean guilt is always a hard thing for me to process because they feel guilty about different things than we might. Like, I could understand Noh Da-hyun (main girl) feeling guilty for letting go of the sister's hand, but for anyone else to even minimally blame her for that—was weird. It looked like the sister deliberately shook her hand to break the grip. In any case they were children and who can judge what they do when they are running from a monster. Usually it’s self-blame, but others understand the circumstances. Same thing with the mother getting rid of the second kidnapper, she felt guilty over that. Like she should turn herself in. I mean it was a crime in her culture but I get the police officer's perspective. Since we do not know the motivation of the second kidnapper, maybe he was a pedophile so she Freddie Kruegered him. We just don't know. Eun Gye-hoon (male lead) was mad at her for not turning herself in because he felt like somehow that would’ve helped them find his sister, which really wasn’t true at all at that point. It was two separate things. And you had a mother who came upon a situation where someone had hurt her daughter. Of course she wasn't in her right mind.
With the older man that left main guy's twin sister in the road when she asked for help, I was just flabbergasted. Like, what crazy adult would ever leave a child who said to please help as they had a bad person chasing them? It just showed how many morally gray and downright psychotic people there were in that little town and that little community. I was glad she haunted him—if anything, he needed to be haunted even more. He should have had every child that died of such crimes haunting him. What he did was unimaginably horrible, and he was partially responsible for the murder.
I also found it extremely annoying just how many times they broke it off. One time was really frustrating because Eun Gye-hoon (male lead) had just said how he couldn’t live without her, then he finds out that the mom dispatched the other kidnapper and didn’t tell, which might’ve helped lead to the sister. I don’t know, but it was so weird because you would’ve thought they would understand that everybody in that situation was so dramatically affected. But it was another break up. She broke up with him before because seeing her knowing she let go of his sister's hand might be too painful for him. So, they broke up any time it got hard. It makes you wonder for their future. So, it chilled the romance a bit for me. I felt like that wasn't what defined this one as much or set it apart it was more the mystery and dark comedy. The whole link thing was weird too. A large portion of their reltationship she didn't know, or didn't believe, he could feel her emotions. So, it might it sort of a meaningless plot point. It was better when she could feel his emotions too. It was more important in the beginning.
Eun Gye-hoon’s (male lead) mom was just horrible. I didn’t find it excusable—she lost her child and then was such a cold, unfeeling person to her other child. It made no sense, and she blamed him and treated him horribly because his sister had passed. He was a child, a little kid—it was not his responsibility to look after his younger sister to that level. I mean, he was the sibling; siblings fight all the time and go and do things. My older sister made it a point to ditch me. So I never found her a redeemable character. I was glad she came back around eventually, but I was still like, lady, you’ve got a lot of making up to do. You were completely cold and horrible, and all the emotional damage your son experienced was because of you.
I was also very disappointed because with it in the title, I thought there would be more about the restaurant and the food and preparing the food, but that was such a background part of everything. It was this restaurant that always seemed on the verge of opening. I was like, oh come on, open already. Thankfully we did eventually get to see it open, but it was weird because it seemed like it should’ve been a bigger part of the story and it just wasn’t. Also, with the son-in-law that knew how to cook, I thought it was weird that he didn’t teach his future mother-in-law how to cook better. She could’ve had a Korean restaurant across from his very successful European restaurant. It would’ve actually helped both businesses and it would’ve insured a better livelihood for his mother instead of her seeming like she was gonna rely on her daughter for financial support. I mean, fair, but at the same time, why not have two successful ones?
Overall, still a very enjoyable watch despite these frustrations!
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Pretty good acting, but the story was really boring
the story was really boring, the acting was superb. The story dragged on way too much and became way too predictable, but it's maybe because i've watched so many thriller/mystery dramas. the main villain was awful, and had no real rhyme or reason for doing what he did. I usually hate comedy in thriller genre, but the comedy here was brilliant.Was this review helpful to you?
I liked that it was a blend of romance and mystery
Things I loved1 The mix of romance and mystery. I like this kind of drama and started this one with big hopes. It didn't last though and that's why the rating isn't stellar.
2 The FL. She's one of my favorite actresses and she was good here as well. She makes me feel things and she makes me want to support her and see her happy. I think she's very talented and she was good here as well.
Things I liked
1 The ML. I haven't seen him in anything else but I think he did a good job.
2 The romance. it dragged a bit and didn't have all the things I want in a romance but it was solid.
3 The mother and grandmother. Solid characters as well that gave me some great moments.
Things I disliked
1 The mystery wasn't as riveting as I was expecting and there were many questions I didn't have a satisfying answer to. It dragged quite a bit also, and I think it would be better if the beginning of the mystery was settled a bit different. I think the execution wasn't the best. The director and the screenwriter should have done a better job. Honestly, if the leads weren't good actors and charming this would be even worse. They saved it for me.
2 The sad vibe was a bit too much for my liking.
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Boring and dragged on until the end
Usually I'm not picky at all when it comes to kseries. I can watch almost anything even those series that got low review scores. But this one is just too boring. There were a lot of mysterious acts from all the characters, but no hints were dropped to keep viewer interested. I had to drop at ep.7 becuase there were no plot development for too long I felt annoyed. And after reading reviews, I skipped to ep.12 just to watch the ending out of curiosity and still couldn't keep watching until the end LOLSo, for me, I will not recommend anyone to watch this serie, let alone rewatch it.
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A Mixed Feeling :-(
Actually overall a mixed feeling for me. I can't give a worth watch tag for this drama. Because apart from any other drama, this particular one's binge and ongoing watching experience must be totally different for sure. But it's a decent drama, if your liked the plot and have no complaints about it's slowness and drag then you can watch this for sure.Start to atleast 10 or 12th Episodes the mystery and the narrative style is quite interesting. Because i sense some healing nature of story telling drama from beginning. As a big fan of that genre i enjoyed a lot in the start. But after sometime it started to get drag. They don't have anything at all to reveal actually it keep pushing the mystery hard. A total faild mystery attempt to be honest. So story wise it's a complete let down. But coming to the screenplay the emotions really worked. The cast looks stunning. Still there was drag but they managed to deliver some good heartwarming scenes in the last some episodes.
Finale Episode ended with a decent note. Not completely satisfied but got a decent ending but again emotions are still refreshing to watch. Not just emotions also romance is cute as well.
Note : Expect the dragging before watching.
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For those who like deep psychological and funny dramas
I cried a lot because of the heavy emotions that characters conveyed...The past that they carried since their childhood and those traumas are really dramatic and it felt like i was experiencing everything with them. So I would recommend this drama to everyone who likes deep and thoughtful stories 🥰 This drama is funny sometimes as well. I really love it ❤I havent finished it yet, I'm still at 10th episode but i don't want this drama to finish, cause i like everything, the vibe, the story, the characters. This drama became like home to me or like a warm blanket. Im so grateful to actors and crew for creating this masterpiece 🌟
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