Kdramas that are just not worth the hype

It was so hyped up because it was Lee Minho. I think the rating for this drama was made from just purely Lee Minho fans. Let me just say that I don't hate Lee Minho, I have enjoyed most of his other dramas like City Hunter, Personal Taste, etc. I was not a huge fan of Park Shin Hye's acting at this point in time...she has definitely improved since. I was interested as the trailers with the huge star-studded cast seemed interesting.

BUT OMG how a drama can get this bad I do not know. Plot sucked. It was like for all the progress kdramas made at the time,...it just regressed to an overused plot of several different drams stuffed into one...like someone cut up different dramas and tried to make a drama out of it, just so they could have all these stars in it. The acting by the leads and some of the secondary wasn't great. There was some chemistry between the leads but the kissing scene was so bad that I wanted to throw something at the screen. There were no side characters that could have saved this...not even Park Hyung-sik with his comic scenes.

So no...there was nothing redeemable about this.

This maybe just a me problem. I came into this with a lot of expectations. I like Lee Minho in City Hunter and I loved Hana Yori Dango (the original Jap version). But WTF did they do? The leads were overacting, there wasn't much chemistry between them. 

For things that might redeem this, I have to say the plot since it is based on one of my fav Japanese dramas but I don't think it is enough. I did enjoy the side plot with Kim Bum and Kim So Eun, which was the only thing worth watching in this drama.

Why do Korean dramas take my favourite Japanese dramas and ruin them to this degree? Once again I had a lot of expectations for this. I read the manga and watched the Japanese live-action both I loved a lot. Being a huge Shinee fan I was curious how Choi Minho would act in this. I don't even know what went wrong. 

Adding too many cliched scenes and removing the interaction between the different dorms that was the essence of the Hana Kimi just ruined it for me. They removed a lot of comradery that the whole dorm and school had with each other - their competition and friendship. Also, the addition of a second female just to create tension between the leads was so not necessary. Maybe they shouldn't claim it to reproduction of Hana Kimi, I might have liked it better....but not to a huge extent. It was like they took the basic idea of Hana Kimi (girl who goes to an all-boys school for her idol) and just stuck it on a typical cliched kdrama plot.

The things that made this redeemable. Sulli's acting was quite decent, it was good being her first big role. Minho and her had some chemistry.  I also liked Lee Hyun Woo's acting of his character.

I know this is going to get me in hot water with a lot of people...including my brother who loved this drama.

But I felt the plot was just very cliche. Thankfully it wasn't a really long drama so I didn't have to spend too long on it. 

Spoiler alert*** Do not read if you plan to watch

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Another thing that really killed it for me was the fact that Cha Sung Hoon (played by Kim Min Gue) sleeps with Jin  Young Seo ( played by Soel In Ah) while she was mostly drunk. It would have been better if they were both drunk but Cha Sung Hoon was mostly sober. So he should have definitely stopped at the kiss. I know she had feelings for him and had implied them before when she was not drunk but still, that just made me feel icky. I actually loved their pairing more than leads until this.

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End Spoiler****

I will say I loved the acting and chemistry between the Leads and Second Leads. The friendship of the girls was especially cute. I had seen Kim Se Jeong and Seol In Ah together in School 2017 and loved their acting there so it was nice to see that they did quite well with what they were given. So the actors and their chemistry (especially Soel In Ah and Kim Min Gue ) is makes this redeemable along with the short story time.

WTF. It started off really interesting. It was Sci-fi, there was an interesting time-travel aspect, interesting murders and some great acting. Overall it had a good start.

Then the plot just went off the rails. It was the plot that killed this drama for me. 

Spoiler alert: Do not read if you for some reason plan on watching.

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They tried to explain incest by saying it was not really incest...because it was an alternate dimension....it doesn't help...genetically she is still his mother. Soooo weird.

It was a good concept of the trouble women have going back to work after not working for several years....even with great qualifications. It started out great. The friendship between the leads was cute and they had decent chemistry.

But then the rest of it became cliched and the chemistry kinda sizzled out once they got together. Also, everything interesting happened at the beginning of the drama. So it was kinda boring towards the end. For a lot of this drama, I was just thinking where did her child go? I mean I know she is at boarding school or something...but does she not even call her child??? Should they not have a scene with them interacting at some point?? 

But they had some fully fleshed-out characters and an interesting secondary plot. So yah...it was boring but the characters and acting were good.

OMG...this drama made me want to kill Baek Seung Jo over and over again. I know he is supposed to be a cold-hearted guy....but he is fucking the same even after confessing his feelings and getting married to the girl. The girl Oh Ha Ni annoyed the crap out of me. She showed some backbone at times...and I was your go-girl and then she would regress. It's like all the character development she made just kept dying each time the guy did something that hurt her and she become a meek caricature of herself.

Even the secondary characters were annoying. The little brother was worth maybe a few mins for how he total destroys Oh Ha Ni repeated...it was funny in a really sad way. I get she is stupid but you don't have to tell me with each and every scene just how stupid she is. 

The acting was good for what they were given to work with. Nothing extraordinary. 

Why made a gender bend Goong?? What the hell was this crap??

Crappy plot. Crappy Acting. I don't think you can redeem this. 

This may have been good for some people but the main leads and their plot just annoyed me so much. I hated both of them (I mean the characters, not the actors - the acting wasn't too bad), their woe-is-me attitudes and their chemistry was not all that great.

The only thing redeemable about this was the Second Lead Couple, their chemistry and the scenes. It was cute, simple and just adorable. Go Park Hyung-Sik!!

Seeing Jang Hyuk as the lead I thought it would be good. But god was I wrong. The plot was not too bad but the secondary characters just annoyed me soo much that I hated this drama. Also, it was just very sad in some parts. It's a happy ending but really how much do you have to make ppl suffer to get to that.