Aramintai

Controversial drama with disappointing ending

Controversial drama with disappointing ending

This drama has stellar cast and production quality is superb, but the plot and message behind it are very controversial, to say the least.

The first 4 episodes were a solid 9, though heavy-handed, insensitive religious patronizing can be clearly seen from the very beginning. But after episode 5 it rapidly went downhill. Episode 6 was like those countless crime dramas about exaggerated corruption and untouchable chaebols with over the top acting and resolutions. Very meh.
And the last two episodes were drilling on the same message - suicide is a selfish act, it's not about you, you should keep on suffering for the sake of others. The only insightful part was about a suicidal salary man, who basically started the chain of events that lead ML to his own suicide - it showed ML the ugly reality of that dream he so desperately wanted to have, the one the government and society kept on brainwashing him to strive for since he went to school. But they never delved anywhere further with that. Instead of guilt shaming ML with his mother for the whole episode they should have explored what ML really wanted in life, how can he be true to himself like he said he wanted to. Is being a cog in an uncaring corporate machine what people really should strive for in life? Just such a waste of potential here narrative wise.

But as it is, this drama didn't try looking into the cause, didn't try to resolve any of the problems SK's society has that leads people to commit a staggering amount of suicides every year, like poverty and unemployment, it just tried to guilt shame suiciders through religious and societal dogmas. Makes one think that it was sponsored by SK's government, who seems to be impotent in solving this serious country wide issue and now just resorts to such cheap shots like this drama. Maybe it will work better on Asian audience with their traditionally communal mentality, but it's a very hard sell for individualistic West.

The suicide topic here is viewed from such narrow perspective, it really started to piss me off by the end. No exploration of mental health state of suicidal people or various circumstances that lead to this hard decision. Yeah, in ML's case perhaps he was too rash in attempting suicide since he had a caring mother and a girlfriend (though seeing how lonely he was with his problems at the beginning, these people have shown him lack of moral support when he really needed it, and his mother was later shown hoarding money for him, which she should have given him years ago to help cover his education debts he was paying off for many years). But what about people who have no such people in their lives? What about terminally ill/severely crippled/mentally unwell people who see themselves as burden to their relatives and society? What about kids being beaten by their own drunkard parents and nobody cares? What about people who are living in miserable poverty with no hope for a better future? They should also keep on suffering for the sake of others and their country or go to hell? So many unique lives with unique problems, but this drama had no compassion or desire to explore any of that. It's like that cartoon meme: Nope, stop talking, go to hell.

As for the ending, well, ML got a second chance in life and that's a win (?). But consequently it also invalidated everything ML did in other people’s bodies and all those who were supposed to die will die, including his girlfriend, and all the bad guys, including two serial killer psychos, will still be walking scott free.
So all in all, this drama just left me kinda perplexed as to how to score it, because, on the one hand, the quality and cast were superb, but controversial message and disappointing ending made me feel like I've wasted my time watching this.
I guess I'll score episodes 1-5 with 8.5 and 6-8 with 7.0.

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A Flawed and Twisted Tale of Dumb, Dumber and Ingrate

First of all, this kdrama has next to no connection to the classical American novel of the same name. It only loosely based its characters on it, namely - the three poor sisters, their rich great aunt and a male friend of the family who simps over one of the sisters. The rest is pure fiction with popular contrived tropes used in kdramas:
-evil chaebols;
-corruption;
-secret organization with unlimited power;
-off their rockers villains;
-makjang.

PLOT:
The first half of the show is great and promises a potential masterpiece. It starts fresh, with relevant topics raised about poverty, social issues and is mixed with murder mystery. Every episode manages to rile up new emotions in the audience with unexpected plot twists and sympathy for the characters suffering injustice. Small niggle starts to appear with the introduction of the conspiracy theory trope - the powerful secret society (#Illuminati), and fantastical properties of blue orchids.
And after a shocking finale of superb episode 8 it rapidly starts to go downhill with reveal that the main villain is just a deeply deranged person who likes to play with the victims before killing them. Absurdity, increased usage of makjang tropes, dumb circus and public shows are introduced in the next episodes until it all culminates in a cringey finale where none of the villains get what they deserve (they all die instead of rotting in prison for their crimes) and little women get what they deserve (money!) but at the cost of other people's fortune.
The tale of the ill gotten money, that is the catalyst of this whole plot, is a long winded one, but in the end the three sisters get their hands on it with the help of ML, even though originally it belonged to the victims of the bank made bankrupt by the villains.
The final message was supposed to be that ill gotten money is evil, it's not worth chasing if it costs someone's life, better live in honest poverty than dead or rotting in jail. But that message is completely negated by giving said money to the sisters anyway in the end. The hypocricy is apparently lost on everybody in the end, because that's where the show conveniently ends.

CHARACTERS:
First of all, lead female characters here are deliberately made dumb, flawed and reckless. It was script writer's conscious decision as was reported in the interview with her.

The dumbest of them all is the bookkeeper eldest sister, who throughout the whole drama made only 1 smart decision (to swap the cash with bricks), the rest was sheer luck or help from other characters. But what her character lacks in intelligence, is compensated by her love of her friends and family. She manages to forgive and save her friend, who basically set her up big time and put her in great danger, from certain death. And she'd do absolutely anything for her sisters. Being poor through all her life though, her next greatest love understandably is money and she makes a lot of stupid mistakes after a very large ill gotten sum of it is suddenly left to her as a gift. But stupidity must be punished, so in the end her character does suffer a bit to reflect on what she did wrong according to law. She's rewarded with her material dream by the end of the show.

The reporter middle-sister is a bit smarter than her elder sister. She is self righteous and claims to have unbending integrity and high morals, but they are heavily tested as her sisters get themselves in trouble and lawless methods that villains use make her fail to expose them again and again. In the end she succeeds in her investigation and gets together with a male long time family friend who helped/followed her throughout the episodes. However their romance from friends to lovers is very weak and that male character is one of the most useless in the whole drama.

The youngest sister is the epitome of a teenager during "a phase" - an ungrateful little brat who throughout the whole drama never once said a grateful word to her sisters who'd do absolutely anything for her. Instead, her grand plan was to get away from her poor family and get rich and comfy life quick by befriending the villains daughter. And she did succeed in that in the end without too much of a hassle, so I guess she was the smartest of them all. Some people claim that she did thank her sisters in the end by getting each of them a share of that ill gotten money. But she didn't actually, it was all ML who just accidentaly met them running away and decided to use her friend's account for a while (though he could have as easily have done it by himself). In the end her role was downsized to a minimum, a pretty selfish and consistently ungrateful character, who just had to be there because there had to be 3 sisters.

The villains of the evil secret society were several, but in the end only the main one is worthy of note. The society itself turned out to be not as powerful and omniprescient as was advertised. It's a drama about women, from women's perspective and so the main villain is also a woman. Her character development from a prim and proper house wife, that stands in support of her brilliant husband, to a crazy deranged psycho was entertaining to watch, but in the end, after her husband died for the cause, her house of cards crumbled easily and the final showdown with her was a total cringefest on par to the cringiest of the makjang dramas out there. Guess her character wasn't smart either without outside help.

And lastly whom I'd call the real main hero of this whole drama, the male lead, the guy who will give you major trust issues trauma throughout the episodes, the mysterious, the most confident and smartest of them all, the man with the plan - Choi Do-Il. He was a real safe haven of rationality and smart decisions in this drama plot's sea of random dumbassery and craziness. Probably the most favorite character of them all in this drama.
Of course, there was also his cool and badass commando father, but he was conveniently swept under the rug and forgotten about in the craziness of the last episode.

PRODUCTION VALUE:
It was excellent and just screamed quality. Cinematography was one of the best I've seen in kdramas, very well made.
Music was also very good and catchy.
Actors work overall was great as well. Kim Go Eun finally landed a role she was not a miscast for. The villains actors were absolutely infuriating to watch, they did really great, loved to hate them.
The only one who I think could have done better was the youngest sister's actress - Park Ji Hoo. She was too stiff and had samey facial expressions all the time. But since she's an underage noob I'll give her some slack.

Overall, it's an exciting and flashy drama, that reveals one shocking and unexpected twist after another at a breakneck speed, hoping you won't notice plot holes, dumbassery and shallowness under the surface. And introduction of certain badly chosen cringey tropes in later episodes ruined its twisted mess of a plot in the end. Could have been a true masterpiece otherwise, a shame. I give it a generous 8 out 10 overall.

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Clever mind games

It's a good revenge drama about a guy who, with his smarts and silver tongue alone, was able to infiltrate the world of high politics from the bottom to the very cabinet of ministers to avenge his father and punish formidable villains who killed him over a certain MacGuffin device wanted by all.

The good:
-Intelligent writing
-Suspense
-Elaborate schemes
-Complex, very well written villains
-Good OST
-Good production

The bad:
-The things they made Astronomers Bureau do in this drama. Here in the drama they made astronomers also do jobs that historically were never theirs, but other ministries' and bureaus. Such as carpentry, masonry, construction, architecture, morticians' job, etc.
-Romance felt lackluster, FL was just a side character here for most of the drama
-Questionable ML's behavior towards FL and her mother at one point in the plot - holding FL in a cell for weeks and trying to kill her mother, who was in the right to get her nation's treasure back at any cost
-Dumbing down ML in his confrontations with the third villain
-Uneven pacing in the last 10 episodes
-The writers got lost in the sauce of the MacGuffin device's lore by the end

Overall, quite an enjoyable suspensful drama with intelligent writing. But it misses that special something to make it a good rewatch drama.

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Entertaining and intelligent law drama

Very nice law drama overall, I enjoyed it a lot. I like that the plot was well written and stayed tight, and coherent throughout the entire series with no dumbassery, fillers, or circus in the court room. The killer's identity reveal also comes naturally, without contrived attempts to prolong it being kept hidden (like in headache inducing Blind, for example). If you watched a certain Hollywood movie with a similar plot, or simply figured it out early from a rather limited range of presented characters then good for you, take a cookie.

The highlight of the drama is not "whodunit" mystery in itself, but the story behind it and FL's character development, which progresses considerably after she starts to get involved with ML and seemingly unrelated cases he one way or the other drops on her. I thoroughly enjoyed their characters interactions, they had great chemistry.

I'd say my only complaint would be that the initially calm and intelligent main villain made a big mistake down the line by trying to cover up another character's crimes (which would have been revealed anyway). And while trying to consequently cover up that mistake he started to get increasingly paranoid and made even more mistakes, which in the end led him to a rather dumb cliche end. It was totally avoidable, with minimal damage to himself, if only he stayed put and didn't do anything unnecessary. But other than that it was quite an enjoyable watch.

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A kaleidoskope of failed relationships

This drama is a kaleidoscope of failed relationships and call me a cynic but I'm not seeing a bright future for most of this drama's couples:
-Yu Jung and her lazy ass husband finally talked it out and have delved into role playing games to spice things up, but watch them get bored in a couple of years again. The husband will be the first because he is just lazy by nature and takes his wife for granted. And the wife needs constant affirmation of their love.

-FL's spoiled brat of a sister just didn't give me the vibe that she truly loves the guy, she just goes with the flow in life. A NEET and a minimal wage worker, they are a staple divorce statistics example, so often stories such as these happen. Since they don't even know each other well or what they want to do with their life I think in a couple of years she's gonna start blaming the guy for ruining her life and gonna end up a divorcee with two kids, continuing living off of her relatives. If I were FL I would have given her an earful and kicked her out of the "bird's nest" long ago to get a taste of real life. Or at the very least made her pay rent. I really dislike lazy loafers like these, have seen them in real life and they just never learn to live on their own due to continued coddling.

-U-Ri and CEO...just why and how the ef? I don't even think CEO really fell in love with U-Ri, no chemistry whatsoever. He just didn't want to end up alone in his age and used her puppy love to his benefit. Too bad his ex wife didn't want to get back together with him, would have been a better fit. I don't know what else to say besides it being cringe.

-That bitchy bride friend of FL's is gonna get divorced in a couple of years as well. Pressured an unready guy into marriage, yeah, that's gonna end well.

-The chicken sh*it of an ex his current gf - not gonna happen. At this rate the guy is going to end up forever alone, he really needs to dial himself down by a lot.

-ML's ex and her husband - not really seeing it either. She clearly didn't know what she wanted and gonna question and beat herself up until her husband will get sick of it.

-ML and FL...they will probably be ok? ML kinda half-assed his confession, but FL considerately gave him slack. ML really struggled to convey his feelings until the very last, but judging by his behaviour in the end he seemed to have overcome it, he became all lovey dovey with her. They were quite cute in the end. And FL is not going to ditch ML, because where else will she find a guy who likes her no matter all the embarassing stuff she constantly gets herself into. Personally, I think the lead couple was the most natural in development and healthiest of all of this drama's relationships. Their bonding through similar ordeal allowed them to really get to know and understand each other, which I can't say for many of the other couples of this drama.

Overall, a 7/10 from me. I really loved YIN's performance, she really carried the show and managed to pull off various aspects of her character, ranging from really embarassing ones to very mature ones, with effortless grace. I can imagine it must have been difficult though, because her character had to stay likeable while being very flawed.
And some of the show's dialogues were real gems, full of witty banter and meaningful one liners.
But still:
-1 point for cringey U-Ri and CEO couple.
-1 point for trainwreck of a shotgun couple.
-1 point for too much screen time and tears wasted on Mr. Trash.

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Nothing new here

Another one of those very far removed from reality saeguks where bored court has nothing better to do but to plot against each other inside the palace. It's better filmed than some other of its kind and actors are ok for the most part, but there's nothing new here.

In this one we have a jealous, spiteful grandma, the queen dowager, as the main villain from the get go. She makes no mystery of it. She's playing the kingmaker behind the scenes for her grandsons, like she did for her son, the king, and is not beyond stooping very low against those whom she doesn't like. She hates the current queen, who is FL, for being of nobler birth than her and for not being obedient to her.

Then of course we have the evil minister, who's in cohoots with the grandma.

And last, but not least, a staple of many saeguks - a weak and powerless king, who not only has to obey the ministers lest he be deposed, but he can't even kick out his own scheming mother into fckn retirement to some back palace. His only prowess of note is spawning tons of children with his ever growing harem of concubines.

The concubines can be summed up to basically one character - your typical crazy Asian mother who wants to whip her child into becoming an overachiever and m̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶g̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶to ̶b̶e̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶a̶g̶e̶r̶...to become a king.

And since the king is so prolific in the field of child making there are many male contenders to the throne, which is the crux of this whole drama - everybody wants to take FL's and her sons place. So through her tenacity and guile she has to protect them against all the schemers (which is basically everybody in the court here) lest they all get deposed and killed like what happened to the previous queen and her sons. That's about it. There's lots of intense drama over borderline makjang bs, so if you're worried about your blood pressure I wouldn't recommend watching this drama.

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Good, but the old TV series were better

Yea, that muted ending and furniture of a protagonist didn't do it for me. Never once was he shown to be actually needed by Toranaga and he wasn't even funny to be his pet clown, because they communicated too seldom here. And many important scenes about the protagonist were cut to make time for a parade of side characters.
And too many times it seemed that Toranaga was just plain lucky and adapting, not megaminding everything ten steps ahead. Yea, he was a ruthless liar who surrounded himself by people he could easily manipulate, but he wasn't omniscient to predict all random things. Like, what happened to his son, or his brother betraying him, or what happened to Mariko.
And speaking of Mariko, she was more of a protagonist in this show than ML or Toranaga combined. MVP, but disappointingly way too suicidal.
My favorite character in this drama is not her though, but Yabushige - the most human and entertaining one to watch. He was squirming on the frying pan for the whole series trying to get the most profit, but failed expectedly :).

Anyway, it's still a good drama. Production quality, especially the costumes were great. Too bad they didn't show the epic battle of Sekigahara, but it wasn't in the book, so ok. I'd give it an 8. But old TV series in terms of the plot and characters were still better, imho.

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Best comedy of 2022!

This short format, fast paced kdrama is not only packed to the brim with sizzling comedy, but also somehow managed to pull off one of the most charming and well done romances I've seen this year, even though it's just one of the subplots going on in it.
The funny lighthearted plot, pacing, acting - everything's excellent.
All the cast did a stellar job and I thoroughly enjoyed watching their hilarious characters navigating through various situations at their chaotic workplace and after it.
It's a very bingable show, a surprisingly great comfort drama and rewatch value is very high. A solid 9, highly recommend!

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