Colum H
UK - Yorkshire Free State
This review may contain spoilers
I nearly made it to the end but...
Will I go back to this? Can I bear to (not) finish it?
Right now I'm not completely sure, if I do go back I'll update this review.
I ended up at Birth Secret by a recommendation on the 'That Fool' page and at first I was very taken with it. It had a young Kim So Hyun and a fine if slightly irritating turn from Gal So Won. Sung Yu Ri also pulled me in.
The story has it's clichés (amnesia anyone?) but I didn't really mind the way it was done and that first part of the setup was intriguing.
But
At episode 10 I wrote in the comments:
<"Hong Gyung-doo is uneducated and poor" and unintelligent, boorish, violent, impulsive, aggressive... though he is a loving father. Not forgetting he is very, very shouty! (like the uncle) I'm on ep. 10 and really enjoying it apart from the shouty stupids which I tend to skip through.>
And a big part of my lack of enthusiasm by episode 14/15 is Hong Gyung Doo. I get that he's supposedly a nice chap and that they shoehorned various ways to show this into the script. He starts getting better off- better dressed, better job and so on and so on. But to me he's just a shouty simpleton with some serious boundary issues. The Oh now I remember being happy with him when we were married scenes were just jarring.
Unfortunately without the kick of Romance the rest of Birth Secret can't really stand up.
I had little time for most of the side characters whether they were love to hate or comic relief, they just weren't fleshed out enough to sustain interest. The only support character I really enjoyed was Sun Young I liked her progression. The Aunt and Kyung Doo's love triangle ended up as lost opportunities.
Another problem was by episode 14 of 18 I already felt it should have been 12 episodes or maybe 14 at the most. All the flashbacks, the long mother/father & daughter quality time scenes, the aforementioned pre-amnesia happy lovey-dovey scenes. And the professor with a handy speech impediment which could spin lines and 'tension' out interminably.
Which leaves me writing this - uninterested in the whole Chaebol corruption stuff, don't care if any of the secondary characters get happy endings and not shipping the main couple.
Hoping Sun Young gets her divorce, meets someone nice etc. and the cute kid aren't worth four more episodes.
The music was okay in places but there were quite a few yearning ballads in there which ought to have never existed
If you watch a few episodes and ship the main couple then go for it, I kept watching way past when I realised they were the 'ship of the show so it can't be all bad?
Right now I'm not completely sure, if I do go back I'll update this review.
I ended up at Birth Secret by a recommendation on the 'That Fool' page and at first I was very taken with it. It had a young Kim So Hyun and a fine if slightly irritating turn from Gal So Won. Sung Yu Ri also pulled me in.
The story has it's clichés (amnesia anyone?) but I didn't really mind the way it was done and that first part of the setup was intriguing.
But
At episode 10 I wrote in the comments:
<"Hong Gyung-doo is uneducated and poor" and unintelligent, boorish, violent, impulsive, aggressive... though he is a loving father. Not forgetting he is very, very shouty! (like the uncle) I'm on ep. 10 and really enjoying it apart from the shouty stupids which I tend to skip through.>
And a big part of my lack of enthusiasm by episode 14/15 is Hong Gyung Doo. I get that he's supposedly a nice chap and that they shoehorned various ways to show this into the script. He starts getting better off- better dressed, better job and so on and so on. But to me he's just a shouty simpleton with some serious boundary issues. The Oh now I remember being happy with him when we were married scenes were just jarring.
Unfortunately without the kick of Romance the rest of Birth Secret can't really stand up.
I had little time for most of the side characters whether they were love to hate or comic relief, they just weren't fleshed out enough to sustain interest. The only support character I really enjoyed was Sun Young I liked her progression. The Aunt and Kyung Doo's love triangle ended up as lost opportunities.
Another problem was by episode 14 of 18 I already felt it should have been 12 episodes or maybe 14 at the most. All the flashbacks, the long mother/father & daughter quality time scenes, the aforementioned pre-amnesia happy lovey-dovey scenes. And the professor with a handy speech impediment which could spin lines and 'tension' out interminably.
Which leaves me writing this - uninterested in the whole Chaebol corruption stuff, don't care if any of the secondary characters get happy endings and not shipping the main couple.
Hoping Sun Young gets her divorce, meets someone nice etc. and the cute kid aren't worth four more episodes.
The music was okay in places but there were quite a few yearning ballads in there which ought to have never existed
If you watch a few episodes and ship the main couple then go for it, I kept watching way past when I realised they were the 'ship of the show so it can't be all bad?
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