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LilMeggs

San Jose, CA

LilMeggs

San Jose, CA
Love in Sadness korean drama review
Completed
Love in Sadness
2 people found this review helpful
by LilMeggs
Oct 9, 2021
40 of 40 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 8.5
Music 9.5
Rewatch Value 9.0

Unexpected, Instant Favorite

This isn't my usual drama genre, but I am super happy that I came across this recommendation randomly a few days ago on tik tok. Coming into this, I knew I was getting myself into a melodrama about a woman trying to escape from her marriage due to domestic violence, and convinces a plastic surgeon to reconstruct her face in order to hide. What she later realizes is that she is given the face of the surgeon's dead wife. I thought I was going to watch a dark and but classic soapy drama due to the fact that homie gave her his dead wife's face and thought it was going to be brushed over by all his friends and family.

Instead, the writer and director gave us a very twisted and dark story and turned it very light and full of flowers (and flower metaphors). They made this drama very enjoyable and easy to watch as the director paired every character with their own "theme song" to light classical music.

One of the things that I loved about this as well was how simple the characters were, but also complex. They were complex because they all were battling something within themselves - Dr Seo and his love for his wife Ha Hyung; Ma Ri and her internal battle of standing up to her abusive husband and learning who to trust; In Wook with his obsession with Ma Ri and his other's death; Hae Ra and her obsessions with Dr Seo; and Sung Ho and fighting a dark secrets. But regardless of their internal battles and these things being HUGE motivators for these characters, they were simple people who grew throughout the drama. The writer and director did an amazing job where we knew these people inside and out and whenever they were faced with a specific situation, the audience knew exactly how each out them would react. And this is to a t until the very end, when everything started to explode, and everyone was tested - but oddly, I just sat there happily watching because I knew that Ma Ri and Dr Seo wanted to help and fight for love and freedom the right way on their own terms. If they were given a shortcut, they wouldn't take it, knowing that it would come with strings attached and would help them get to their goal quicker, but turning them into someone they were not. And it was very refreshing to watch these characters grow as people, but also never stray from their morals.

Another thing I loved was how devoted a lot of these characters were - I believe my favorite character(s) in this drama were Dr Seo and In Wook's lackies due to their devotion to their people. And that is why Dr Seo and Hae Ra wouldn't have worked - Dr Seo is a romantic and would give up everything he has worked for in order to help get Ma Ri out of an abusive situation, where as when Hae Ra was put in the same situation between helping someone else who was in a bad situation and her gallery, she would chose her gallery and her hard work. And there is nothing wrong with this, they are just driven by different things. I honestly think that Hae Ra would feel suffocated at a certain point if she did marry Dr Seo. But I think the MVP award would have to go to In Wook's lackies; they were devoted to him and his wild goose chase and not by the business. There were many times when In Wook's father would try to override a command and they would not budge. Even to the very end, his main guard genuinely seemed to care about In Wook - I got the vibe that he was worried about him and hopefully by being on his side, he could protect him and hopefully persuade him to not do anything crazy.

I would have loved to give this drama 10 stars, but ultimately, it came down to the ending. I LOVED everything about this drama except for the very end. It just seemed like it ended like any other episode, even after the "final battle," where there was a huge after event... it just ended. We didn't get anything else and ended on yet another flower metaphor. I feel that I needed another episode - there were 40 25 minute episodes where we would spend an ep or two trying to fix something after an event happened which I enjoyed every minute episode, so it was very out of character for this character to just sum everything up in the last 5 minutes.

Other than that, I enjoyed the journey and the story of all the characters. There was a lot of "melodrama" to this, but there was also a lot of depth and a story about a woman learning how to tap into her courage to fight as well as her learning what true love actually is. It was also a story about a man who wanted to pretend like everything was okay and masked his hurt with fake love for wife who seemed like two different people, but learned how to accept and heal from it. And it was a story about a man who was traumatized by an abusive father and the death suicide of his mother, who turned into a monster, and refused help.
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