Maybe we should have stopped at 12 episodes

I didn’t read any reviews before I started this drama, and if I had, I would have known that this drama became incredibly boring as soon as the leads got together. Don’t get me wrong, the romance was one of the best I had seen with no stupid drama and only the funny, entertaining types of misunderstandings (God, I hate angsty misunderstandings so much lol). It seems this drama only had the romance line as the only substantial storyline, and it was obvious since as soon we got closure with the main couple, the rest of the plot became completely stagnant. I nevertheless appreciate the mature writing, and I did enjoy the scenes of our two leads just being lovey-dovey together. The drama has a great ensemble of characters, fun music, and a *fairly* original fangirl element to it. It’s a great rom com to relax to as long as you don’t expect too much substance from the plot, and I’d probably be open to rewatching it a few years later since the drama gave me consistently good vibes throughout.

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I have no business rating this drama so high given how much of a mess it was, but my friends can attest that the past 3 days that I spent binge watching this roller coaster have been some of the most entertaining days of my life. The drama is exactly what it said it was - a man pretends to be gay in order to live with a woman in a house that his architecture company has a great interest in. The comedy in this drama was absolutely phenomenal, and I spent so many episodes wheezing, laughing out loud, squealing, and pacing my room because of the emotions that I felt watching this drama. At the time, I could not understand why it got such a low rating, however the drama does indeed lose traction somewhere around episode 11 after the leads confessed their feelings and decided to be together. What followed was just an absolute mess of a conclusion with miscommunication in every episode - my greatest personal pet peeve. My opinion of the drama drastically changed after that, however I still cannot deny that this drama has one of the most interesting concepts if you overlook the obligatory 2010 cliches. If you’re the type who can easily drop a drama, then consider watching the first 10 episodes only, as nothing much happens after that would warrant a drama that long.

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To each their own, I suppose

Vincenzo is the type of drama that just isn’t for everyone. Funny story - I wasn’t actually going to watch this drama for a long while despite hearing amazing things about it on the internet (I’m not very interested in law/crime/mystery dramas), but I used that fancy new “watch something” button on Netflix, and it started playing Vincenzo. So I guess I just continued watching it after that. Despite being better than the other primarily law and crime focused dramas I watched previously, I ran into the same problem with Vincenzo that I had with all the other dramas of its genre. Because so much of the story is action-packed and has to be focused on the plot, the character development fell to the sidelines as usual. I’m the type of person who watches dramas more for the characters rather than the plot itself, which is why I rarely enjoy this genre. My reasoning is that if I don’t care about the characters, then I don’t really care about what happens to them either. Now, that is not to say I didn’t shed a tear while watching this drama - I totally did. I just believe I would have enjoyed Vincenzo a lot more had it been more character than action focused (not the drama’s fault - mine). On top of that, I never really got into the humor of this drama (okay fine, it was pretty funny a few times) nor did I appreciate the drama’s slow pace. I watched the majority of Vincenzo at 2x speed (never doubt my subtitle reading skills lmao) and struggled to remain focused watching the drama at its regular pace. I honestly really expected more from the drama’s action part of the plot, since it was so dominant in this drama. Instead, I got cliche scenes where the characters somehow couldn’t kill each other despite the thousands of chances they had to do so. There were quite a few cliche action sequences and the plot itself felt repetitive and a bit all over the place, especially toward the end. Vincenzo himself also felt unrealistically perfect with his ability to take down a group of 20 guards with nothing but his bare fists. All in all, it’s generally hard to impress me with a good action drama, but Vincenzo did leave me with a pretty good impression despite the shortcomings. I actually grew to like the characters and really appreciated the amazing cinematography and music. I can definitely see why someone would enjoy this type of drama - it just wasn’t entirely for me. Side note - why are we mad at the ending? I literally thought it was just fine.

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What the heck just happened

Let me start off this review by saying that Mr. Sunshine is so far from the type of drama I ever expected to watch, let alone completely fall in love with. I had always considered myself a rom com type of person, and I wanted to say that I absolutely hated anything angsty, overly complicated or political, and most importantly, having a tragic ending. Mr. Sunshine is the epitome of all those things, and if I, a religious rom com watcher, can see just how much of a gem this drama is, then almost anyone can.
Story: Mr. Sunshine is an incredibly long drama (24 episodes!) which tells the tragic tale of 5 people during the japanese colonization of Joseon in the early 20th century. While I have to be completely transparent and say that this drama was definitely on the slow end (sometimes a little too slow :/), it was ultimately worth every single second. The pace of the story is perfectly mellow, and, despite being slow, I would never say it was dragged out at all. The pace perfectly fits the mood of the drama, and not a single one of the 24 episodes could be considered filler or irrelevant to the plot. The plot’s complexity completely baffles me, and I honestly believe that I will need to rewatch this at least twice more to fully appreciate the storyline. The tragic ending was perfectly executed, and, frankly, it is what made the drama so beautiful. Had the ending been anything different, I don’t imagine that the ratings would be the same, nor would the drama be nearly as impactful as it was. I am not ashamed to admit that I was bawling my eyes out like a baby the last two episodes, and that just goes to show how brilliant the drama is.
Acting/Cast: In this, I will also discuss the characters themselves, as well as the cast that played them. I absolutely adored every single actor, and I felt like they perfectly suited the role that they played. Despite some overacting by English speaking actors (*cough* ALLEN *cough*), the cast, especially the main characters, were wonderful actors and portrayed their characters perfectly. While I heard of some complaints of Lee Byung Hun’s stiff acting, I have to disagree and say that he wonderfully played the character Eugene Choi. I felt no stiffness in his acting, only the reserved and disciplined portrayal of a seasoned US Marine Captain. I have to give special recognition to Gu Dong Mae, for whom I probably cried the most in this drama. He was a beautifully tragic character who deserved so much better. I loved the bromance and the humor in the drama, and the tragic romance, despite a lack of kiss scenes, completely enchanted me and convinced me of Eugene and Ae Sin’s love.
Music: Ah, here we go… what can I say except that I have been playing the same one track from Mr Sunshine (Sad Waltz AKA Dong Mae’s theme) on repeat for the past several days and crying uncontrollably. Every single track in this drama was beautiful, and I will say that this is my all time favorite soundtrack from any drama with complete confidence.
Rewatch value: Like I stated earlier, this drama gets a 10/10 in this category because I already feel the urge to rewatch this drama besides just finishing it. I will definitely revisit it once my broken heart can stitch itself up at least a little bit, so see you in a few!

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I think I'm in love

Guys this actually became one of my favorite ever dramas so freaking quickly. I think I was pretty much hooked from the beginning. I’m slightly biased in favor of Zhao Lusi since I’ve already seen her in another drama and liked her from there, but I thought she was the absolute cutest and most perfect FL for this drama. You simply can’t change my mind. I’m still so high from finishing this drama literally a few minutes ago so I don’t think I can offer any constructive or cohesive thoughts about this show besides just wow. Simply the sweetest, least problematic drama ever. No idiotic misunderstandings, so stupid fights, no pointless breakups. Just vibes and cuteness and a simple story about a girl who was in love with her brother’s friend. Definitely not a rom com despite what the genre says, more of a melo/drama than anything else. Probably one of the best executions of a youth drama though, hands on. Usually the time skips where they get older feel weird, and quite frankly this one felt a little awkward too, but it didn’t last long and was pretty easy to transition to. And this is coming from someone who’s pretty freaking sensitive to time skips in dramas (big reason I usually avoid the youth genre), don’t really know why. My only complaint is that the drama did run out of steam a little toward the end. There weren’t many conflicts left and it very obviously slowed down in terms of plot development, interestingly this happened quite a bit after they got together and not right away, so kudos to them for that. Nothing too terrible, still worth watching, just probably soured my vibe a tad bit when I had to force myself to watch the last couple episodes when it was far from being an issue in the beginning (guys, I was eating up those episodes like tic tacs). Still 100% worth the watch, hence the rating. Just something to be aware of hehe. Anywho, watch this drama! If you’re a fan of cute contemporary romance that isn’t very heavy on plot and is just pure ***vibes*** then this one is def the one.

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BOO

Rant review incoming:
With all due disrespect, fuck that ending. I had such high hopes because I was absolutely in love with this drama during the first 10 episodes. It obviously still had its faults and was never going to be a 10 star, but I was hoping to give it maybe an 8.5 rating. No. Hell no. I’d like to erase the last few episodes from my memory because at some point a little after the halfway point of the drama, things slowed down dramatically, random conflicts were created just to get the drama to a 16 episode mark, and the show became unbearable to watch. After all the shenanigans where Heo Im was getting accustomed to his new life came to a neat close and the romance took off, the drama started absolutely sucking. It’s taking everything in me to not rate this drama lower than this (because honestly speaking those first ~10 episodes were amazing and the bad ending shoudln’t take away from the show’s good parts) but that ending was absolute horse shit. The way they just decided to randomly separate FOREVER without any intention to get back together which is just SERIOUSLY! You’re in love with this person and you just decided like “yeah ok I guess we don’t belong together because he’s from the past and even though nothing is technically forcing him to go back, I’ll still make him go back so that he can save a bunch of people at war as if he’s the only doctor in all of Joseon or as if it’s any of his business at all. And then instead of coming back as soon as the war's over I think he should just stay there forever since we're just NOT MEANT TO BE” It just felt like the lamest, least convincing excuse ever for them to be depressed and pining for one another and despite being fully capable of living together peacefully, they still decide to stick to their own timelines because Mrs. Kdrama writer said so and because “He BeLoNgS iN JoSeoN.” Bullshit. If that wasn’t enough, the reason he came back to her wasn’t even intentional to begin with. It was literally an accident and even though he was feeling sad just a few moments ago about his lost love, we all know damn well he wouldn’t have done shit about it. And then suddenly he finds her and acts like all his life’s problems are solved and all his past bullshit reasons for staying away don’t even matter anymore. Bye. Just bye.

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I get sad thinking about this for some reason. I think it was the ending

Listen. I’ve got no business getting this emotional over a drama that was one of the most mediocre things I’ve ever watched, and yet I actually kind of teared up at the end there. I’m extremely bothered by the fact the drama never explains the magic system, such as how one becomes a magician, whether the magicians are real or just all collectively hallucinating, and what the limits of the magic powers are. The story had a really weird pacing and an even weirder conclusion. That last story arc about the “villain” of the drama was just odd and terribly introduced so it felt like it basically came out of nowhere. The rest of the episodes had essentially no plot whatsoever and barely explained any of the characters’ situations. Overall, I was ready to rate this drama a 5 (before the ending finally got explained) then a 6 (because the random magic made no sense), then I settled for a 7 because of the final scene that tugged at my heartstrings a little bit. Would I recommend it? No, not really. If you like any of the actors enough, I suppose you could, since I, too, watched this drama only for Ji Chang Wook. Overall, pretty crappy drama with an unexpectedly wholesome ending that makes the last 6 hours almost worth it.

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This drama totally broke me in many ways, and, for something that was barely romance focused at all, it was surprisingly interesting. The scheming and the angst got a TAD repetitive at the end and did very much cause me a lot of emotional distress (I will be watching rom coms for the next couple months lol) but the drama was surprisingly good. The characters were great and I actually had some SLS with Li Minde for the first time ever! Wow, I've always wanted to experience SLS! Overall this drama was pretty solid albeit very hard to rewatch (so I will probably never watch it again).

Ok but how cool is it that the main leads are married IRL!?

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Disappointed

I just happened to look over at the cast list for this drama and realized that I had a problem with all three of Park Ji Eun’s (the screenwriter) most popular dramas: CLOY, Legend of the Blue Sea, and this drama. After watching all three of these, I’m sensing a pattern which might explain why I had similar issues with all three dramas. For this drama especially, although I have to admit that LotBS suffered from this as well, the length of the drama and the amount of, uh, DRAMA, that occurred was just too much for me. Recently, I began to binge watch Korean dramas on the weekends, and it was exceptionally hard for me to continue watching this one because of the amount of frustration I had with these characters. While some angst and relationship conflict is justified since there wouldn’t be any interesting storyline without it, must we rehash the same problem and have the same petty arguments over and over again for god knows how many episodes? What this drama suffered from in my opinion was the overwhelmingly high amount of angst surrounding the relationship. I felt like every time something went right for these two crazy kids, they would have another stupid fight at the end of the episode. It’s not fun to be on edge about these things while I’m watching a drama… While I absolutely adore both of these actors so freaking much (I loved Jun Ji Hyun in LotBS and Kim Soo Hyun in IOTNBO), they didn’t seem to have that much chemistry with one another. The scenes felt somewhat awkward and forced at times, and it might have something to do with the characters themselves, for all I know. I never did quite understand why Do Min Jun fell in love with Cheon Sung Yi. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a fun and unique character, but he seemed pretty annoyed with her more often than he was actually in love with her. I have to admit that the ending didn’t really sit well with me either. While there’s a certain level where some plot holes are acceptable due to the nature of the supernatural genre, I felt as though the ending of this drama was confusing and quite disappointing. I’m not new to bitter-sweet endings (this screenwriter sure likes them, apparently), nor do I mind them if they are done well, but the ending to this drama was more, for a lack of a better word, stupid than actually bittersweet or interesting. I really just wish we were told more about Do Min Jun’s world because this actually could have made the ending feel less made-up-on-the-spot. I’ll go as far as to say that I would have liked it better if he just disappeared from her world forever than for them to be reunited in such a stupid and confusing way. I was left with so many questions at the end, and I am for sure venting my frustrations out in this review. Overall, I was a little disappointed with the way this drama turned out since I expected much more from such a popular and highly rated title. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

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I feel like all my reviews these days start off with me saying that this type of drama isn’t USUALLY what I watch, but that’s only because I’ve really been pushing myself out of my rom-com comfort zone. My Mister was a drama I kept hearing about, and one day, when I was unsure of what to watch because of my long-ass watchlist, I went on r/kdramarecommends on Reddit and put up a post that I will watch someone’s favorite drama, because I probably already have it on my watchlist anyway. It’s a long watchlist. I literally just don’t have enough time in my life for all the dramas that I want to watch. Anyway, the very first person to comment on that post told me to watch My Mister, and at first, I was like, really? The last non-romance drama I watched I ended up rating a 5/10, and oh, look at that, the one before it was also a 5/10. For some reason I am fucking incapable of being interested in dramas that don’t follow some sort of romantic storyline. But oh, man, My Mister sure is one hell of a trailblazer in that regard. I do admit the first episode was boring as hell to me, and I had to rewatch it because I kept spacing out and was very confused when it ended. The more I got to know each of the characters in this drama, you could not have physically pulled me away from my laptop, because I was INVESTED and needed to know what happens next. By the way, this is coming from a person who sincerely believes that she has some undiagnosed mild ADHD. I just cannot for the life of me sit through this much of a kdrama on a normal day, but there was something about My Mister that just captivated me so much that I didn’t want to stop watching. When the drama ended, I sobbed for about 10 minutes straight (this might be a tad of an exaggeration) and sat there for a little while, not knowing what to do with my sad life now that my only source of entertainment in a while is finally over. I loved all the characters of this drama (even the “evil” ones) because none of them were written to be completely good or completely evil. Our main leads, even, have done some questionable things in this drama, however this type of unexpected behavior coming from seemingly predictable characters is what added the depth to their personalities. I could relate so much to the less moral characters, because as fucked up as their actions were, you could understand where they were coming from. There aren’t villains or heroes in My Mister. There are just regular people who do what they need to do for their and for other people’s happiness. The OST was absolutely incredible, and I loved the atmosphere of this drama quite a bit. The pacing was on the slower side, but this was totally okay and still engaged me throughout the whole series. If I have any parting words, it is to just watch this drama even if you don’t think you’d like it, because I, too, was incredibly turned off by the seemingly boring synopsis that MyDramaList provided. This Kdrama will be one I will not forget for a long time.

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Unexpectedly became one of my favorites

This drama was absolutely magical. I loved how ridiculous yet normal and realistic it was, and I’m so incredibly happy for Ji Chang Wook, who had 2 pretty disappointing dramas before this one. The beginning was quite slow for my liking, but by the middle of the drama, I was absolutely hooked and waited impatiently for each new episode to come out. The acting of all the characters was absolutely phenomenal, and I honestly can’t think of any bad thing to say about this drama. The flow of the plot was wonderful, and each story progressed beautifully - not too rushed but also not too slow. The only reason I can’t give this drama a 10 is because I’m very greedy with my 10-star ratings, and I can’t pick out anything exceptionally phenomenal about this drama to deserve the full 10 stars. This has definitely been an absolutely wonderful experience nonetheless, and I would absolutely recommend watching this to anyone. Lovestruck in the city had one of the sweetest, most satisfying endings of all time!

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Really dull, sadly

I am not gonna lie, the low ratings for this drama definitely alarmed me when I first decided to watch it. The second red flag was probably the fact that this drama was cut short due to said low ratings. When I read that this drama was definitely on a much slower side than what I’m used to, I thought, “pshhh… I can handle a slow drama. I don’t have the attention span of a child, after all, so I should still enjoy this.” Yeah, I was wrong. This drama is the dullest thing I have ever watched since The Walking Dead season 2. I am not ashamed to admit that I have stanned Chae Soo Bin for quite a bit now, so I had hopes that the cast would pull through and make the drama worth watching for me. Wrong again. I still love Soo Bin, but the drama completely failed to touch my heart and I felt like it was trying too hard to create a dreamlike, melancholy mood. That is to say, I got really depressed when I watched the drama, and not in a good way. The plot was essentially nonexistent, so I don’t even really know what to talk about in this review at all. The idea behind this drama was definitely one I hadn’t ever encountered, and the pacing of the romance itself was beautifully well done. I appreciate the fact that the characters focused more on developing a platonic emotional connection before getting romantic, and they were a joy to watch on screen together despite the snail-like pace of the drama. Otherwise, nothing was out of the ordinary in this drama and it was just… okay I guess. None of the characters were particularly memorable, nor did I feel compelled to find out what happens next. As many have said, the ending was quite underwhelming because, although all the side characters got their closure and their stories were beautifully wrapped up, the same cannot be said for the leads, which is incredibly frustrating. All in all, I would look elsewhere if you’re looking for a drama to tug at your heartstrings, as I didn’t feel much at all watching this. And trust me, it’s quite rare for me not to cry when watching a kdrama.

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Very shiny but without much charm

Honestly, I think 7.5 might be too generous?? idk
I genuinely had so many hopes for this drama. I’m a big fan of PEB and was holding my damn breath until this drama would be released because it sounded soo interesting. Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, this drama ended up giving too much screen time to subplots that I did not care about whatsoever (RJ shares, Ran Joo’s mother, and most of all the stupid abusive dad storyline) and not nearly enough to the parts that actually mattered and most of us came here for (helloooooooooo? romance? literally where).
This is a drama that genuinely had so much potential and had all the right tools to become successful, but it completely fumbled the execution and left me feeling quite disappointed. Couple of upsides: love love LOVE the SML, honestly he had more chemistry with PEB than CJH and was honestly just the best boy all around. So devoted to Seo Mok Ha from the very beginning, was literally fantasizing about being her childhood first love to have an excuse to be with her like cmon the flag doesn’t get any greener than that. Music was simply amazing, no doubt about that. My Spotify playlists will be blessed with many new additions. Park Eun Bin slayed as always, I will always watch her in anything and everything.
Now for biggest pet peeves: Although I enjoyed the character development of the ML, they just didn’t give him enough time to develop as an individual and then as a love interest for Seo Mok Ha, they just kind of slapped them together at the end and called it love (even when we get past how insta-lovey their childhood story was). Because of this the chemistry was just so off and I couldn’t root for the main couple since they gave them nothing to work with besides a crush from 15 years ago. Like I said before, the inclusion of many uninteresting (to me) plotlines made the plot drag so much and genuinely just made for a very dull viewing experience. I quite frankly didn’t come here to watch a batshit crazy police officer chase his family across all of Korea, I came to watch Park Eun Bin become a singer and maybe fall in love, so the fact that such a large portion of the story was focused on stalker daddy disappointed me pretty immensely.
All in all, not a terrible drama and may be a worthwhile watch, just maybe not for me. Blame my sky-high expectations or the marketing, but this drama just didn’t live up to what I had imagined in my head. If you must, at least stay for Park Eun Bin’s music. Or find the Spotify playlist, that works too lol.

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This was such a disappointing watch…

I really thought this was going to be a 10/10 drama for me because the beginning left such an amazing impression on me. The first couple episodes were so engaging, and I loved the female lead and her very fresh, confident attitude. Then.. the drama got bogged down in weird “car accident” drama (which was never really resolved?? idk I wasn’t paying attention cause that entire plot point was such a snoozefest) and the leads’ relationship took a weirdd nosedive. I felt like all of a sudden their chemistry disappeared (or maybe it was never present to begin with?) and I could’t for the life of me recall why they were even into each other in the first place. Just the pacing and compatibility and the romantic development was all weird and off somehow and I could’ t figure out why. I just sped through the latter third of this drama (no regrets because it just stayed boring). I guess the only redeeming point was the ending because it did surprisingly leave me a bit emotional and teary-eyed. But, overall, I expected so so much more from this drama, especially based on the two main leads and the extremely solid start that the drama had.

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Get ready for an unpopular opinion

I’ve noticed that slice of life is kind of a hit or miss for me. This one in particular, as sad as I am to say, was quite a miss. The story felt directionless up until the last episode, as there wasn’t much of a central conflict present to keep the show going. Yes, some things were slowly getting revealed and we were finding out what happened in the past and why the characters are the way they are (looking at you, Mr. Sexy Uncle. LJH made this show bearable), however at the end of the day I was left with the question “Why?” : “Why should I care? Why is this story being told at all? Why has it still not ended?” It was kind of hard to enjoy the drama because of this. The one episode long stories about the deceased became a bit repetitive, and I don’t really think one episode is long enough for me to start caring about them. Han Geu Ru’s self righteousness became annoying, Yoon Na Mu’s overprotectiveness did as well. The dramatic backstories of the characters were giving me an odd sense of deja vu (mild spoilers): from the sad separation between two brothers, to the festering anger over an unfortunate misunderstanding, to the depressing backstory of a coach suffering through the death of his pupil, it’s all been seen before and I don’t think this drama did a good enough job of making these plot points seem fresh and unique. The pacing was drawn out and seemed to move at a snail’s pace, and my interest in this show ebbed and flowed because of the inconsistencies in storytelling and inclusion of interesting plot points. The last episode was perhaps one of the only silver linings and did make me shed a tear or two… or twenty. I thought that while Geu Ru and his family’s backstory was a little out of place considering it took up the entire last episode (and CSG’s boxing thing got resolved in 10 minutes what?), it was very touching, especially toward the end of the episode where Geu Ru was interacting with his dad and coming to terms with his death. Needless to say, I will not be tuning in for the second season as there weren’t enough interesting things to keep me going even through this one (at least I think there is one? Since when would Netflix do something as scandalous as ending a kdrama after one season?), however I don’t regret watching Move to Heaven as the conclusion was quite wholesome although a bit dragged out (but so is the rest of this drama).

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