Kelekat

Other than the spoilers everyone already keeps talking about from around ep. 7, could someone share spoilers about the lead couple's actual relationship development before then?

When do they start having feelings for one another?
Are there any love triangles?

I can tell from the previews at the end of the 1st episode that my suspicion was right about the ML already having someone in his heart and, unfortunately, I see a SML about to make an appearance. How heavy is the influence of the second leads during the development of the relationship between the leads? I'm trying to gauge if this is something I'm really prepared to watch now or if it'll be too heavy on melo- and angst for me.

Have you ever watched One Spring Night? I watched it again recently and liked it even more the second time around. For me it's what this should have been. If you haven't, I highly recommend giving it a try.

LOL! I started the long post situation first so I don't mind taking the time to read yours. Everything is well said and well explained. I was totally nodding along and agreeing with you the entire time reading.

I'm way past trying to convince you to watch the rest as I couldn't even do it the second time around myself. Is it worth watching at least once? Honestly? I think it's perfect for those who - like myself at the time - are new to asian dramas. It serves as a great introduction into the culture. Once immersed and more experienced, however, I'm starting to think it should be avoided.

The mother in this only continues to get worse by the way. She never ever fully has a redemption arc and remains one of my all-time least liked parents of any kdrama.

The office politics comes into play later on in a major way, but the purpose can only be that it was a tool to show character growth in the FL. Basically, it's incorporated to she her finding her voice both with her mom and in the workplace. While the character development itself is a success, the tropes themselves are both complete failures for me in terms of how horribly they were 'resolved'. With her career was no justice. With her mother...the woman never really became any better. These were GIGANTIC flaws in the drama.

It's like this:

With the mother - if you'd continued on you'd see how extreme she became. She was literally "Mother Dearest" (classic Hollywood movie) psychotic level bad about keeping them apart and controlling her daughter's life. He obsession with status and standing was sickening. Even when she finally settled down though she flat out says she never regretted the things she did and still felt justified in her actions. The way the drama plays it out is that we're forced to accept that, that's how some parents are and we need to accept it. Big NO for me.

With the career - that turns into a huge workplace sexual harassment situation yet the drama only shows the ugly side of the realities of being a whistle blower. Like anyone watching who might be in a similar situation and having trouble speaking up would have even more doubts about doing so after watching this. That's sooooooo not good.

I remember getting upset with the FL a lot my first time watching this but trying to get through it a second time proved fatal. Before I was so deeply moved by how that ML truly loved that woman that my heart ached for him. I was completely engrossed by the character and I'll be honest, it's his love for her that made me love the drama itself. This time though all I could see was how much she DIDN'T love him enough. She acted like she did but her actions constantly showed differently. This time all I see is someone who loved being loved so deeply. Not her actually being in love with him. Even in the end when they reconciled (I went back and read the spoilers to remind myself what happened) it was only after she'd gotten sick of how terrible her new relationship turned out to be that she finally missed him. That's regret for letting someone who treated you well go, not love. They never show her actually missing anything about HIM. Everything with their relationship was always about her. He was always catering to her. She didn't do anything to understand him better or get to know him. The way she handled the situation with his father was the best example of that. She never once tried to understand how the ML felt about his father, or about being abandoned or any of it and had the gall to be mad at him for her completely disregarding his feelings and going behind his back. In the end he gave into her with that whole situation too. That made me so damn angry you can't even imagine.

I don't think the FL ever actually loved anyone to be honest. Shoot she showed more love to the ML's sister than she did anyone else, including the ML. Maybe this drama needed a lesbian trope thrown in! LOL! Shoot there was even a time when the FL had been drunk she tried to kiss her! They played it off of course but shortly after (this is before leads got together) even the ML made a comment about their extreme closeness.

Now that I think about it I feel like it's a good depiction of an unrequited love or of what can happen when people accept someone for the wrong reasons. Like, accepting someone because they love you, not because you love them in return. Yes, the FL had feelings for him but I honestly don't see her love for him. That's not the story the drama was trying to convey though.

I also realized as I was trying to watch it again that the tools used to add drama and angst to the story were very lazy. Like you pointed out with the ex and him being upset that the FL had been cheating too. That could have easily been addressed in one simple statement not drawn out and blown out of proportion like it was. Same for the FL still living at home, there was no logic to it other than to add drama to the show. That realization (of how weak the actual writing was) has been very disappointing to me this time around. The directing was superb though. As was the acting, especially from the ML.

I totally get what you mean about the crying. We're similar in that way. Like The Notebook. It's still one of my all time favorite movies to this day but it makes me cry buckets at the end every time. But my tears aren't because it's sad per se' but because of how soul-wrenchingly beautiful the story is.

I just saw another comment on here where someone recommended watching a few episodes a day instead of binging because of the slow pace of the drama. I think I'll give their suggestion a try.

OMG! I had to search for a while to find someone else who felt this was very slow. I'm struggling to continue and I'm on ep 5. I thinl I'll take your advice and not binge it. Maybe that's the answer to getting through it, because it isn't bad.

Everything was progressing way too slowly for me. I made it to episode 5 but I think I'll move on to something else for now and maybe come back to this eventually.

Okay, I got frustrated and had to look for episode recaps as this was moving along too slowly for me. Unfortunately, from the recaps, I'm going to have to put finishing this one off. It's too slow. It's one of those dramas where everything is unnecessarily drawn out and things take far longer than they should to get resolved, and where obstacle after obstacle in thrown in just to delay development of the romance.

Seems like I'm the only person on here who feels that way though.

For such a short drama the entire storyline is progressing extremely slowly. I'm about to start episode 5 but I'm getting frustrated. The story, characters, setting - all of it is nice and all, plus all the elements are there for me to like the show but it's so dang slow. I don't need angst and plot twists, but I do need progress. Hopefully we'll see some soon.

I see what people mean about it needing another episode (I watched the 2 episode compilation version not the 15 min episode one). They introduced new conflicts (one major one in particular) near the end of the second episode and completely left them unresolved in the end. In fact, they left off with the leads literally on their way to meet with the FL's sister to discuss that big issue (which had yet to be revealed to them). There's just no way this would have been the true ending for the drama.

Still, there was enough closure with the main storyline to not leave you feeling baffled or upset or frustrated and since we already know the truth behind the big unresolved issue we know it's not a big problem.

I've got to say though that the FL's sister's inability to express or even understand emotion is next level; like at a clinical level. Like she's not a bad person at all but she's text book sociopath. Like literally. I don't mean that to be anything against the drama but that shit was pretty scary when you think about it.

Definitely some BTS love in this drama. Keep hearing some of their older tracks in this. I love it!

Ooh! Blackpink too!

It would have been great if they'd written it so that the ML's brothers remained the only real antagonists. Like the SML wasn't involved in what happened in the past and only saw bits and pieces and misunderstood what had happened and the brothers had been behind everything all along. Then, in the present the SML could have believed their lies as a part of their plan to get the shares back from the ML.

Had they written something along those lines I could accept that the SML wasn't so terrible. Just very prejudiced against the wealthy. But nope.

Again though, I will stress that the writers DO get major kudos for making his redemption arc one that he initiates and even takes a step further and shows him preparing to accept his full punishment for all the things he'd done. THAT was a really good move.

Oh and that bs where they try to say he (the SML) wouldn't have become the asshole he did had he met the SFL sooner is utter rubbish. No one forced him to make the choices he did neither in the past nor in the present. At no time was he even in a tough situation that led him to take those drastic actions. He initiated every time and was simply not a good person. Period. That someone finally entered his life that woke up his dormant good side was a good thing that happened to him, yes, but let's not be fooled into thinking this antagonist 'wasn't that bad'.

First, let me preface this by saying I really enjoyed this mini-drama. It was very well-executed.

I enjoyed this drama enough that I just watched it a second time, but I have one major issue with it. It's not enough to deter me from giving this a high rating (it deserves one) but I have to point out that, in an effort to keep this light and fluffy (thankfully - sometimes 'light-and-fluffy' is just what we need), they seriously downplayed how bad the SML's behavior had been, both in the past and the present, in a MAJOR way. It was almost propaganda-like. I mean, to get us to sympathize with him, the guy's even hot!

Thankfully, they didn't downplay his behavior to the extent that they just let him get away with everything - something I cannot stand seeing in dramas. I LOVE that they had him take the initiative to come clean on his own and even turn himself in. They didn't just force us to like his shittiness and leave it at that. They at least allowed us to be able to accept him despite all the bad he'd done...and there was a lot of bad.

In the past he literally traumatized the FL to the extent that she had PTSD AND almost KILLED the ML. In the present he tried to frame the ML for what happened to the FL in the past. Like seriously, this dude is actually really bad. He'd also been a teacher-in-training who held prejudices. *barf* Then, as an adult, he's the one accepting handouts due to his familial connections - complete hypocrite.

Also what was his purpose behind framing the ML? To split them up? It's not like he was still trying to get the girl. So why? He literally tried to frame a high school student for a committing a seriously dangerous and criminal act. In the midst of all this they tried to make it seem like he felt badly [the crying scene] for what he'd done in the past, while he's simultaneously taking further antagonistic actions against the ML. Yet we're supposed to blindly accept that he's not that bad of a guy and sympathize with him?? Really?? The truly disturbing part is, most viewers probably would have just went right along with it! Again, at least they gave the rest of us an opportunity to make peace with him.

The drama was otherwise way better than anticipated for a mini series and I do appreciate them keeping it light but they either shouldn't have spent any effort trying to pass the SML off as a good but troubled guy, or they should have avoiding making him be as bad as he was.

This is called One-Sided Love Gourmet Diary on viki.

This is called One-Sided Love Gourmet Diary on viki.

The synopsis here is terrible and makes no sense. The synopsis on viki is much better. I don't even know why this mentions a love triangle at all. The 3rd person is the ML's father and he's a a coma! [Not a spoiler since I'm literally getting this from viki's synopsis.]

Edit and check the spoiler box please.

Edit and check the spoiler box please.

I don't get how this and The Oath of Love are both adaptations from the same novel. The storylines are completely different. The only similar characteristics I can think of off the top of my head are that the ML is a doctor and the FL's father was his patient and that's how they met and fell in love. Everything else was completely different. Was there even an age gap issue on the Oath of Love? I don't recall.

Anyway, without comparing the two adaptations I still have issues with this movie. The writing was so jarringly immature it was ridiculous. There was no logical flow to most of the interactions between the leads or how the story unfolded overall. How situations which arose were handled made no sense...unless it was written by a 13-year old.