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Strong Girl Namsoon korean drama review
Completed
Strong Girl Namsoon
15 people found this review helpful
by Antapan
Dec 6, 2023
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 5.0
Story 3.5
Acting/Cast 7.5
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

A bad written show….

~Warning this is mostly a rant~
The focus of the drama was all over the place
At first it was more of a typical kdrama romcom with a girl with superpowers that has been lost for years coming back to her also superpower family and also finding love along the way…in typical k-drama fashion…
BUT as the episodes went by the story became mostly a drug plot where the good guys try to take down the villain behind it. That left a lot of the storylines not properly developed or to become completely irrelevant by the end. Not only that the drug plot itself was also badly written leaving a mess of an ending (which was to be expected)
In more detail the things I didn’t like:
Undeveloped characters: There was just way too many of them and we didn’t get the chance to focus too much on anybody.. even the protagonist felt like a side character at times with how much unfocused the main story was, the cop love interest was too side lined he never got much focus and didn’t feel like a main lead at all… At least the main villain had some characterisation and even a backstory which I appreciated

Inauthentic relationships: There is not one relationship that is given a proper amount of care and development. The characters are what they are to each other because the script says so, we never properly see them building that connection. Biggest example is Namsoon with her family. The moment she gets found and has the touching reunion with them, that storyline is over and she barely interacts with any of them after. It’s like she never left…mind you she had been gone for many years and was a child then so how could she be close to them now she doesn’t know these people yet?? She doesn’t interact once with her grandma, TWIN brother, uncle, she meets up with her father who she supposedly was the closest with and he was the one that lost her episodes after she has been found-has a dinner with him- barely interacts with him after, even with the mother who had been so desperate to find her most of their interactions have to do with uncovering the drug plot- No emotional connection and bonding nothing

Terrible romance: At first it was okay but a bit inta-lovey which I didn’t care for, she instantly likes him because “he is handsome” and talks about loving him in the first episodes, he also fairly quickly likes her because of her “quirky personality that is cute” (I don’t remember more specifically). Do they ever get any deeper???? Noooo. no deeper bonding (except some very rare instances like him telling her once about his brother that died), no romantic tension, no passionate moments, they barely give us anything other than some of the typical cute-moment-scenes. As the eps go by they become less and less of the focus leaving them only few if any interactions every ep. But they still go through the typical romance story beats they have to go through like a confession, first kiss etc leaving me wandering “where is all this love coming from?” It was not properly established why they would not like but LOVE and want to marry each other and I just don’t buy it
I wouldn’t wanna leave out of this the villains feelings for the main girl… What did she even do for him to start liking her and trusting her so much?? She had superpowers which got him interested in those (which is why many assumed at first he was trying to use her for her power), acted out her quirky self which apparently is enough to make any love interest fall for her without any deeper attachment and I guess she did one time told him one line that deeply touched him..that is all.. She literally made no effort in approaching and getting close to him or understanding him , He is the one that started involving her in everything, trusting her and expecting her someone he just met to keep all his dirty and illegal secrets.. someone who is supposed to be a big mafia boss.. is that really logical???

Boring storylines: I can’t stress enough how much time pointless storylines took, they were essentially half the show…. We have a storyline that involves the grandma romancing a barista and when the grandpa comes back some drama involving them, a storyline about the mother investigating a bread guy that does shady businesses (he also turns out in the end to be either the leader or a member in the mafia drug organisation it’s so funny how they made a comical and irreverent throughout the whole series character be the twist villain in the end). The mother has a lot of screentime investigating the drug case, going around in her motorcycle like Batman living a secret double live saving people from evil etc. We also had a storyline about the brother taking some diet pills with drugs in them, the ml with his cup buddies investigating the drug case and then their police chief dies cause of drugs… what else… some pointless scenes with the uncle and the mothers assistant and the most unnecessary of all a side story about the two homeless people Namsoon befriends and interacts briefly in the first episodes…

Ridiculous plot: I could talk about some smaller things like how Namsoon learned Korean in moggolia and her only language problem is talking in informal speech obviously for comedic effect and making her more quirky cause otherwise she speaks korean perfectly But things like that can be easily overlooked…
I do have issues tho with stuff like: Namsoon putting zero actual effort in but still being able to fool everyone and get information on them as a spy…. Like how she stole ryu sio’s computer without the Russian guy realising and no one even suspected her (the person that was literally hired the day before), how the dumb lady next to her would be won over and unconsciously help her simply because namsoon said she looked young, how ryu sio would tell her things like “I killed this person” and his drug operation, take her in his meetings and secret drug lab, believe in her simply because when he asked her if she was in his side she said yes??.. You can’t tell me a person that is supposed to be smart and a big mafia boss couldn’t figure her out….. they really had to dumb down the bad guys to make her succeed easily in whatever she had to do. She also was the one doing most of the work for the police and of course by the end she joins the police without having to go to the academy or anything…
Also you can’t tell me being a strongwoman in the family was not a relatively known fact when they are constantly using their powers in public without hiding at all?? Ryusio should have figured out with little investigation that the family has super powers and that she is the daughter because she also does.. instead his only clue was talking to the fake daughter….
One other thing… I know how extreme Koreans are when it comes to drugs but the portrayal of them in the show was wild. Not only is that one drug making you super strong, it can also make you a madman and it’s that dangerous and deadly that after you take it even once you die unless you have the antidote??? I don’t think that’s how drugs work in real life. I could go on and on about the plot but that’s all I thought for now.

You may ask then “why did you watch it through the end if you didn’t like it/it was that bad?” If I’m being honest I wouldn’t be interested in watching the show if it wasn’t for Byeon Woo Seok and that is because I saw his character beforehand and he looked cool… He did do a good job at portraying his character enough to give me an interest at least to see what his fate would be. I don’t understand tho what their intentions with the casting and that character was? On one hand they managed to get more people invested because of him on the other hand everyone was left disappointed by the end because 1 of his wasted potential and his bad ending (for the ryu sio fans) and 2 of the big focus the show had on him (for the people that wanted the focus to be on the main couple)

Other than that the production is good, the music and actors are okay too (I mean rarely ever have a problem with acting or anything) if it wasn’t for the writing being that bad it could have been a decent show…
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