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Never Give Up korean drama review
Ongoing 10/16
Never Give Up
5 people found this review helpful
by AtlLee
Aug 11, 2022
10 of 16 episodes seen
Ongoing 1
Overall 6.5
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 5.5
Rewatch Value 7.0
This review may contain spoilers

Funny but formulaic.

Update after Ep. 10.

I’m lowering it to 6.5. Story line is getting messier and messier. It’s all over the place. They’re even trying to make a social commentary about Korean education system.

They made Kwok Do Won’s character way too much. He’s gotten a bit too naive, too goofy and too witless. Like trying to sneak into the forbidden basement room. Like yelling at his wife for wanting their son to study instead of hip hop.

Also, the son’s story line about hip hop and teenage romance got way too absurd. Hip hop makes me happy, he says. What the hell?

Please stop making characters run into each other exactly when they need to. It’s getting dumb.

Review after Ep. 5.

Story about two idiots. One’s likable and the other’s definitely not. I’m watching the third episode and Kwak Do Won basically carries the show all by himself. He’s such a great actor and watching him cough can be entertaining.

There are a lot going on. Venture capitalists , betrayal, back stabbing between friends, different mysteries involving the loan shark lady, school mom competition, money problems, housing price issues… on and on. But at the end of the day, these are just set ups so two idiots can do their things. It’s not necessary a bad thing since Kwak Do Won is so great. The other guy, though, not only his character is hard to like, I’m not sure if acting is his main thing. He’s stiff for the most part and sounds like he’s just reading the script.

There are other side characters including the wife, loan shark lady, the son, some girl from New Zealand (who, by the way, is strangely sexualized for a middle schooler) and other school moms. Also, there’s a potential extra marital issue after the wife’s old college friend shows up. But nothing really special, yet. Just predictably formulaic storyline that you’ve seen many many times in other shows.

Also, weirdly enough, all characters also happen to have their lives intertwined and run into each other as if they’re the only people in this city. Seoul’s huge. How do they all live in the same neighborhood and run into each other after 20+ yrs? They all know each other and went to school together and live in the same area. Lazy writing?

Side characters are stiff. Not much acting going on.

They spend way too much time on Middle school kids’ lives and romance. Like, who’s actually interested in that? Speaking of, Koreans and hip hop shouldn’t mix.

Another thing that bothers me about this show is how easily characters lie to cover things up as if it’s nothing.

Despite all that, I’m curious to see what’s coming next. I would love to see how Kwak Do Won’s character got to where he got to. We’ll see how it goes.
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