I was very reluctant ti watch this drama, since i've seen quite a few movies featuring blindness as a concept and the acting never cut it for me. It always ended up being unrealistic, fake and sometimes even funny/ridiculous. However, this is definately not what happens here. Frankly, even though i liked it, I didn't expect me to give it a high rating, but when you find yourself screaming at your laptop screen at 3 in the morning you know this drama shocked you more than you want to admit!
STORY
The story has been done before, many times, in many different ways, but that doesn't mean it is any less interesting here. The description that is given, pretty much sums the very base idea, without spoiling anything,i just want to add that he doesn't JUST start living with her, there is a reason. I feel that the description should have made that reason clear to attract more viewers. The description, certainly, didn't make me curious about the show, the diverse reviews did (and the lead actors).
The drama revolves around the ideas of life, death, love and loneliness (with emphasis on the life and death part). Why should someone live? Is something or someone worth living for? Should people just die because their life has no meaning? Should someone live for himself, or find someone worth living for? All those ideas and many more are getting depicted in this drama. I loved the fact that the show adresses certain questions about living and dying. I am not sure if they can be appreciated by everyone, or you may, possibly, need to suffer by chronic depression or manic-depression to understand and appreciate them. However, i, myself, have quite a few times over the years troubled myself with such questions, and i found it refreshing that a show assesses such notions in such a wonderful and unique way i may add.
Love is obviously used here as the reason that someone should live and not give up. How can someone should live because someone else loves them, and you can learn to live and love yourself through that someone's eyes. Wonderful in every way. This is what this show does best, and it is basically the main reason i rated it with a high grade!
Since i started talking about the positive things of the show, i'll continue by saying that another thing this drama got right was the character development. The characters grew in 16 episodes so much. They went from being selfish, closed up, self-hating and cynical to accepting theirselves, forgiving theirselves, and learning from each other how to love themselves. Wonderful once again how they start and how they end up.
The drama is very character driven. Pretty much, nothing happens plot wise.... ever... If you are expecting a melodrama that will keep you at the edge of your seat with plot twists and backstory developments, this is not the show for you. The show is good at what it does and that is to show how the 2 main leads grow closer together. If you like romance, you'll like this since their moments are officially the most romantic moments i've seen in any melodrama ever!
And this brings me to another great thing of the show and that was the fact that it wasn't the excessive tear-jerker i was expecting it to be. Did i cry? Yes. Did i cry a lot? At the beginning yes. Was my cry justified? Totally. I couldn't help but compare this to Missing you which was a total and absolute tear jerker. I remember the leads poored buckets of tears. Here, yes you will cry, but the cry is because of happy moments. I was crying with a smile on my face and i liked that. I also appreciated the fact that the most sad moments were the ones that weren't told. I mean, they both have sad and sentimental stories, but they are never told in our faces, we see them in flashbacks, but they aren't thrown at us in order to force us to cry. I'll give an example, the main actress has mommy issues because she was abandoned by her mother when she was young. You can feel her pain and how she feels without ever telling us she misses her mom. You can tell she still hurts and you can tell she cries herself to sleep every night and she cannot trust anyone because of it. The actess and the writting made me feel that without ever being told. I appreciated that a lot!
This pretty much, sums up what this show got right. The drama, however, sadly, had quite a few drawbacks, that really made me angry along the way. Firstly, the show starts wonderfully, and it keeps it up for 5 episodes. Sadly after that it loses steam little by little, to the point of getting slow and borderling boring. Even if the episodes were easy to watch and didn't really drag, the drama was too character driven and some episodes felt too slow. Episodes 2-11 pretty much focuses on how the 2 main leads grow closer together. I loved it at first, then i bared with it, and at some point i was done. Still, all their moments (and they were many) were flawless, absolutely romantic, and unforgettable. (I praise the romantic soul who wrote them)
The main problem i had with the show, and the one that forced me to give it a 7.5 were the stupid and inexplicable character decisions... A drama that is character driven, relies on the characters and the way they act almost completely. Their actions, reactions and decisions should be rational, so the viewers could understand and relate. Here, i seriously had to force myself to let go of any shred of rationality i had in order to continue watching. There are some super ridiculous missunderstandings happening here for no reason, and on top of that (even when you let them go and you accept them even if it feels wrong), they get forgotten and never mentioned again in the next episode, like they never happened. On top of that, the characters' attidute was changing faster that the wind, making their actions even more inexplicable, stupid and unrealistic.
Overall, the story isn't anything groundbreaking, but it is indeed wonderful to watch them grow closer together, but not being able to be together for serious reasons. This combined with great character development and amazing romantic moments, made the show for me. The only drawback was those stupid irrational moments that made me angry.
ACTING
Almost flawless
Jo In Sung gave the performance of his career. I liked him in its ok thats love, but he outdid himself here. His emotional moments were the best i've seen in a kdrama thus far. He made me believe he was actually crying, the way he was desperately trying to keep his tears from dropping in a lot of the scenes, broke my heart. He was great and wonderful.
Song Hye Kyo. My first time watching the actress and she was great. She pulled off what i thought it wasn't possible, she made me believe she was blind. She wasn't flawless, but she was good at what she did.
Jung Eunji. I am not a fan of eunji as an idol, but omg the girl is talented. She can obviously sing, but her acting is good too! I wouldn't have guessed she is an idol originally if i hadn't already known. I've seen her in Reply1997, but there was no competition there, most of the actors were idols. Here she showed what she can really do, even if her character felt a lot like her reply1997 character. What i loved the most were the moments of mixed feelings she really got through to me. Her character was conviniently used to tie loose ends of the story, and was underdeveloped in general. She did good.
Kim Bum. I feel he was overshadowed by JIS. He was good, but in front of JIS he felt small, if you understand what i mean. However, he definately didn't bring the show down. The 2nd male and female leads were underused and underdeveloped in general, it probably wasn't even the actor's fault i feel this way.
RECOMMEND/REWATCH
To be honest i'd recommend it only if you a melo fan. I think melo fans are ready to sit back and watch slow episodes with only romantic and dramatic scenes between the 2 leads. Nothing *wowing* happens here in terms of story, so this is definately not for everyone.
Would i rewatch this? Probably not, it was alright, but it did feel slow after a while, and infuriated me at some point, so no.
THE ENDING
I'll give the ending a special part, of this rather huge review that noone will read, since i saw that most people hated the ending. It is true that the drama gets dragged after episode 12 (interestingly, i enjoyed the last 4 episodes more than the middle of the drama). Episode 14 felt like a very logical and nice ending that flew normally out of the show. The writters, apparently, wanted a happy ending though. Episode 14 ends in a rather pessimistic way, but not necessarily sad. However, the last episode was the best episode of the show imo. It exceeded expectations, and it was another reason that i rated the drama with a 7.5. Up to episode 15 i was getting ready to give it a much lower score, but the ending was wonderful. It keeps you guessing on whether what you see is real or not, but this is not your typical ending on a cliffhanger. Here, the ending basically depends on how you comprehend what happened up to that point, and what you want to believe but in any case, without it being too unrealistic and without letting more loose ends that they absolutely had to (that were unimportant from where i stand), they gave us a happy ending (no matter how you choose you see it) that really healed my soul after a roller coaster finale episode filled with emotions! I'd be so angry if it had finished any other way.
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