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Life on Mars korean drama review
Completed
Life on Mars
5 people found this review helpful
by CrusadingAngel
Aug 8, 2018
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.5
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 8.0
Story: [9.5/10] Overall I thought that the story was the best part of the drama. The show keeps you guessing at what is real and what's fake. The same can be said of whether certain events where a reality or a dream.

The main character gets hit by a car in the first episode. As a result, his mind gets a little messed up. He ends up time-traveling(???) back to 1988. Or was it time travel? I honestly don't really know. You'll have to watch and decide for yourself. Anyways, he ends up getting transferred to a police station in 1988. He ends up with a new team whom he solves different cases with. These cases are for the most part related to the events that happened in the first episode. Throughout the various cases, he begins to question his sanity. As he begins seeing hallucinations that suggest that the current time period he is not reality.

I really liked the way that the drama was told for the most part. It's still told like a k-drama, but we sort of get to see it in the lens of the main character's mind. I liked it because the drama told the story in a way which made me have an emotional connection with it. I was confused when the main character was confused. I felt anxious when he was anxious. Awkward when he felt awkward, and so on. It's just plain great storytelling when a drama is able to put you in the main character's shoe (Or in this case his mind lolol...).

Acting/Cast: [8/10] Personally I thought the acting was just okay. The focus of the story is on the main character's point of view. Everything is seen through his eyes and through his distorted reality. The focus is all on him, so it's sort of hard for anyone else to outshine him in terms of acting (or to have great chemistry with a female lead, there were "hints" of a love interest, but essentially no romance). The police team had nice chemistry, but I think that was more so because of the storytelling and not because of the acting.

Music: [8/10] This is the general/average music score I give to the music category. The drama gets a higher score usually if it's a music based drama or has a great OST. A 7 or 8 is usually average for me, anything lower usually means below average.

Rewatch Value: [8/10] I generally don't give a lot of dramas high rewatch values unless there's something special about the drama. This drama definitely had a very great plot. The investigation were intense, fast-paced, and complex. You didn't know what was going to happen and you didn't know what was real and what was fake. A lot of shows now a days has contrived twists and turns in dramas that seem fake or they are just there for the sake of having one twist at the end of each episode. This drama did a good job with keeping me on my toes trying to guess what was going to happen. I would definitely rewatch this again in the future if I hd time.

TLDR: This show had an amazing plot for an adaption of a previously made show. The acting/cast was okay. There were 2-3 actors that I've seen from other dramas. Otherwise nothing really special. The music was okay too. Overall, I definitely recommend you watch this show if you like crime/mystery dramas. The show currently has a 9.0 on MDL for a very good reason.
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