DramaAjumma

https://40somethingahjumma.substack.com/p/who-rules-the-world-2022-early-impressions?r=kq410&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

My first impressions... under spoiler tags...

Not bad. Scooby Dooish, if you get my meaning. I enjoyed it.

Yes, this is a historical romance first and foremost. Just about everything revolves around the leads and their relationship.

On hindsight I'm thinking the same thing.

It's always great watching C dramas on Netflix. The quality of the video does enhance the viewing experience.
Just started on this (5 episodes) and am enjoying this drama so far. Love the pacing and storytelling especially.

I beg to differ. This is 95% a rom com. Everything that happens in this show is in service of the romance. The plotting and scheming in this show is about giving the leads hoops to jump through and obstacles to happiness.

This is not necessarily a net negative but I don't think we should give viewers the wrong idea that this is any kind of sophisticated complex palace drama with any claims to any historical accuracy. Yes, people die and terrible things happen but the romance not the politics is at the centre of this.

In all honesty I wasn't expecting much from this but I saw some cuts on YT and thought this might be worth a look. Surprisingly I'm enjoying this. It's by no means any kind of heavyweight contender despite giving the appearance of being a historical drama but the sparks between the leads are pretty good. It's so unbelievably anachronistic but the female lead does live up to the title. It's an entertaining trashy rom com with some good fight scenes in between. The leads are both pretty good in their roles but I don't mind saying that I'm partial to Shen Yan. He's really hot stuff.

I really do like how the leads communicate and banter here.

Nice to see Merxat with his own romance.

It's fascinating and refreshing to see such a jaded and cynical female lead for a change.

It only gets slightly better for me in the middle and then it goes downhill in the last couple of episodes.

I don't mind vanilla ice cream in general although it tends to work better when there's other things on offer. I wanted to like A Business Proposal a lot more but somehow it ended up being a series of misadventures with no real stakes. It affords some entertainment at the time but ultimately it's forgettable escapism. It billed itself as a contract relationship but that was such a small part of the whole story. This show had more lies than a heist or a con. On some level the show does feel like a con especially considering what comes in the final act with a rather bizarre capitulation to the very same makjang tropes that were being parodied all throughout. Rather than funny, it was annoying. Especially when Grandpa turns into a caricature and a plot device. Just like anyone who is not the main couples. It was as if the show had an attack of conscience about all the deception and put a stern message to the youngsters. "Kids, don't ever do this at home. Lying is bad."

More than that (or less), was how crammed and unsatisfying the final episode felt. Despite that I'm surprised that this still has such a high rating. A C drama would be completely and soundly thrashed for doing the same thing.

Ooof... this was a tough watch in many places but I thought the writer and PD did a good job of highlighting the some of the limitations of the SK legal system through the critical eyes of Sim Eun-seok. No doubt there were over-the-top dramatic moments, but overall I think this was less of a courtroom/legal drama than it was an in-depth and honest exploration of besetting social issues related to families and their offspring. As a whole I think the show maintains a certain amount of balance in showing the complexity of juvenile delinquency that can't be solved by tweaking the law or applying it dispassionately.

No. But that's what makes this show move.

It is rather surprising that a show as good and as thoughtful as this has gone largely unnoticed by the international drama watching crowd. But then maybe it isn't because there are no big names headlining this and no romance (as far as I can tell) on offer.

That kidnapping case... wow... that was one of the better mysteries I've seen in awhile. A tour de force exemplar of complexity in its simplicity. While this is genuinely a fantastic crime show, it is much more than that. It's about artists, the way artists see the world and the role of artists as psychologists. In some ways, I am reminded of Chesterton's Father Brown stories. The mysteries are a means to exploring the human condition and its relationship with evil.

It's not a perfect show in some regards but it is a show that is profoundly well-considered and packs quite an emotional punch.

I don't think it has to be an either or situation. There's room for all kinds of dramas and there are those of us who watch all kinds of dramas and enjoy them. If all that came out of dramaland were "simple" shows, there would be complains that there weren't enough complex dramas.

It is getting more than a bit ridiculous.
One can only tell a joke a certain number of times before it loses its punch, becomes stale and not very funny. It's always better to use it once or twice and then move on otherwise you make your characters feel like one-trick ponies.

Yay, another crime show and with a unique angle. I've just started and I'm sold. It grabbed me pretty much when he started talking about "The Death of Jean-Paul Marat".

I never had great expectations for it but I love contract relationship stories. In all honesty I'm suffering from lying fatigue. Some of deception might have been understandable previously but I think it's reached a point where it's exposing more of the weaknesses of the script.

I do understand the appeal on some level in this current global climate even if I don't share it. But ultimately I think this is so obviously a parody of a parody which is in and of itself an interesting statement on the state of romantic comedies in this present time. It's as if to say that no one can write a half decent rom com without being derivative and satirical. Which is kind of sad. Either the genre has been completely exhausted or the people who write these scripts have nothing else to say or contribute to our universal love of romance.

There are also no actual obstacles in this show. Nothing of substance anyway. It's either mostly inside the heads of the people or these so called hurdles are created by an overuse of prevarication and unnecessary dishonesty. Why? There's not even a corpse in sight and there's so much more lying going on than an Agatha Christie novel.

In the final analysis I'm only watching this for the leads. I know a lot of commenters say that this is their happy pill but honestly this show annoys (and stresses) me more than any political and crime shows because of the over-the-top hackery.