MayAnne
This review may contain spoilers
You'll have to watch this drama to the end to realise what a good drama this is.There's a lot of cliches, typical with romcoms, but how the story was put together and presented made it an excellent drama that's one of the best romcoms I've watched in a long time. Romcoms tend to always be the same story with different cast members, but this has a quality that makes it shine amongst the sea of romcoms.
Case in point (without too much spoiler): The antagonists aren't just all-out evil characters who turned on the protagonist and wants to make the protagonists suffer just because they can. They have a surprising depth and complexity to them which makes them very relatable -- and makes me think that if the focus were on them, they could be the MC we would be sympathizing with too. However, it does take awhile to get there via the flashbacks and what the characters do.
They didn't end it with an everyone-has-a-happy-ending vibe that's quite forced out in typical Kdramas, too. We see the characters still struggling to improve themselves and chasing happiness, much like people would in real life.
Another point I'd like to add is that this drama, thankfully, doesn't focus too much on Young Ho's (So Ji Sub) chaebol company take-over issue, which I find can be an awful drag in dramas. I personally dislike these type of melodramas, so I'm glad that they wrapped it up without focusing on it too much.
The flaws of this drama are mostly due to the beginning portion, where our MC Kang Joo Eun (Shin Min Ah) faces discrimination and shaming due to her large size, although arguably, she isn't really all that fat but everyone makes it out to be awful.
There have been similar dramas, the most similar being Birth of a Beauty which features the male lead, who is a chaebol, giving the female lead a beauty transformation. I'm glad that they decided not to go with plastic surgery in Oh My Venus! and skimped on the political stuff that's common in these chaebol matters. Even after many heartfelt moments, the drama still manages to add humour.
Sometimes, these romance dramas make characters fall in love in such a short time that it feels unnatural, but this drama's felt natural and realistic. The chemistry between the leads Shin Min Ah and So Ji Sub was incredible.
The script writers used cliches but avoided it from being an overly typical romcom. I believe that they would've done a better job if the drama was set out to be longer from the beginning so that they could incorporate the other sub-characters in better. If you like Henry, be prepared to be slightly disappointed as he has no backstory and is in it mostly for comic relief, and fleshing out Young Ho's character.
The backstories and relationship of the characters could have been explained better, but swapped out in favour of showing more lovey-dovey couple scenes between Joo Eun and Young Ho, not that I'm complaining. However, it's just a point you should note before watching the drama.
Two thumbs up for this!
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I also feel that the character's personalities are somewhat inconsistent; U-know Yunho's character changes drastically from how he was presented in the first episode from the second episode onwards, and not in a "character development" way. He came off as a rather cool, aloof sort of guy to a slightly immature kind of guy who teases the girl he likes.
However, it also does have lots of nice food shots and cooking clips that were great to watch while I ate in front of the computer. The shots are all clean and nice, and it does have some nice lines that were well delivered.
If you enjoy watching romance dramas with handsome guys, pretty girls, and perfectly arranged food, this will do just fine.
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