Knavery

I think it's a good setup. Right now Hyun Jae kind of has all the "power" in the relationship with Mi Rae. She's his former client. He's seen her at her worst and most desperate. Now she'll see the same and just like he helped her out, she will help him out.

The ex-gf is a bad person, no doubt but a necessary character to balance out the power dynamic between Hyun Jae and Mi Rae. Hyun Jae needs to be knocked down a little in the eyes of Mi Rae, he needs to be humanized a bit and not be seen as Mi Rae's savior.

Now that being said if this drags on beyond lets say another ~4 episodes I'm going to be disappointed.

I've enjoyed it so far. The actress playing the female lead was a good choice.

Definitely looks like him and he's clearly obsessed with Lady Xu just like Shen Yu.

Show is pretty bleak after fast forwarding through what I remembered and finishing the last half. I get there is an alternative ending but they botched that in a rush to get something "happy" out the door. Some basic stuff is forgotten - like the leads stopped the poison from being released but second or third female lead (whatever you want to call her) gets her happy ending with the spoiled prince because she rescued him from the poison gas that never happened.

Episodes 28(?) onwards felt unnecessary. Just felt like squandered potential or it should have been shorter. Instead it was too long while telling too little of a story. Having the leads fall back into a pattern of old habits to stall for time was annoying to be frank.

Nothing much until the last ~10 episodes. We find out she loved the ML's dead brother and then she dies after overhearing the conspirators and trying to warn the prince and princess.

Did the subtitles for this show ever get better? I made it roughly halfway or so and the subtitles were bad at times. Not bad enough you can't understand what is going on but bad enough that it is painful to read while trying to watch the drama.

Might give it a go at some point this long weekend and restart from beginning.

None of these are premiere publications for Hollywood or movies or TV. You would only put these quotes on a DVD sleeve if you had nothing else to put.

The major publications have basically glossed over Lee Min Ho almost entirely. Only acknowledging he's a major character or he's a big star in Korea.

Most of the praise seems to be for Kim Min Ha and Youn Yuh Jung. The scenes that get praise for acting don't seem to involve Lee Min Ho - like Sunja leaving her family as one example of a scene that received praise.

He has his fans to be sure. He's not terrible either. I don't think he stands out and given he's paired with a rookie in Kim Min Ha who is receiving praise... that is telling.

I wish they would have found someone who looked like Lee Min Ho and had the ability to act. The few dramas I've liked Lee Min Ho in have had comedy elements so he could ham it up. But Pachinko has a subtle, melancholy feel and he can't pull it off. He's got the physical looks for the part but not nearly the acting ability to pull off the character.

I like her acting so I'm glad she's getting another lead role.

I think all 3 groupings work well together. We'll see how things go but I think they're off to a good start. I really like the dad of the male leads.

I wish the subtitles weren't machine translated. I think the movie showed off potential and what an ending.

Man I desperately need to know who sang the cover of Fluttering Heart at the end of episode 17. Need to find a youtube or spotify link.

The plot reads like a drama just a year older than King2Hearts - Myung Wol the Spy. The difference is Myung Wol was clearly part comedy whereas this drama does not have a comedy tag.

This is a tough one for me. I like these types of shows when I start watching them but I'm always reluctant to try them. For example I haven't watched Crash Landing On You.

I'm hoping the directing team and Nam Gyu Ri can pull off a special forces commander finding romance with what is probably a semi-spoiled pop star. Often times the background and stories of characters can get lost in a drama and I hope that won't be the case here.

Yeah the ending wasn't the greatest but overall I think this will be my go-to drama when I need a pick-me-up.

He got all flustered when Hari didn't just agree with what he said, he's going to come around.

Whenever he gets flustered or surprised he takes a step back and thinks about the situation and then changes his mind.

You're probably right given it's on Channel 3 and I didn't see anything recent from Push on Channel 3. Ha, pretty interesting they preview their own drama within their currently airing drama.

I assumed it wouldn't be one of the TBAs on his page and that was my mistake.

Anyone recognize the TV show or movie playing in Episode 7 around the 20-25 minute mark as a flashback between a conversation of Sonklin and Saran?

I'm pretty sure the guy is Push Puttichai Kasetsin but I can't place the woman or the name of the show/movie. It looked interesting and I wanted to check it out.

Overall I'd say this show was okay. I liked the female lead and thought she did a good job.

Well... I sort of like Jung So Min and maybe Lee Jae Wook can show something besides his RBF. I've only seen him in Extraordinary You and he was okay but he was a pretty one dimensional side character.

It's just not good.

Typical cold male lead who hates but then quickly comes to like the female lead but won't say anything or do anything to show it. And of course he wonders why she doesn't understand him (she's not a freaking mind reader).

The female lead is plucky and never gets discouraged despite the male lead giving her no reason to be optimistic about things. I don't get it. Why are so many characters in Asian dramas complete masochists? Have some self respect.

She makes a really poor man. They dress her in baggy oversized clothing, the few times she wears tight fitting clothing it's usually high-waist pants which no man is wearing in the 21st century, the wig isn't convincing. She has more make-up on when she pretends to be a man than when she is dressed as a woman. It's unconvincing every possible way you look at it.

The side characters are okay sort of but they're so out of focus in the first half of this show that they can't carry this thing.

They'll probably keep it simple. Remember Hari's family right after the Geum Hui TV show - mom and dad basically point out marriages are between people with similar backgrounds while the son says something along the lines of "I hope Taemu's family isn't like that" comparing to the family of Geum Hui's love interest whose name I can't remember. Part of me thinks they might also have Min-woo in their mind for son-in-law.