I'll get to the point. The movie was as expected and publicized a BIG HIT. I loved the touching story, not just the romantic side of it but the humane part as well. In other words, not just the relationships between the two main leads but also the ones between the family members (especially the mother and Choel-Soo's) But of course the main attraction was how Sun-Ee's feeling towards Choel-Soo gradually develop from "Disgust" to "Curiosity" to "friendship" and finally to "Love".
The acting....well there's nothing to say above the rating I gave. more than anything Song Joong-Ki did a MARVELOUS job expressing all the character's complex emotions through his eyes (I've noticed through watching Innocent Man that he particularly excels in that field) To think that such a new and rarely played character came out so nicely expressed without the use of a single word!! Park Bo-young also did a wonderful job there's not one scene where you felt her acting was not good enough.
I have some minor objections mostly regarding the action scenes especially the CG used in the transformation scenes was simply horrible, a bit of an insult to the Korean Cinema industry.
I have yet to watch the director's cut with the alternative ending, looking forward to it.
It's a movie that has laughs, smiles, tears and even sobbing. If you're the type that easily cries watching movies and dramas, don't forget to get packed with some tissues, and if you're not the type that cries easily, I think you should also keep some at hand just in case ;-)
So, now that decent (but not official) English subs are out, anyone who had been looking forward to watching this, I suggest you do now fast.
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This review may contain spoilers
Can finally check it off my list, Mission Accomplished!
For Goblin fans, no need to read the review below.I tried watching Goblin back when it was the latest hit, but dropped it midway, and never looked back. But since then the internet world has been raving non-stop and making it out to be the greatest K-drama of all time, but only when my scant memory of the reasons why I dropped it at ep12 faded, was I able to give it another go, more than anything just to check the rite of passage that is this drama off my list. Unfortunately as I expected, completing it felt like a mission, nothing more.
I will start with the positives:
This drama boasts awesome cinematography, Great Production and Overall good performances by all. It can be watched at any time in the future and I believe in terms of production quality it will never feel old. As for Kim Go Eun, having enjoyed her later works and appreciated her great performance, although I was annoyed at the beginning by her over-the-top childish behavior, I cannot be sure if that was her own acting that was to blame. The more the story progressed that more I could feel her acting improve midway through the drama and resemble her performance in later works.
Now moving to the negatives, after having managed to push myself past all the blasphemous storylines, I will try to mention some of the main things that annoyed me with this drama.
1- Drama Length: Whoever decided to produce a drama with 16 episodes each running an average of 1 hour 15~20 minutes made a mistake. Even the writers of an epic Sageuk drama with a complicated saga for a story would still choose to extend the episode count keeping the running time of each episode at a normal length. And honestly speaking, the story here by no means required such a long running time, yes it had its lore and it had two romantic couples with a story each worthy of a separate drama, but I feel the drama could have easily fit into 12 or 14 episodes with normal 1 hour runtime, there were a lot of unnecessary scenes or needlessly long shots of people brooding that could have been edited out of cut short, half way through the drama I was watching with 1.25 or 1.5 playback speed for crying out loud. The ironic thing with such a long-run is that for me their romance somehow felt it was never given enough time to properly mature, because she was so young, overly immature and trusting to cohabitate with two fantastical being, and he was so oddly head-over-heels with a 19 year old just by suspecting she was his destined bride.
2- The Comedy: I generally love mix genre dramas, and the comedic parts I believe were needed in this drama to keep things from feeling too heavy or angsty, but sometimes said comedic parts were so over the top and full of eye-roll and cringe-inducing moments, also the characters were acting so unbelievably immature and childlike for their fantastically long age span. I mean I can understand that he lived for 900+ years and had zero romantic involvement but still that doesn't mean that he acts like a mid-school boy going through his first crush, and the grim reaper would sometimes be acting like a 12 year old and other times be all wise and know-it-all. Sometimes the shift mid scene between heavy angst or thriller to comedy was made nicely, but sometimes the shift was too sudden and extreme it felt like being struck in the face with a bucket of icy cold water.
3- The Romance: I know it is an unpopular opinion, but I thought the romance between the main couple felt off from start to finish.
Even if as a viewer we are able to look past the age gap between a mortal human and a 900+ year-old goblin, it was totally unnecessary to choose to make said human a high-school girl, they could have easily made her an adult since the beginning with the exact same circumstances (he having saved her life as an unborn child thus having created his own bride), so even if she was in her twenties and his physical appearance was mid-40s it would have been less icky to watch. And then we would have been spared from watching a high-schooler acting all clingy blurting out “I love you” to a middle age ajusshi she barely even knew, just cause she sees in him her card-out of a difficult life and having been told my numerous ghosts that she was the goblin-bride.
I always thought watching her act more like a 12 year old all giddy and childlike around him, and him giving her swoony eyes or patting her hair, that it all just felt rather predatory, and I believe the writers opted to tone down their romantic scenes early on in fear of giving off pedophilia-like vibes (there was this scene where they were playing in the arcade and he was all dressed up and she was in her school uniforms and as she was calling him ajusshi as usual, I just thought to myself how on earth any onlooker would not be rightfully thinking that he must be her sugar daddy). I wasn’t blaming her classmate who was spreading rumors that she was dating a middle-aged dude because factually speaking she was.
4- The ending (the most frustrating) ####MAJOR DETAILED SPOILER AHEAD###
So, he chose to perish in order to save her, good……He was finally free of his eternal punishment but still chose to remain in a limbo-like existence to keep a promise he made to her, fine……She has forgotten about him but still suffer from strong feelings of depression and bouts of melancholic emotions which she has no explanation for. Then thanks to her heartfelt wishes and their previous contract, we see that he has been given the opportunity to return to the living world once more, okeeeeeey (reluctantly accept the hard to swallow premise). Also bear in mind, he is still back as an undying Goblin in love with a mortal; in other words the main issue with the story is still unresolved. Then in order to sort out the issue with her being a missing soul who was never meant to be born, the writers chose to make her die an honorable death where she sacrificed herself to save others which I thought was very noble and heartfelt.
Now at this point I would say the writers had the opportunity to choose 1 of two options; make her return as a different un-dying entity such as an angel or whatever (may sound a bit laughable I know but bear with me), and then they both would have had their HEA living a human-like life with just the inconveniency of having to constantly move and change identity to hide their immortality.
If that was too much or too tragic from Ji-Eun-Tak’s perspective, then the second option would have been to have both of their “Lives” end in one way or the another and then to reincarnate in their exact same form and preferably have both of them be in the same age group this time around. If they thought writing a script where he was reborn as a human wouldn’t make sense, did anything else make much sense in this heavy-on-the-fantasy story to begin with? And why was it so simple to write it in that exact same way for the second lead couple and not the main lead couple? Considering the fact that a grim reaper; who is supposed to be a dead soul of a sinner, can get to finish his atonement term and cease to exist, then by the same rule shouldn’t Kim Shin who had been spared of his eternal punishment as a Goblin after having his sword removed be given the same chance?
Honestly just want to rant, but what was the writers insistence to keep him as an undying goblin right till the end, and even worse to have his bride be reincarnated and reunited with him while she is still a highschooler! Is there some reason why the writers were so fixated on keeping the starting point of their star-crossed romance between an almost 1-millennium-old undying being and a 19 year old mortal human?
The Bromance was nice and cute, but many times it was too corny for my taste, and still cannot salvage the show for me.
The OST, had some memorable tracks, but there were annoying instrumental tracks that sounded like old SAGA game BGM, and also a couple of tracks had corny English lyrics that tempted me always to fast forward the scenes they played in.
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This review may contain spoilers
good concept lousy and rushed execution
As a premise, this drama was very promising , but alas the execution was lousy, the story began to go all over the place, weird pacing, rushed conclusions to some story arcs, and even inconsistencies with some of the flashback events.The drama opens to an intriguing mystery with a touch of fantasy and horror elements. The story then offers the familiar yet promising aspect of second guessing and doubting whether our main lead is an imposter who is deceiving everyone, or is he/ might be genuine. Was he a tormented soul that is good at heart, or is he simply a conniving evil person. If executed well such a tool be highly advantageous to building a mystery thriller, where a degree of doubting the true intentions or nature of a character gives extra depth to the story, keeping us watching doubting each and every word or action they take, always in anticipation of the moment the truth comes out. This drama even added an extra layer to that mystery; our main male lead might be truly the person he believes he is conning people into thinking that he is. That premise was good on paper, but unfortunately I have to say I felt the execution was somewhat sloppy and riddled with question marks, and the reveal was eventually rather anticlimactic.
The romance was poorly done. The Enemies-to-lovers card was just so rushed we were not shown enough to be bought on their love story, a couple of swoon-worthy moments or a couple of heroic actions can not make the viewer believe how she could shift one moment from despising and doubting him to all of a sudden falling madly in love with him. And I want to stress, that the issue with the romance was not owing to lack of acting skills or chemistry between the actors, rather it was just an issue with writing and script itself, it felt like the writer just decided at one point maybe due to time constraints with the air time and the progress of the story to just advance the romance to the next level.
Now, addressing the elephant in the room, which was the faux-incest aspect of the romance plot. I'll put it this way, showing us signs of attraction between the main leads at a point when we were still highly doubtful whether or not he was her brother was one thing, but when there is outright flirtatious skin-ship AFTER he supposedly convinced her he was her long lost brother that is a totally different thing. Let's just say that was a bit too much for me.
As for the pacing of the story, the drama wasted a large chunk of its short airing time on the "guild" power struggles or whatever that was, which to put it bluntly was boring and never managed to interest me as a viewer. I never really managed to wrap my head around what the whole guild and stake thing to begin with. and I felt like even the writers were being indecisive as to how much they wanted to build this story, they were always hinting at things like the gift of deed or whatever but never properly explaining anything. And even after we were introduced to the backstory of our lead and his motivations to approaching the guild master, the writers managed time and time again to lose the viewers attention toward the main mystery that our main lead was risking his life to uncover (i.e. the painter and his snow man), and left us trying our best to follow the inner machinations of the power struggle between the husband and wife fighting over control of their precious guild, and we were only ever introduced to their background story too little too late. It is hard to be interested in a plot that involves characters that we were not properly introduced to, with just one quick rushed scene to give you the gist of their background story. That may cut it if it was just a side character with a side plot that didn't consume most of the drama, but here at least one third of the story was about the god da*n thing! They managed to lose my interest completely to the point that whenever there was a part where different factions sent their henchmen to hunt down our leads which tended to happen a lot, I couldn't care less to recognize who was on which faction's side and who was fighting who, I was like whatever just get it over with. I found myself a couple of times literally checking how many episodes were left, and wondering when will the story address the mystery of the painter already, or just focus on our main lead's story.
The ending was super rushed, and I do not think that the shorter format was purely to blame, the story with its different plots could have progressed with a different pace and more balanced way so as to give more time for the main plot to progress without feeling it was just haphazardly executed like that.
Like many people mentioned on here, the OST was nice and memorable, the main song gave Indian vibes with dark and ritualistic sounding vocals I felt matched the story.
If you're a huge fan of the actors, it would not hurt to check it out, other than that I would not recommend this drama.
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This review may contain spoilers
A story that had a smart concept but dumb execution.
As you can see from my rating this review will not be of the popular opinion.First I would like to state that I had started defendant when utnhad just finished airing, but then I put it on hold since then, only to decide to rewatch it 3 years later simply because I had all the episodes downloaded so I thought it would be a waste not to. I do not regret having watched it, maybe because it helped me rethink the concept of rewatching or watching an older drama however popular it may have been , especially after watching many dramas of the same genre that have come out since.
I was hating a lot of things with this drama's story but deep inside I knew it was mostly because my standards as a viewer had become high thanks to many other solid dramas of the same genres, whether it be law, crime, prison, or revenge. I have watched shows that share similar genres like stranger (forest of secrets), signal, prison's playbook, and I hear your voice, dramas that are by no means masterpieces but which enjoyed strongly woven stories that above all showed respect to the viewers' intelligence and boasted solid and believable character development for both protagonists and antagonists.
First let me discuss where this drama scored points...the acting. Ji sung and full stop! Solid performances by all, especially uhm kijoon, but ji sung's alone would have been more than an enough to still make me give acting such a high score. He was able to capture the raw emotions and pain of our hero, you felt for him from start to finish. As for our antagonist, while uhm kijoon performance was to point from start to finish I had my reserves as to the relatability of his character as a villain, which was due to the writing and by no means due to a problem on his part.
Now to where this drama did poorly; the story.
This is in a nutshell a story that had a smart concept but dumb execution.
Let me put it this way, If a drama forces its viewers to have to exercise a fair amount of suspension of disbelief in order to watch, guessing and questioning plot holes and filling in missing gaps every now and then, then the story writing is simply failing right there. End of story.
First off, this story relied on too many conveniencies to work, ranging from the trivial to the huge. To give just a few examples, the brother in law who works as a correctional officer, the mother of the villain who has dementia so can't cause too much trouble recognizing the identity swap, the wife of the good twin who was previously dating the evil twin and also has a son from (ie can be blackmailed into silence.), The DA in charge being a friend of the suspect who happened to visit his house minutes before the murder (in turn becoming an accomplice in the cover up).
The story also stretched the chaebol power card too far (which was in itself one of the biggest conveniencies of all). They show us the cheabol who not only has connections in multiple sovereign bodies such as the police, the DA and the prison, but almost has total control over some corrupt high ups, with such corruption reaching extreme heights at some points (forging fake lab results, stealing confidential case files from the NFS and killing off suspects in prosecution custody etc). The writer must know that the more his villain has to use his connections to cover up his tracks, the more he is creating loose ends and leaving behind even more evidence. Which is exactly what happened in the final epidode where everything unraveled....so miraculously if I may say (to be discussed later).
Another thing that bothered me with the story was that a big portion of the drama felt like a cat and mouse scenario, where the good side takes a step forward, the bad side takes couple of steps back. This while in no means an uncommon tool in this genre, here was done in a very obvious (like minho declaring at one point that it was a race to find the daughter), repitive and following an almost never changing pattern. it became kind of frustrating to be watching the good side plotting a way out and only awaiting the bad side to squash their attempts with a simple wave of the hand (through a call to the high ups or another hit job or both). And for God's sake how easy is it to run a car over with the same huge orange dump truck and get away with it each and every time!!!!!
Worst thing of all was the finale.
In terms of making fun of the viewers' intelligence, those last two episodes were by far the worst. It felt like the writer thought to himself "well they stuck this far, didn't they" and decided to go crazy with the story.
Not only does multiple sides who had sided with the villain for so long decide all of a sudden to come clean (from secretary to wife to corrupt DA friend), but also the smart and conniving villain does a bunch of unbelievably dumb stuff such as meeting with his minion, who is being charged with murder, inside the DA office after interrogation and straight out telling him where he hid a murder weapon!! I was screaming to the screen "haven't you ever heard of voice recorders?!" Worse, the supposedly smart manipulative villain who in an attempt to keep an accomplice under control had been blackmailing him with a recording, turns out that recording included his voice admitting to murder all along!!!! If you have to resort to sudden and inexplicable change of character whether it be intelligence-wise or conscience-wise then you are doing something wrong, Mrs writer.
To sum it up..this drama had a good premise and marvelous cast, but the execution of the story and the details felt sometimes sloppy, sometimes rushed, and other times downright dumb. The pace also felt awkward rushing through the important parts especially at the begining and towards the end, but going super slow and thorough at other parts to the point it felt draggy.
__________________________
The above is my review of the drama and below are some of the points that bothered me the most while watching this drama.
only read if you have watched this drama recently or have an excellent memory of the plot :D
Any discussions regarding regarding these points will be greatly appreciated ;)
1) First and most importantly why did minho choose such a complicated method that involves framing jung woo of murdering his family instead of just killing him. If he had killed him on the same night he would no prevented him from holding the press conference where he had planned to reveal minho's true identity. And please do not try to convince me that he was working by the concept of an eye for an eye, and that he wanted him to feel the loss of a family member just like he did when he was forced to kill his brother!! Not buying it because most surely minho must have suspected jung woo to be receiving help from his colleagues who most surely will continue digging into the case even after jungwoo was incarcerated.
2) so min ho was surprised to learn that the bag that was supposed to be carrying hayeon's body was found empty, and we see a flashback where they explain that sungyu's job was to put hayeon's body inside the bag (or did I get this part wrong?). my question is how did that happen, if minho's plan was to kill hayeon and dispose of her body how come jung woo ended up with an empty bag? Or was minho angry not at the bag being empty but that it was found in the first place?! I didn't quite understand that.
3) how did jung woo know at the crime scene that minho's blood was on the knife he used to stab ji soo?!!! We know he is a DA and all but sure he has no forensic lab at his house. And also how cine minho didn't notice he had a cut through hus gloves, That was too much of a stretch by the script writer imo. Also for crying out loud, what kind of shi**y CSI job did they do that they can't even make a proper comparison between the weapon found at the crime scene and the wounds inflicted on the victim.
4) during the prosecutors investigation it was mentioned that the CCTV footage didn't show anyone other than the apartments' tenants going in and out of the building. we know that the prosecutor friend jung hyuk covered up the fact that he visited the apartment on the day of the murder by deleting the cctv footage. But later on he mentions to minho that the cctv showed him exiting the building after the murder. Minho surely had the dep. Head at the DA's office ready to alter any evidence that connects him to the crime scene, so how come the DA in charge was able to access the footage in the first place.
5) concerning the sequence of events at the night of the murder, if jung woo took the empty bag in his car and buried it, How did he return to the house and get arrested there when we know he left the car with the knife hidden inside at a parking lot near where he burried the bag. Did he take a ride home?! And if he had done just that, what kind of a sloppy investigation was it that they never bothered searching for the missing vehicle.
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It was certainly a fun watch, not just for the think-instigating interesting premise, the lively and endearing characters, the perfectly balanced thriller and humor, but above all for the story of how one man learned the meaning of trust and what it means to be a part of a team, not just work colleagues but essentially comrades of a common goal and purpose in life. What it means to embrace oneself, one’s past, one’s shortcomings and weakness, essentially one’s need to lean and depend on others.
Knowing this drama was based upon a popular English series that I have never watched before, I obviously decided not to read anything about the original and to simply venture on this one with a fresh perspective. So my review will not be discussing how this came short or excelled its original, rather I will be discussing what I liked and did not like about it as a separate drama.
Story (8.5/10)
The story of a police officer who wakes up after an accident to find himself mysteriously 30 years in the past also as a police officer. The premise wholly depends on the constant questioning, of whether the lead is in a coma and what he’s experiencing is a kind of a dream/hallucination, or if he’s actually time-travelled to the past….or something else more ominous.
There is a main recurring case that offsets the story, we are introduced to it in 2018 and continues into the past, but the main drama follows a one-case-an-episode format for the most part. I have noticed some people did not appreciate that and would rather have had the main case in more focus rather than just popping up every now and then, but I personally found most of the cases rather interesting and were in my point of view a necessity as a catalyst for the main characters’ relationship development, without which the drama would have lost most of its meaning.
Another point I noticed people bothered with, was the suddenness of the time travel in the first episode. I agree to just a certain extent. I found The drastic and sudden swap, where the character just awakes in a moment to find himself transported to the past, was totally understandable, because it served in making the viewer as surprised and bewildered as much as the character itself. However I do believe that the first episode was somewhat lacking in paving the base of the story and more importantly introducing the main lead’s character. We are shown who he is as a police officer, but not as a human-being. When we get to explore his character further during the past arc, we are never quite sure if the traits he display (being mostly timid and depressed for example) are out of amazement and frustration at his current situation or just who he is. I would have appreciated if we could have had a more intensive glimpse of him and his life prior to the time-travel, not just the fragments that show that when it comes to his work he only believes in himself and the evidence and nothing else.
Of course, one cannot discuss this drama’s story without mentioning the ending! I would rather not discuss that in details out of fear of any spoilers, but I will just say that the ending here was an open one, and by open I don’t mean just pointing to a sequel (it most certainly keeps that option available) but rather than that the questions we are constantly having all through the drama along with the main lead are not clearly answered. The final two episodes helped in showing the viewer all the possible options to the answer and providing hints to support each, in other words, we are dealt several cards to pick the one out that suits our own interpretation.
As much as that type of endings seems cool and unique, I have to admit I never found them as my cup of tea. I would swallow a certain degree of ambiguity as to what happens next (a la Signal), but open as in “now you will never know for certain what that drama was all about” kind of way, felt a bit a pinch too much for my taste. The ending is one of the main reasons I score the story 8.5 and not higher, as I have said I am reviewing this drama separately from its original that I know had the same ending. (if you have watched and felt like you wanted a closure like I did, you can check the original series’ sequel “Ashes to Ashes”’s ending for a theory).
The Acting: (9.5/10)
Very strong performances from all the cast with no exceptions. In particular and as usual, another stellar performance by Jung Kyung Ho <3
Music (9/10)
Rewatch Value (9/10)
It was definitely a smartly written and exquisitely shot drama, interesting in terms of story and characters. I might give it a go again in the future.
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The story had it's strong and original points, and it also had its normal and not-so original parts.
But all in all, as a medical drama script, this one balanced all the aspects nicely, in a way that saved it from going through the muddy waters that is hospital business wars and all that unrelated areas that many good medical K-Dramas delve too deep into, and end up boring us most of the time (I am looking at you Good Doctor)
As I mentioned the general feel of the dialogue was witty and sharp, a bit quick during the medical scenes, but just within the norm. But the best part was the bickering and fight scenes between the main characters.
The medical part was certainly above average, and although it mainly concerned one branch of medicine ie. surgery, it still showed a wide array of cases and although I am no medical student and my knowledge in the field is null, I could sense that the depiction of the medical proceedings were mostly accurate and delivered in a very professional manner.
The only grope I had with the story, was how the main female lead's PTSD was depicted. At the beginning they sure played it in a way that made it seem quite serious, but then it just kind of magically gets cured with no much as a mention or a proper closure. You are left to satisfy yourself with the explanation that her love overcame her trauma, I guess?
The main OTP as I mentioned had great chemistry and the romance was very well done, it was not the main story line but that's exactly how I prefer it.
As for the characters, I won't be discussing all in detail, I will rather focus on the character that was the first to give me a WOW factor.
One of the first thoughts I had watching the first episode, was "WOW! I love this guy's boldness!!". I won't be going into details lest I reveal any spoilers (it is the first episode but still) but watching the main male lead interact with the female lead right from the beginning, was quite unique and bold, to me it felt like a fresh breeze among all the common self-denials and bashfulness in accepting and acting upon one's emotions that plagues most of K-Drama leads. You don't just give credit to the guy's guts, but you just fall in love with him right then.
The characters other than the main trio (Teacher Kim and the OTP) sometimes felt 2 dimensional, but I couldn't say that that was necessarily a bad thing, because some other dramas try to create separate plot-lines for the side characters, but end up either slowing up the overall pace of the drama, or boring the viewers out with mediocre characters/stories.....or come to think of it in some rare cases, a side-character's plot-line end up being more interesting than the main OTP's and you are secretly kind of watching just to see how it will work ouy, which let's be honest is not a good sign at all! (I am looking at you One more happy ending)
My least favorite character and the thing that felt like one of the weakest points of this drama, was the villain.
At first, when you learn the background story of his animosity with teacher Kim and how their rivalry started, you are convinced of where he's coming from and that there is a long history of clashing between them. But then the more the story develops and the more the villain sharpens his claws and acts out all his villain-y antiques, you start to question the whole character and its motives. Like is it a conflict of interests, is it sheer hatred, is it jealousy, is it pure evil?? You just don't know and kind of don't care any longer.
Another frustration I had with this drama (the direction in particular) was that at many times the details of a certain medical case at hand could be very interesting, and I could be at the edge of my seat waiting to see how the emergency will work out, but then what hinders the whole thing from feeling believable and genuine, is none other than the human/doctors interactions during the procedure, which was at many times packed with overly dramatic acting.
to elaborate more, there is a part where the doctors are arranging for a major operation, and they are struggling to reduce the time required for the said operation as much as possible, like trading even minutes in order to shorten the time the patient is put under anesthesia. But during the actual OP, they find time to waste on looong expressions ranging from staring, glaring, smiling ,clapping and many others.
When you're a viewer of a drama, and you're like distracted from enjoying the thrill in a scene by the characters' facial expressions, then I think it is a sign that the DP/actor should have kept it a notch down.
To sum up, this drama like any other drama is far from flawless but was still a very fun and interesting watch, that I would totally recommend especially to medical drama fans like myself.
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The story at first seems (through reading the synopsis) as a simple story, which you'd think might be rather dull or not original enough, but then you watch and you're swept off your feet.
I am just genuinely so thankful for the boom the drama had in Korea and among the Korean drama fans on the internet, because otherwise I would have lost the marvelous chance of enjoying and falling in love to pieces with this one of a time drama.
This drama might seem heavy to some people at one look, and I can imagine people who would read people's reviews on how they felt they could relate to Jang Gu Rae and feel like they all experienced his efforts and hard-times, they'd think &quot;we are not old enough/ we have not been employed yet/ I am housewife&quot; and etc...just not expecting to feel any relation to the drama or its characters, but oh are they soooo wrong. I am positive any viewer whichever age they might be whichever their background or education and employment status might be, will see themselves beautifully reflected in many of the characters of the drama and not just the protagonist Jang Gu Rae.
I can never explain how I was so glad I gave this drama a chance, and I can never tell you how you will be attached to each and every character in this well-written drama even the nasty characters which are supposed to portray a negative aspect, because you will still relate to their imperfections and their errors, and you will at one time be cheering against them and the next moment cheering for them.
This drama portrays company life in Korea, and many parts and developments in the story rely on certain cultural aspects in Korea, the former and/or the latter might differ slightly ~ greatly from other countries' but I believe the main message the drama aspires to convey, and the biggest picture it is trying to draw through its story and characters, is a universal one that is similar everywhere.
One of the best Korean dramas I have watched and will mostly ever watch (I have to be honest I can never be sure about the last part because the Korean drama industry keeps surprising us with well-worthy dramas like this one). I believe anyone who for any reason didn't/decided not to watch or has been putting off this drama for later, is definitely missing on a great and exceptional experience...you're thinking I'm exaggerating? with that thought give it a try and judge for yourself.
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The story:
I loved the Story to a certain extent, loved how it discussed a type of social disturbances that's rarely featured in KDramas and also in a light and uncomplicated manner. I loved the fun and comical parts, felt moved by emotional parts so much that proves the story & the script were successful in a sense, BUT (here it comes) though the show has some highly interesting characters with unique backgrounds I still found some characters a bit under developed (like kkegeum's first love and do hwi) and hard to relate to, and unfortunately there were certain parts in the story that felt a bit draggy and unfocused with a bit of unnecessary sidelines that felt distracting.
To stretch a popular drama to fill 20 episodes when it should nicely fit in only 16 episodes is a mistake that a lot of KDrama producers fall into, all in the search for more viewers, it can easily ruin a very well written script. In the case we have here though, the story might have turned a bit boring near the end but I find the script and the directing paid out for some of that, so it didn't feel boring to the extent where you would consider dropping the show.
I enjoyed the direction a lot, loved the flashbacks and how you slowly discover the truth about different mysterious sides each character had.
I enjoyed above all the script, so many emotionally moving lines, so many sensationally touching lines that make you want to memorize them or note them down in your favorite quotes list.
And also this drama has by far the most heart-wringing love confessions you can ever hear!!
The cast:
I gave the cast a 9 which is fairly high by my standards cause I felt they did a great job (well most of them)
The OST was nice, repetitive as usual but nice.
Rewatch value! Hmm considering the fact that I changed my review to a lower rating proves that I should have just rewatched the cute and funny scenes instead of watching the whole thing.
This is not a bad drama, it has an interesting story and a talented cast with lovable side characters, but it should have been made shorter, to avoid becoming a bit boring near the end like it did.
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From the drama's kickoff, you become attracted to the original premise, the fast paced plot and the sleek execution. An Italian mafia family's consigliere of Korean origin heads back to Korea to retrieve a vault full of gold.
The first few episodes while a little slow paced served well to introduce the characters and pave the ground for the story, and during that phase the comedy was just to the right level and served its purpose, to show the sudden shift in the hero's life and the jarring difference between his background in Italy and what he finds himself thrown into in Korea. I was laughing with tears at vincenzo's demise upon arriving at Korea, and enjoyed the comedic relief in the simple interactions with the side characters and even simple moments like our mighty hero begging a pigeon to shut up so that he can go to sleep, only to have the pigeon raid his bedroom.
The start of the drama was craftly done to show the gap between our hero's true identity and past, and how his move to a different environment surrounded with simple common people affected his demeanour, state of mind and even somehow his priorities. The more he dived deeper into the lives and struggles of the simple plaza tenants, the more he drifted a little further from his dark mafia background, though eventually he relied on his mafia expertise but this time for nobler causes.
As I said, earlier on in the show the comedy served a purpose and was to a degree well-balanced, giving the right amount at the right time. For example, I was LOLing at the scenes where the undercover NIS agent with a Mafia-mania spying on Vincenzo always seemed to see things from an angle that made him mistake vicenzo for an angel in disguise, a mafia with a huge soul and a good conscience.
But the more the drama progressed, the more I guess the writers wanted to stay true to their forte or something, and slapstick comedy started to hit in huge doses. I have no problem with mixing comedy with other genres however serious and heavy they might be, but the right formula depends on the type, amount and timing of the said comedy. In Vincenzo's case, the comedy scenes were sometimes so sudden and ridiculous they kind of felt like a hit in the face especially if they came right after a tragic and intense scene, it left me sometimes with an urge to rub my eyes in disbelief. Comedic relief is one thing, but it should never be so sudden and so slapstick that it totally takes you out of the mood of the drama and pulls you away from the story. (Side mention, the excessive PPL as usual was extra distractive. ugh!!!!)
Putting the comedy aside, like any thriller the main plot relies on a series of confrontations, of attacks and counterattacks. The antagonists plot a scheme, and the protagonist hits back. This format is expected, but unfortunately in vincenzo's case it eventually caused a certain sense of repititiveness. The more the plot progressed, and the more complicated and elaborate the attacks became, the more it relied on unexpected twists and fake cliffhangers, where it essentially became a loope of "the bad guys plot against vincenzo > a cliffhanger shows vincenzo in a pinch > flashbacks in the first few minutes of the following episode show that vincenzo was informed or expected the bad guy's plot and was well prepared and that the whole thing was a ruse and he comes out without bearing even one scratch". While the first few times it felt cool and smart, the more such gotcha moments increased the more it started to feel annoying, repetitive and strangely and ironically predictive. Having our all-mighty anti-hero always conquering and ending up having the upper hand does feel good, but having it happen in that manner most of the time could end up dampening the suspence and killing the thrill, as if the writers start a huge fire only to dump water on it after mere seconds before it even reached a point of being thrilling. You're left watching not worried whether or not he will come out fine, but rather wondering what he has up his sleeves this time.
The acting overall takes a 7, a special shoutout goes to Taecyon for his marvelous performance, hands down the strongest out of all the cast. SJK as usual gave a very solid performance, though at times a little monotone, which I think was mostly due to the writing than anything. The FL's performance was my least favourite among the the main cast (more on that later), first drama for her and I am no fan.
In terms of characters;
First, Vincenzo was a very well written anti-hero and SJK was perfect in the role. He was charismatic, cunning, smart, mysterious and strong-willed, The perfect villain to fight off villains, though to be honest I would have preferred it if the writers had toned down his invincibility level a bit, he doesn't have to lose the fight, but at least show him with a more serious injury than a little scratch every once and a while you know. the background story of his birth and upbringing while very brief, still helped flesh out his character and give it more depth. In terms of character development, under layers and layers of endless charisma and coollness, SJK was able to portray the slighest hints of change of heart nothing major to call development though, and eventually the drama stuck to the point and chose no major redemption, which personally I found more convincing and believable.
The FL on the other hand I had mixed emotions concerning her. I started off hating her and not because of how intially she was ambivalent to justice and rude to her father, but simply because her whole personna felt obnoxious and her nonchalant attitude was sometimes over the top and annoying. The actress' comedy portrayal felt somewhat theatrical and ridiculous, she was supposed to be a smart, strong and competent lawyer, but she sometimes came out as naïve, noisy and spoilt brat. There were moments early in the drama where I genuinely doubted if the actress was doing an impersonation of Jun Ji Hyun in Legend of the Blue Sea, that'show much comical her acting was, she felt like a mermaid out of sea 😅. I did eventually manage to come around and accept her only to start questioning her principles in aiding vincenzo's agenda wholeheartedly the way she did, no matter how brutal and lawless it became.
But unfortunately one impression that never changed when it came to the main leads.... was the lack of chemistry between them. I never truely felt a spark between the two of them, but it might just be me, cause he acted so cool and composed all the time, and she was so over the top with her reactions and expressions, that I felt he surely must be annoyed by her as much as I am (LOL), also I never bought the fact he developed romantic feelings for her, it felt kind of forced. And although It is always a downer not to feel enough chemistry to be rooting for an OTP, but thank God this is not a rom-com and romance was never the center plot here. The first kiss scene was pretty good though I gotta admit :)
The side characters (Geumga Plaza tenants) were mostly endearing and I was especially grateful that the writer chose not to delve too much deep and give each of them an episode with a detailed story like other dramas choose to do. Above all they served as a catalyst to Vincenzo's purpose in staying in Korea, helped give him a certain sense of beloging and taught him the meaning of trust, and later became sorta his secret sidekicks, which might have been fun at first but later I found was a bit of a stretch and overdone on the writers side, like others pointed out here in the reviews, having all these people with hidden fighting abilities somehow gathered under one roof by chance was too farfetched!!
Last but not least, the villains (since the show had its fair share of those, 80% of the characters were evil for God's sake) some of them were portrayed too evil and too much lacking a conscience to a degree that was hard to swallow, but they still somehow came out believable, and thankfully they never felt as incompetent like in other shows, which was a great feat considering vincenzo was literraly undefeated all the time lol.
Though personally I would have preferred a bit of an origin story for lawyer Choi, other than being a weird ajumma who dances zumba in public, since imo she was the most worthy adversary to vincenzo. And considering the fact that the drama already had its share of bornt-psychopath main villain, not being provided with any background knowledge of what turned lawyer choi to the path of evil (to a murderous degree at that) made it feel like we had two murderous psychopaths that just happened to cross paths and join hands.
The OST (mostly instrumental) had a bunch of cool tracks, and some were very well utilized to enhance the comedy scenes.
Vincenzo was a drama loaded with originality in terms of premise, interesting characters, and an overall thrilling vibe. although it suffered from minor issues with the plot, the pace and the balance of the comedy, I still have to admit I appreciated its originality and high end production, and overall enjoyed watching it, flaws and all.
I apologise for the lengthy review.
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dark gripping thriller, fast paced well balanced story, great performances but underwhelming ending
==There is mention of the ending in this review ==Considering I binge watched it in less than 2 days, as a thriller it was captivating with great pacing and a plot full of suspense.
under the helm of a skilled director and cinematographer, and with near perfect performance by the main lead's, and above all a fast paced thriller with an original plot like this one, I was definitely enjoying every moment.
although I cannot deny I couldn't always bring myself to relate to the FL's choices and most of the time the extent to which she was blinded by the gold to the point she would throw her own safety as well as that of the people she cared for out the window somehow felt frustrating, and her choices when it came to who to trust and who to be wary of was based on emotions above all else, which portrayed her as a naive and gullible individual, who survived all the shenanigans caused by the heist almost all due to sheer luck and a sussy partner in crime.
The story as I said above was very original and as a thriller was well woven with an excellent pacing and enough cliffhanger and twists to keep the viewer at the edge of their seats, but what makes me give the story a lower rating was the ending. to be totally honest, I was enjoying the script in the last couple of episodes before the finale particularly because I felt it was sending the right message about "the price of greed", we came to learn about her background and upbringing, as well as her parents' backstory ; how gambling addiction and greed caused them to make poor choices which in turn made their and their daughter's life more difficult.
All of this especially the lead up at the first half of the finale, made me convinced that a rather bleak and realistic ending which involved some type of incarceration/death or at the very least a hard lesson learnt, would be most appropriate. the more she fell deeper and deeper further into the hellish hole she dug in order to secure the gold, the more I was satisfied that the story will sure be made to show how she was made to pay a heavy price for her greed, but instead of that, the ending felt rather sudden, overly simplistic, and overall off-point in light of all that came up to that point. maybe the writers were focused on creating a possibility of a sequel, but I felt like it made more sense that she would fail, die/ kill herself or have to suffer a hefty price. the story ending on such an unusually happy note felt jarring as well as rushed.
other than the underwhelmingly positive-note ending, no doubt it was a drama that I enjoyed, the thriller, action, mystery as well as the characters and the solid performances are all worthy of commendation.
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A sleek chic thriller with a deep message but hasty writing and rushed finale
pros: solid acting, great cinematography,strong social commentary message at heart, thriller that leaves questioning who is who right till the end.cons: chatacters with no depth, story full of plot holes.
the story while it was sharp and intriguing at first pulling the viewer in with not just a whodunit mystery, but the identity of the victim was also left a mystery most of the series. the high paced thriller was so engaging it was easy to look past the glaring convenient coincidences that were utilized to help push the plot faster (for example: fellow detective who happens to recall years-old closed case's suspect's name, a Polaroid picture hanging on the walls of a Cafe near a reservoir where said suspect supposedly committed suicide, the detective who poses as a line sitter to approach the ex-employee who happens to be best buddies with someone who knew FL prior to taking on the Sarah kim persona... and many more)
the more the story progressed and we neared the finale where all loose ends should have been tied, the more we encountered more loose ends. the mystery was built in a way that kept the viewer guessing and imagining different possible scenarios which was a good thing from a writing stand point, but unfortunately the wrapup of all these different possibilities hwas unsatisfactory and rushed.
the intriguing mystery was heightened the moment the fact that someone had been impersonating Sarah kim in public was introduced. And I bet most of the viewers must have then had the same idea as me; "what if the Sarah kim we are looking at was fake"; just a poor girl who stole the name and identity of a real rich cheabol to build up this whole "luxury" brand name from thin air. nay, there is another more intriguing possibility, that the whole con job was a Matroska doll, and that she was faking the identity of the "real" Sarah Kim made possible by the fact that the "real" had been a manufactured luxurious fake right from the get-go, in other terms the con woman was impersonating another con woman.
Though the interrogation parts were enjoyable and felt like a battle of wits, especially when she was faced with the possibilty that her creation and life's work BouDoir was at risk, and she came up with the only solution which was to abandon her persona as CEO of Boudoir. though on paper that seemed smart the intricate details the writers used to work this plotpoint were anything but smart.
I mean, the question of her true identity to merely hinge on a mere vile of tissue sample just didn't make sense imo! she had been acting the part of Sarah Kim for years at that point, during which multiple business heads must have dealt with her, and she surely interacted with dozens of people on a personal level, it couldn't have just been the nox ceo or the department store ceo or her male-host spy who all had reasons to lie to cover for their own mistakes or crimes, there must have been many others among which is her fake marriage partner for God's sake, that could have testified to whether she was Sarah kim or some other nobody who was impersonating her.
details about her past as Mok Ga Hui was left a mystery and I believe that that was a choice by the writers, they chose to leave us scraching our heads about who she really was, who was Mok Ga Hui truely as a person, was she simply an ex-department store employee who landed the job by faking credentials on her resume with ambitions to make it big and becoming rich? or was there some prior mysterious background story behind that person. The possibility wasn't nill that she had a similar background to her future impersonator (Kim mijeong the counterfeit bag artisan), and that she maybe could have used counterfeit ID cards to land the job and she never had proper social identification number.
But considering the fact that she was investigated for fraud selling the brand items she baught via the employee sale with her colleaugues' stolen cards, to ask us to believe that during the investigation back then and even now the police could not manage to find enough background data about her that could help now prove whether she was the real con-artist Sarah Kim who murdered the impersonator, or if she was the fake impersonator Kim Mijeong who murdered the real Sarah Kim to steal her identity, I guess it is either police incompetence or just lazy writing.
wrapping up all loose ends during the finale was too rushed, and the fact that most of the crime solving depended not on solid evidences but majorly on mere speculations from the detective just didn't feel right. and even if we are made to believe that he ultimately chose not to pursue the matter and let her get her way, the whole matter left a bad taste in the mouth, especially considering the fact a life was taken and the only punishment she got was a measly 10 years sentence, and her fake business was left untouched and prosperous felt like a cheat.
on another side note, there were also parts that were brushed too quickly and left me wondering why they were never properly addressed with a reavealing flashback like other plots. like for example, their first encounter on the stairs to the police station when he offered her his tie to wipe her tears and she was wearing a cast on her leg, I was able to deduce that that probably was after she had been abducted by her business partner nox ceo's henchmen to pay back what she owed, and she had went to the police to press charges using her past employee's ID? was she pretending to have a broken leg to get better compensation? is the "one week" she was muttering to herself about was the time left until the Boudoir opening party? did she leave that tie behind after cleaning up the old store on purpose? that felt too oddly convenient. Another instance, was when her lawn Shark/ ex-husband sees her running away from the murder scene with bloody hands, did that actually happen or was it speculation? if so then that must have been prior to his testimony to the police, which would then mean that he was positive at that point that she was not the true murder victim but most probably rather the culprit? these small parts bothered me, much more than the John doe corpse at the reservoir which seemed to bother other viewers here on MDL, I was able to brush by this part but the other ones I wish were properly addressed and covered at least with a small flashback or monologue or anything,.
all In all it was a good fast paced thriller murder mystery, and yes imo there were flaws with the story and writing, and the main leads' character could have been given more background to give them depth, but still it was a fun and thrilling watch.
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too comical to be taken seriously, simply put lacks in all genres
I'll try to keep it short, this is one of those dramas that you forget once you finish watching.comedy-wise even when's its fun it's cringe
romance-wise even when it's sometimes cute it still lacks and feels forced.
detective story-wise it's farcical, comical and unrealistic.
the story lacks the least sense of realism, it's just too unrealistic you have to turn your suspension of disbelief gauge to the max all through the watch, nothing made sense when it came to the "undercover mission", one moment they're using high-end gadgets to break through locks, scramble cctv cameras and one moment they have to resort to dancing on the street to gather signatures to gain access to a room with a measly pin code lock they could have easily broken through!
the villain was simply put cartoonish-ly evil, I mean she's shown to be someone who doesn't flinch ordering her henchman to kill anyone who stands in her way, and is unfazed shooting a shotgun towards a bound reporter to intimidate him just simply cause he refused to do her bidding, or beats up a congressman for talking back, but the next moment she has to resort to spreading rumors about our main couple being in a teacher-student romance! we're like pick a lane lady, either be the evil criminal mastermind or be a comic book villain who lacks imagination.
the whole premise about solving clues relating to ghost stories in order to uncover the hidden gold seemed fun at the start but soon it just fizzed and died out, and when they suddenly remembered it the last couple of episodes it was too frustrating to watch how everyone's IQ fell sub zero unable to guess the simplest of riddles. honestly speaking as a viewer I never really cared about the main mission of finding the gold bars, it was simply put ridiculous not to mention unfounded by any evidence to begin with. Midway through the drama I found myself feeling thankful for the missing father plot which was more of a convincing catalyst to keep pushing on with this stupid mission of finding the gold bars.
As for the romance plot, I don't know what made me not sold for their romance, maybe their interactions were more fun when she thought he was a student, but after she found out his true identity and their childhood connection, don't blame the viewer who expected some sort of progress and was disappointed they were acting more like two detective partners, I don't believe it was a problem at the actors' part, but more of a writing issue.
considering the fact I watched the last 3 episodes on 1.5X speed and even skipping many scenes, I just reached a point I didn't mind any stupid or unbelievable things that was taking place on screen; like how untouchable and all powerful they had to make our silly caricature of a villain, she controls politicians, police, prosecutor and everyone else in the country for some unknown reason, that was simply absurd. Also we get a fugitive on the run who suffered a major car accident miraculously healing with a good night's sleep and some damp towels! And then conveniently having a bunch of mattresses laid out under his hotel room so that he can escape the police pursuit!!! WHAT?! I reached a point I was certain the writer's didn't give a sh** about the viewer's intelligence anymore.
overall, this is a drama I chose to watch till the end cause I had downloaded it otherwise I most probably would have dropped it. do not recommend.
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This is a drama that could have easily gotten a 10 from me.
Story
The story is one of the strongest aspects of this drama simply because it had a lot of unique ideas and original approaches to them, and second because the mixture of such different concepts was done perfectly and with a nice balance.
First, the main lead suffers from a disease highly uncommon for men to retract (breast cancer), and the drama focuses on his struggle to receive treatment under great pressure. That concept was by far the most original, full of surprises whether comical or dramatic.
The story also focuses in 2/3 of it on a love triangle, a concept constantly used by many romance Kdramas, but here they tried to spice it up by making the two males involved best friends, while the female had gotten over her crush on one and dating the other.
It is also part workplace drama, where all the main characters are working or somehow related to a broadcasting station (reporters, announcers, news casters, directors and sponsors). It gave a nice glimpse on the world of news creation, it was very entertaining and edifying.
But for me, what made the drama shine the most was the romance. It made my heart skip, made me swoon, made me shed tears, and made smile and laugh big time, it was simply PERFECT! Also other than the great chemistry between the OTP, the whole concept of switching places in one-sided crushes, whether through gestures done in secret or words expressed openly, gave a very fresh vibe to the love equation. In the past it was she who was head over heals for him, now it's the other way around.
The drama also featured a side story that involves a relatively large number of side characters. This particular sode plot had its cons and pros, among the pros was the fact that it featured a very fun combination, like two ex-s of the same man who recently passed away, rivals in life and work, both having the wish to bond with their (step)daughter, and even fighting for the same guy now. Where else can you find such a crazy couple! Also, how their characters and relationship evolves was certainly fun to watch, they may have started off as 2 annoying and noisy ajummas, but later they start to grow on you. As for the cons, the whole plot-line kind of developed totally separately from the main plot-line, so the more the main plot-line developed and gained steam, the more you get the urge to fast-forward their scenes. Not saying it was a necessarily boring plot, but while they brought a comedic and near the end a bit dramatic air to the drama, they sometimes kind of felt like a distraction. let me just say that most probably re-watching this drama will involve a lot of fast-forwarding, or at least that's how it was in my case.
Acting
Perfect!!!
Gong Hyo Jin-nim goes without saying shines here as usual. she was funny, lovable, cute, crazy, and sometimes frustrating. I could feel the wish to hug her, pat her on the shoulders, send he a "fighting" yell, and sometimes even slap her on the face, just like how she made her male partners feel at certain moments.
Jo Jung Suk won me over in this drama completely. He delivered a multi-layered character, with many sides to him, perfectly and with great ease. He was believable in every word, movement and action he took (maybe it helped that the writing for his character was one of the best in the drama)
Go Kyung Pyo, did a pretty well job here as well, but I have to be honest, his was not the toughest of characters to play. But he still made me feel for him, and sometimes respect him great time as a character.
Characterization
As I mentioned earlier I found the main lead Hwa Shin (JJS's character) by far the best.
He had his flawed traits of course, but they were all very relatable, and though his character showed seemingly contradicting moments, that in its own sense was the most believable part, he simply felt human, maybe the most in this drama, he felt like he was not just a character on paper but he could actually exist somewhere.
As for our other male lead and third angle of the triangle Go Jeong Wo, he was the perfect rich gentleman, that could have as well easily ended up as the common everyday KDrama chaebol (The guy born with a silver spoon, tsun-dere and hiding a lonely side to him + maybe family issues), but thanks to his friendship with Hwa Shin, this character was given much more deepness. He was a very understanding, kind and open-minded guy who cherishes his best friend above all, and despite the big gap in economic background between them, still makes him feel at home even after meeting in a long time. He simply made me wish I was his pal, for goodness sake.
Pyo Na Ri! Here is a character that most of the time I simply adored and cheered on, and some other times I nearly hated.
She's a strong, independent and hardworking Noona who takes care of her little-bro, and chases after her dreams with all she's got. She's a realistic person, who doesn't live in fantasies, and has a strong sense of her capabilities and aims, bold and always not afraid of expressing herself, whether through words or actions, while at the same time maintaining a strong sense of self-awareness of who she is and where she falls in her workplace. She's a lovable and relatable character through and through, and that's maybe why I couldn't bring myself to hate even when during a certain part of the drama (around episodes 14~20 to be more precise), her character kind of warped and the Pyo Na Ri who always knew how she felt, and never lost sight of what she wanted, her strong will and common sense, just flew out the window, and was replaced by an indecisive and selfish bi**h all of sudden, she was irritating at times, and other times downright obnoxious . It might have been a calculated move by the writer, but sometimes I just felt like screaming at her "Come on already Nari! that's just not so like you".
Writing
Very good script, and highly entertaining story, not to forget a beautiful ending. The pace here was mostly excellent during most of the drama but, I felt like the love traingle tug of war may have lasted a bit too long, it felt kind of draggy and was a source of frustration (thanks to Pyo Na Ri's sudden loss of self-awareness). This particular chunk of the story, I suppose served in giving more sense to the drama's title (other than the incarnate/Hwa Shin pun); because the two main male leads turned into two lumps of Jealousy childishly fighting over a woman, and the full grown-up woman acting dumb like a teenager experiencing her first romance! And though I admit this part had a ton of fun and even hilarious scenes, I nearly hated my favorite female lead! Don't get me wrong but I personally believe that this drama could have nicely fit in a 20 episode format.
Direction
Excellent camerawork and amazing props, but above all what left the most impression on me was something else.
A scene succeeds to be funny or sad thanks to a witty or heartfelt conversation, plus of course the right portrayal and acting from the actors involved, but here this director adds the +alpha factor. combining the right BGM or sound effects, and sometimes making use of signs on screen to express certain notions or feelings of the characters on screen, it was always fun to watch and gave a fresh vibe to the drama.
Music
Another OST full of favorite tracks, especially vocals. Fitting lyrics and scores, as usual (One of the things I really appreciate about KDramas)
So, final say.
Jealousy incarnate is an excellent Rom-Com, unique story and interesting characters with a witty script and full of memorable scenes. Not to forget perfect acting, and a very nice chemistry between the leads. It was by far one of the funniest Rom-Com dramas that I have watched, and would totally recommend. It will make you LOL, cringe, cover face in embarrassment, and make your heart melt and flutter constantly.
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A delightful breezy well-balanced drama full of A-level comedy, action, thriller and sci-fi
If you're in need for a fresh short format comedy to binge watch to you engaged and amused all the way through, this is the perfect recommendation.I loved everything about this one, the story, script, characters, production, cinematography, acting and direction.
this is how you produce a short-format 8 episode drama! Keep it to the point and engaging, no moment wasted on needless side plots, while making the best use of the time for world-buildup and character backgrounds just enough to make them endearing and the story engaging. I appreciated above all that despite the story never taking itself seriously and even most of the action sequences had a strong dash of comedic elements to it, I liked how the humanitarian and emotional messages came through showing us a group of ragtags misfits who receive mainly their community's ridicule overcome their inner self-worth issues and form a strong bond.
Personally, I didn't mind the sudden tonal shifts from slapstick humor, to action, to traumatic dark scenes, to suspense scifi, it made the ride all the more crazy and bingeable . I found the romance which was not the main genre here to be cute and sweet, and the main leads conveyed a nice chemistry overall.
I loved the quirky characters, the witty dialogue, the hilarious moments, the spooky sci-fi, and above all I found all actors 'performances to have been great (even Cha Eun Woo for the most part) but shout outs go out to Park Eun Bin of course. this is one actress I will be following in the future.
Nothing has been announced, but in case there will be a sequel, I will be looking forward to it.
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Nice Concept, flimsy writing, mediocre acting and a missed opportunity
The core concept on paper is good and matches with the current times; A VR device / service that offers AI-generated dating experiences and includes hundreds of themes. Things I liked about this concept, is that a few years ago it could have easily been regarded as pure nonsensical fantasy, but considering the current times and AI advances, it is not so unbelievable any more. The company behind the service putting rules to ensure profitability such as users during trial period having a limited amount of hours per theme, or that paying customers get extra perks and privileges also from a business standpoint felt believable. The ways with which the service tried to lure their dormant users to log back in, and to dissuade them from unsubscribing as well as most importantly the issue with addict-ability of such a service all felt well portrayed.
While at first I enjoyed the VR parts, especially when it seemed to suggest that the theme was inspired by a famous webtoon character in other terms the premise was allowed to be cheesy corny and cliched. Then we suddenly switched to another theme before we could even process the whole thing and what effect if any it had on our FL, then we were thrown into one new theme after another, so at this point as a viewer I started to feel that the virtual dating parts were no longer a plot device used to advance the story or provide a sort of character development, but rather it had turned into a filler material to provide eye candy points via cameos (I would be thinking to myself WTH am I supposed to be watching right now?), other than seeing how the FL was becoming addicted to the service and losing sleep and almost her grasp on reality, I can not say I noticed any major character or plot development thanks to it .
The story at this point could be said was somewhat going all places with no specific aim, and the development in real life was almost non-existent (other than some very minor things with the webtoon production job), then all of a sudden the ML confesses his feelings to FL out of the blue both for her and the viewer as well! And while we do later get a small glimpse with flashbacks showing the moment he started to become attracted to her, but to be honest especially considering how we were only shown almost only moments were the FL was being cold, ambivalent, or even sometimes acting with animosity towards ML, the whole love confession felt off at least imo. But that still does not compare to the moment the 901st theme's boyfriend was introduced. At that point I was thinking to myself (was there something I missed?!) Because even if she subconsciously gave his physical description while answering the survey it still felt rather forced.
The progress of their relationship into romance was not well done, the switch from rivals at work, to colleagues to crushes to lovers felt off. Not a problem of chemistry between the leads per se (honestly the FL's acting might have played some role in that but more on that later), it felt more like the writers within the airtime constraints balanced between focusing on the real life arc and giving us more virtual dating sequencing and they did the mistake of choosing the latter. If the real life characters and their relationship was given more air time and enough material to develop their romance and given us more swoon worthy moments than can leave an impression.
As I mentioned above I did not appreciate the FL's acting , I am not interested much into K-Pop so I admit I did not know who she was and was fortunate to have never watched her as an actress before, but I personally thought her acting was subpar. She could deliver the funny parts where she is frustrated embarrassed etc, but when it came to acting the emotional parts her performance was amateurish. Like some other idols-turned-actresses I could feel how she cared to look pretty on screen above anything else). It certainly didn't help that I did not personally like her pushy character (we are shown she was openly flirting with her class mate right in front of his GF)
The ML on the other hand, his performance was not bad though I have seen him do better jobs before, but the character here was 2 dimensional to begin with and the material he had to work with was lacking. Most of his scenes is either he being professional or stoic, when we later caught glimpses of him acting natural. cute or emotional it still didn't provide much depth to the character.
One final thought that I would like to add, is that as I mentioned above the concept of the virtual dating service was both fun and interesting , but I would have really appreciated if the writers had taken the opportunity to provide a deep social commentary concerning AI-Human relationships. Considering the real life cases where such warped human attachment to AI had left mental scars and even resulted in loss of life, it wouldn't have hurt if the writers could have tried to send a message of warning about the toxic effect of such technical advancements on mental health and human relationships. I realize perfectly well this is a fluffy romcom and I am not suggesting they turn the whole thing into a dark melodramatic take on AI, but just suggesting at the end that the addicted users like her BFF later came to realize the downside of it all and warned against it, rather we are shown a person who regretted having used the VR theme story in her own works tried to sell the device and stop using it but at the end still kept it and ended up sinking more and more in the delusion of virtual dating.
Would I watch again, no. Would I recommend, no (unless you are particularly a fan of the main leads). would I forget all about this drama in no time, absolutely.
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