This review may contain spoilers
It wasn't great, but I had fun
There was this moment early on when this show clicked for me. Ko Mi Nyeo had already broken into Hwang Tae Kyung's room and destroyed a bunch of stuff, and got yelled at about it. Feeling sorry for what she did but lacking object permanence, she proceeded to take a U-turn back to Tae Kyung's room to destroy it even more. Because of course she would. I knew I found a gem here.
Jang Geun Suk carried this show on his waifish blouse-covered back. His facial expressions and comedic timing were fantastic. I loved every spat he had with Villainina. He elevated every dramatic and emotional scene, too. I'll admit to tearing up along with him during some of the scenes. I want to watch more kdramas with him in it.
Everyone else wasn't so good. Park Shin Hye's bad acting really stood out. When the twin brother character returned, Park Shin Hye had to try playing a sly smirking bad boy. Boy did she... try. Those scenes were hilarious, and had me cackling every time the character was on-screen. Moments of pure joy here.
This is the usual flower boy fare. Department Store Jan Di must contend with musical twinks three: the mean one, the quiet one, and the other one. Rich and spoiled Villainina gets really invested in this boy band's inner workings and wants to claim ownership of Hwang Tae Kyung for... no reason, actually. They're not childhood friends or anything. She just kind of dropped in and started wreaking havoc. Lee Hong Gi elevates vestigial flower boy Kang On Yu by way of pure charm. The glossily lit flashback to him as "Jeremy" dressed in an all-white marching band uniform holding hands with Generic European Girl in Castle Place was hilarious.
Compared to other dramas of its time, this show has very good pacing. It only took eleven episodes for the writers to realize they ran out of plot and direct our plastic starlets to chew the scenery in a supermarket for a quarter of an episode. 11 episodes of well-paced kdrama isn't bad, though.
The boy band thing is just set dressing for the melodrama. All of the side characters related to the music industry - the fans, the bombastic main producer guy, the comedy relief manager guy, the fashion chick who only exists to feed plot-relevant info to Villainina, and the fans - don't have anything to do. They shoot a high school music video, record a single, and the old rich chick really wants Hwang Tae Kyung to record a song. But it never feels that important.
Over time, the show settles into the usual 00s' era kdrama schlock, and doesn't really leave. The female lead finishes her transition into Late Drama Depression and looks sad with her eyes bulging out 99% of the time. That One Dramatic Love Song plays on loop at this point, becoming a toxic earworm I have to mentally swat away for a while. The femboys admit their love to heterina and snap at each other's wigs. The boring B plot, which has been dragging its feet the entire show, takes center stage. In this case, more scenes with the boring rich lady and the least interesting birth mystery plotline I've seen from Asian media.
A kdrama doesn't settle into the schlock quickly. It takes time to settle, and for the viewer to realize they're waist-deep in the schlock with the main cast. Upon realizing this, a decision has to be made. Has the show been good enough to justify trudging through the shlock enough to see how it ends? For me it was. Barely. Though my finger got sore from tapping the screen to skip forward.
This is one of those shows I had fun watching, but it's just junk food. Thinking about it too critically ruined any chance to actually earnestly engage with the media. Instead I watched it like one would watch The Room. My entertainment came in part from knowledge about romantic kdrama tropes, and how this show met every single one with the subtlety of cannonfire. I don't think I can watch these shows earnestly anymore. I think this is it. I think I'm done now.
Jang Geun Suk carried this show on his waifish blouse-covered back. His facial expressions and comedic timing were fantastic. I loved every spat he had with Villainina. He elevated every dramatic and emotional scene, too. I'll admit to tearing up along with him during some of the scenes. I want to watch more kdramas with him in it.
Everyone else wasn't so good. Park Shin Hye's bad acting really stood out. When the twin brother character returned, Park Shin Hye had to try playing a sly smirking bad boy. Boy did she... try. Those scenes were hilarious, and had me cackling every time the character was on-screen. Moments of pure joy here.
This is the usual flower boy fare. Department Store Jan Di must contend with musical twinks three: the mean one, the quiet one, and the other one. Rich and spoiled Villainina gets really invested in this boy band's inner workings and wants to claim ownership of Hwang Tae Kyung for... no reason, actually. They're not childhood friends or anything. She just kind of dropped in and started wreaking havoc. Lee Hong Gi elevates vestigial flower boy Kang On Yu by way of pure charm. The glossily lit flashback to him as "Jeremy" dressed in an all-white marching band uniform holding hands with Generic European Girl in Castle Place was hilarious.
Compared to other dramas of its time, this show has very good pacing. It only took eleven episodes for the writers to realize they ran out of plot and direct our plastic starlets to chew the scenery in a supermarket for a quarter of an episode. 11 episodes of well-paced kdrama isn't bad, though.
The boy band thing is just set dressing for the melodrama. All of the side characters related to the music industry - the fans, the bombastic main producer guy, the comedy relief manager guy, the fashion chick who only exists to feed plot-relevant info to Villainina, and the fans - don't have anything to do. They shoot a high school music video, record a single, and the old rich chick really wants Hwang Tae Kyung to record a song. But it never feels that important.
Over time, the show settles into the usual 00s' era kdrama schlock, and doesn't really leave. The female lead finishes her transition into Late Drama Depression and looks sad with her eyes bulging out 99% of the time. That One Dramatic Love Song plays on loop at this point, becoming a toxic earworm I have to mentally swat away for a while. The femboys admit their love to heterina and snap at each other's wigs. The boring B plot, which has been dragging its feet the entire show, takes center stage. In this case, more scenes with the boring rich lady and the least interesting birth mystery plotline I've seen from Asian media.
A kdrama doesn't settle into the schlock quickly. It takes time to settle, and for the viewer to realize they're waist-deep in the schlock with the main cast. Upon realizing this, a decision has to be made. Has the show been good enough to justify trudging through the shlock enough to see how it ends? For me it was. Barely. Though my finger got sore from tapping the screen to skip forward.
This is one of those shows I had fun watching, but it's just junk food. Thinking about it too critically ruined any chance to actually earnestly engage with the media. Instead I watched it like one would watch The Room. My entertainment came in part from knowledge about romantic kdrama tropes, and how this show met every single one with the subtlety of cannonfire. I don't think I can watch these shows earnestly anymore. I think this is it. I think I'm done now.
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