"All of it, boiling it. I looked inside, man, and it was turning gray"

Admittedly, it's a stretch to find a connection between "Apocalypse Now", Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War opus that's a modern homage to Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", and "Wedding Impossible", a rom-com-ish enemies-to-lovers chaebol-family-corporate-succession drama. But hold tight for a moment.

One of the "Apocalypse Now" characters in its journey in to a deep and dangerous Viet jungle is somewhat unbalanced Louisiana native nicknamed Chef. During one of the quiet interludes on the boat, one of the handful of other soldiers asks Chef how he got the Chef nickname. And Chef responds with a story about how he was going to study at an exclusive French culinary school and instead ended up in the US Navy with the intention of being a cook. And then one day:

"They lined us up in front of a hundred yards of prime rib. All of us, you know, lined up and looking at it. Magnificent meat! Really! Beautifully marbled... magnifique! Next thing, they're throwing the meat into these big cauldrons. All of it, boiling it. I looked inside, man, and it was turning gray. I couldn't f**n' believe that one!"

Much like Chef and his hundred yards of gorgeous beef, "Wedding Impossible" has the ingredients for a bountiful feast of a drama, but renders it through an uninspired and worn and clumsily exposited narrative that ends with a production far short of its potential.

But the ingredients? [chef's kiss]

Jeon Jeong Seo certainly isn't the classic siren type. She's naturally abrasive and blunt. Her history suggests she's far more comfortable with action and tension than light comedy and romance. But it's this genuine awkwardness that makes her No Ah Jung lead so endearing.

Moon Sang Min is rock solid as Lee Ji Han. He's not just the tall pretty boy. And he's got the "I'm cool on the outside but I'm a raging inferno on the inside" acting thing DOWN.

Kim Do Wan is one of the very best second male leads. Any doubters should skim through his scenes in "My Roommate is a Gumiho" where he throws down a masterpiece performance. Casting him as the closeted gay Lee Do Han, a LGBTQ character that is a three dimensional real human who happens to be homosexual instead of a paper-thin stereotype that populates most dramas, is a perfect choice.

There's a couple noteworthy supporting actors too - Park Ah In as the scheming older half sister is very, very good and Seo Woo Jin crushes as Ah Jung's cute young nephew. Song Sang Eun and Min Jin Woong have some nice comedic relief together.

It may not be a legendary pantheon of heavyweights, but it's a very solid group of actors and characters.

And then it greats dropped in a cauldron of boiling chaebol succession blah blah blah. Press conferences. Paparazzis. Living room confrontations. USB drives of CCTV videos. Secretaries. Suits. Snore. Snooze. Sigh.

It's still great fun to see young actors get a chance to be leads and to work incredibly well together. Despite the plot weakness, the two leads are terrific together. It's a fun show to watch when it sticks to the rom-com side of things. Unfortunately, there's not enough of a story there to fill in 12 hour long episodes and everything else is trite and uninspired.

Lightly recommended.

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Is team-mance a word?

Well, if it's not, it should be. Or at least after season 1 of "Flex X Cop" it should be.

It's easy to find grievances here. They tend to be very upfront. First, the name is dumb. The marketing poster is a mess. The theme song is so cheap and grating. The whole opening credit sequence actually is awful. And the first impression that Ahn Bo Hyun makes as Jin Yi Soo is [grimacing emoji]. It's such a caricature of a shallow, arrogant, entitled rich brat that is falls flat. And speaking of flat, Jang Hyun Sung as the conglomerate chairman just quite can't deliver the gravitas of that role and never seems like the deeply emotionally torn person that the character he's portraying is meant to be.

Oh? And the name. THE NAME. Why is it Flex? Why is there an X? Did the producers just pull random words and letters out of a bag to determine the name? It's just so dumb.

But the heart of the show is pure 24 karat gold. Kim Shin Bi and Kang Sang Jun don't get loads of lines but their characters, the young somewhat naive and excitable one and not quite as young hard-nosed and stern one, are the perfect complements to each other and to the lead characters. Park Ji Hyun is flat out strong as Kang Hyun. Her character is the violent crime team leader and she's almost all business all the time. In the moments when she's not in work mode, she's still tough and direct and no nonsense. Even in the solitary scene where she is comforting Yi Soo, it's not explicitly tender or sweet.

And the whole production works because Ahn Bo Hyun is playing Yi Soo. Despite the first impression, once this actor and character have settled in to this complex role, the combination flat out slays. Beneath the couture wardrobe and expensive cars and luxury watches, is a man that is deeply broken and intensely driven and fairly insightful with just enough self-awareness. Although it's probably not a serious enough role to warrant award consideration, it's a role tailor made for Ahn Bo Hyun's sheer physical size and his rare ability to alternate between blazing cockiness and tender vulnerability.

There's some nicely written mysteries for the violent crime team to solve early on as Yi Soo works his way in to a role within the team. Some are more credible but the one that is the least believable somewhat validates itself at the end with a dramatic scene between Yi Soo and Kang Hyun. Eventually, the overall arc meanders back to Yi Soo's personal backstory and conglomerate family and the violent crime team fades somewhat to the background. While it's still an entertaining arc, when the focus spotlights Yi Soo alone, the magic of the chemistry between the four team members is lost.

Fortunately, while much of the last few episodes is entangled with Yi Soo's family shenanigans, the final episode balances things back with a sensational, touching montage, a not-so-unexpected twist and setting up what will hopefully be a season two that continues this team-mance (someone please contact Merriam Webster and have this added immediately) at the same level of excellence.

So while the opening credits should be skipped highly recommend just about everything else.

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There's lots and lots more wrong than just an uninspiring lead

Like almost everything is wrong with "The Impossible Heir".

Let's start with the well-worn scenario. Who's the successor to a conglomerate empire chairmanship? The illegitimate son that probably needs some intense psychotherapy for his simmering rage issues and definitely should learn some impulse control? Either of the legitimate sons that couldn't outfox a 4 year old in a Monopoly game? The bloodthirsty and estranged wife? The brilliant schemer secretary with no apparent blood relation to the current chairman?

Here's the problem: it's impossible to care about who wins the succession battle because it's impossible to care about any of the characters involved. The villains are laughably incompetent. The hero (or the one who is supposed to be) is as boring as dry paint and an ABYSMAL judge of character for someone who is supposed to be so brilliant. And the morally ambiguous anti-hero bad boy is so unbalanced that he's easier to pity than to root for.

Shorter: all these characters suck.

And that's if they weren't so conceptually cliche' (which they are and painfully so) and inadequately portrayed.

Lee Jae Wook - let's rip every bit of possible personality from his acting as possible. Great idea.

Lee Jun Young - he would kill playing a character with a serious mental disorder. But In Ha is obviously meant to be just not terribly bright and a bit overly ambitious.

Hong Su Zu - it's possible that she can act. Probably not. The smart betting money is definitely against her. But with a character so bland to portray, there's no way to ever start to figure that out.

Lee Ji Hoon - while it might be unfair to Hong Su Zu to judge her based on this show, there's enough history from other shows to declare with certainty that Lee Ji Hoon is awful. Yes, the character is supposed to be loathed but this performance is so bad, it comes across as pathetic instead of someone worth hating. It's a nauseous experience to watch him.

Han Sang Jin - no real notes on the performance but it should be noted that there's no small number of actors that bear some tiny bit of resemblance to Choi Jin Ho and could be believable as having 50 percent of Choi Jin Ho's DNA. Hang Sang Jin, however, is not one of them. Theoretically, it comes out later that he's not the chairman's son actually but that would betray the all-powerfulness and all-knowingness of the chairman character.

Choi Jin Ho isn't bad.

Choi Hee Jin is pretty good but gets 90 seconds of time on screen per episode. When she does make a brief appearance, she's treated like garbage by everyone. Literally every single other character is toxic to her. It's not fun to watch.

On top of the overall narrative structure, the direction and editing seems bent on making things more interesting by making the smaller arcs as baffling and poorly sequenced as possible.

Bad show. Very bad. Even for those that are ardent fans of one of these cast members, stay away. Far away.

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Turns out that Lindsay Lohan is a much better actor than we thought

And whoever directed "Freaky Friday" is a much better director than we thought.

And whoever wrote "Freaky Friday" is a much better writer than we thought.

"Branding in Seongsu" is possibly the most baffling, unfunny, incoherent, inconsistent body swap production ever made. There's little evidence that a marketing or PR agency, even one completely consumed by office politics and romances, is a setting that provides much entertainment value. Or maybe one would be if the employees ever did anything but put together Power Point slides and prance around in badly fitting suits.

The characters go through unexplained wholesale changes from one episode to the next and that's even when it's possible to keep track of which person is in which body. Last episode - a naive and clueless spaz. This episode - a protege' of Machiavelli. Next episode - kind and sweet and empathic. Good. Bad. Mean. Nice. Angry. Sweet. It's crazy.

None of the cast really excels here. Kim Ji Eun who normally kills the lighter, comedic material clearly struggled how to approach playing multiple characters that meander through so many forms. Lomon certainly gets the stiff, bossy scheming side but otherwise is pretty lost. Kim Ho Young is probably skilled at something but it is not acting. Jeon Jun Ho presumably was directed to take his gay character as far over the top as possible and he does that. It's meant to be funny. It's not. But that's probably not the actor's fault. Chae Soo Ah is similarly tasked with playing a one-note social media addict. She plays that one note fairly well but it's still just the one note.

Yang Hye Ji, if anyone does, stands out a bit as there's actually a bit of an arc for Yoo Mi as a character - from unappreciated assistant to nefarious backstabber to rehabilitated colleague. It's not a believable arc but it's at least somewhat of a thicker than cardboard cutout portrayal.

That's it. Not a good show. Not recommended.

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Park Min Young's Impossible Dream & Fanfic Request for the Villain

The signature song in the Broadway musical "Man of La Mancha" is The Impossible Dream. It's a complicated context for those unfamiliar with the production, but the main character has gone mad and forsaken his lands and status to pursue a prostitute he thinks is a maiden, to acquire junk that he believes is magical and to battle a knight who, in reality, is a physician trying to get him to regain his senses. The song is meant to be an inspiration to never give up your passions no matter how crazy they may be.

Yeah. Uh, well. Actually...

It turns out that some passions are actually crazy and bad and should not be pursued.

Exhibit "A" is Park Min Young's performance in "Marry My Husband".

Her character, Kang Ji Won, has suffered prior to a time loop, the following:
-abandonment by her mother
-orphaned at a young age by her father
-bullied by her peers in high school
-abused by her manager at her job
-tortured by her mother-in-law
-suffered financially due to her husband's bad investments
-unable to get pregnant because her husband is sterile
-unnoticed by her colleagues
-passed over for promotions
-betrayed by her best friend
-cheated on by her husband
-diagnosed with terminal cancer
-murdered by the betraying best friend and cheating husband

The only misfortunes that Ji Won has not suffered would be a short list. She's not blind. No indication that she's deaf. Baldness? No, she probably got that too thanks to the chemo. Uh, shortness? No. Bonus points to the writers for really kicking this character as low as probably any character has ever been kicked. And then stomping on her just because.

Somehow. SOMEHOW. Park Min Young takes this nearly inexhaustible list of tragedy and what should be a classic fairy tale princess overcoming the odds to triumph over evil kind of character and not only makes Ji Won not very sympathetic and not totally endearing and not an admirable and cheerable heroine but, instead, kind of a evilly stepmothery ice queen. It's such a total flop of a performance that it not merely overshadows, but practically obliterates the wooden and uninspired performance by Na In Woo. On what planet did this production team decide that the damsel in distress should be clomping around in 5 inch stilettos and haute couture fashion in every scene? Why is she so humorless? When there is a ripple of trouble in her relationship with Ji Hyuk, why does she immediately drop anchor and run for the hills? But most of all, when Ji Won is out for revenge and is settling her scores with Min Hwan and Soo Min, it feels like Park Min Young really feels it. She can sell that. But the scenes where she's being nice and friendly and supportive with Joo Ran and Hee Yeon? Nope. No sincerity. No feeling. No sale.

There's some awful performances from other actors too (Lee Gi Kwang, Cho Jin Se and BoA) but it must be pointed out that Lee Yi Kyung is great. Gong Min Jung nails it here like she has in everything. She's deserving of bigger and more demanding roles. Choi Gyu Ri is very fun. Ha Do Gwon is solid. Jung Suk Yong nails his cameo. So while there's plenty of bad here, there's plenty of strong acting as well.

The star, however, is Song Ha Yoon as she is a breathtaking supernova as the dastardly Yoo Min. It is a scintillating villain as a character, but the performance as this character is astonishing. She is extraordinarily insecure and incisively intuitive and to see how these traits twist her and consume her is both a horrifying and entrancing experience. The hope is that somewhere some genius has written a convincing fanfic account of a way in which Yoo Min somehow by some inconceivable multiverse jump, turns out to be the hero. Because that it would be a show worth watching beginning to end and every second in between.

As for "Marry My Husband"? Recommended but only for every moment with Song Ha Yoon. Very not recommended for the rest of it.

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An almost perfect match of deftly written characters and an exceptional cast

While "Like Flowers in Sand" hasn't hit the general public consciousness like some of its contemporaries, whether that's due to star power of lead actors in the other shows or other reasons, this is the best drama of recent vintage and it's not close.

The concept is fresh even if ssireum wrestling isn't. The pacing of the narrative from episode to episode is executed almost flawlessly. The dialogue between characters never defaults to cliches and tropes. And the characters are both complex and endearing.

But it is the pairing of the characters with the cast that sets this drama on another level. Jang Dong Yoon plays the lead character Kim Baek Doo, the youngest, somewhat overlooked son in a family loaded with ssireum champions. Baek Doo initially impresses as immature, but as the show progresses, his childlike approach turns out to be more exuberance and honesty than childishness. And although he's not quick-witted, he's insightful. His journey from near-retirement to finding his way as a wrestler by itself is a compelling narrative. And Jang Dong Yoon is brilliant in this role. He nails the gestures, the expressions, the delivery of every line so that it is inconceivable that another actor could have played this character.

There's more including one of the more unconventional romances in the genre between Baek Doo and Lee Joo Myung's Du Sik, a wrestling match fixing scandal/murder that bring's Du Sik's Seoul detective back to the hometown she left as a child, the seaside townspeople's daily gossips, the Kim family's dynamic with three retired champion wrestlers and one brilliantly portrayed mother (Jang Young Nam is stellar) and a warm and refreshing group of childhood friends that reconnect as adults.

The casting director for "Like Flowers in Sand" absolutely hit this out of the park. Regardless of lead or supporting or guest role, every actor is matched perfectly to the character they play. Lee Joo Myung? Delightful. Park Kyu Bin as the young Du Sik? Sensational. Lee Jae Joon? So cool. Choi Moo Sung? Regal. And Kim Bo Ra? So good it is stunning. And it goes on and on.

The score is subtle but strong. The direction and photography don't disappoint.

It's not wholly without flaws as the match fixing and murder story does meander for much of the second half before it lurches forward as the finale starts. And the feints on the identity of the villain are rather clumsy and the ultimate unveiling underwhelms.

These are trivial issues though. "Like Flowers in Sand" is worth watching simply to see Jang Dong Yoon as Kim Baek Doo. But with so much more to enjoy, it should be at or very near the top of any ranking of current or recent dramas.

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Punch, chop, yawn, shoot, punch, chop...

Mindless, cartoonishly violent melee-fest movies, even those that recycle mad scientist and power hungry soldier antagonists, can be great fun. And "Badlands Hunters" has lots of ingredients for a successful martial arts brawl-a-thon.

The setting, a post-apocalyptic wasteland? Check.

Comic relief sidekick? Check.

Young, innocent hope for survival? Check.

A steady stream of gangsters and baddies entering from all sides to be dispatched with a single blow or wound? Checkity, check, check.

And a Michelle Yeoh type martial arts badass female? Ahn Ji Hye crushes this.

But "Badlands Hunters" never quite puts all the pieces together for very long. Instead, it's much like the populace constantly seeking morsels of food and a bit of clean water, the fun appears sporadically and, when it does, too briefly. Part of the issue is that the first half frequently sidetracks for small laughs or plot devices that later turn out not all useful. Another part of it is that there's simply far too much invested in transitioning Roh Jeong Eui's young hope-for-humanity from a wasteland origin to the apartment building as utopia/evil mad scientist's laboratory.

The main issue, sadly, is that the big action star in the middle of it, the legendary Ma Don Seok, doesn't seem all that invested in what he's doing. Or at least not very often. The character is meant to be stoic and business-like. That's expected. But having such a character as a baseline really only works as a contrast to when they are shaken out of their typical personality and a fire inside of them is ignited, the intensity ramps up and they get super mad and go bonkers getting even. That never happens here. It's martial arts and knife fighting and shooting machine guns with all the vibrancy and fireworks of stapling insurance adjuster reports together.

Punch. Stab. Shoot. [sigh]

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You sly dog! You caught me monologuing!

It's not monologuing that weighs down "Gyeonseong Creature" as much as it "dialoguing".

There's some very credible attributes of this drama and it deserves some accolades. The photography is terrific. The pyrotechnics and slow-motion shots are stunning. There's a few low light scenes in the countryside that are jawdropping. The score is solid. The wardrobing, at least to this layman's level of expertise, is exquisite.

There's some solid supporting characters and actors . Jo Han Chul, in particular, is as good here as he has ever been. There's several great actors that just don't have the character depth unfortunately though. The talents of Im Ki Hong, Im Chul Soo and Ok Ja Yeon are almost completely wasted. For the villainry, Kim Su Hyun and Hyun Bong Sik and Choi Young Joon all play extremely terrible and awful monsters. But then there's a lengthy list of other wrongdoers and each time one of them absorbs any of the focus, it detracts from developing the main antagonists.

And there's plenty of bloat all around. Kim Hae Sook is listed as a lead but there's no need for the character to appear at all. Wi Ha Joon disappears for vast stretches and when he is visible, is bland and forgettable.

As for the leads, when given the opportunity to showcase their strengths, they deliver. Han So Hee and Park Seo Joon deliver in the action set pieces and exhibit all the grim resolve a viewer can handle when things get dark. Sadly, these moments aren't enough.

While the structure of the show is compelling, the ground-level narrative is twisted so badly with unnecessary side- and back-tracks, incomprehensible gaps in plausibility (the ventilation shaft that literally holds an entire squadron of soldiers is particularly laughable), interminable stretches where the highlight of the program, The Creature, is forgotten and, egad, the dialogue! The production team apparently thought nothing of stopping gunfights and melees and action to have some of the most saccharine and cliche and dull exchanges between characters. Of what had most likely been hundreds of pages of script, they needed to be reordered on a wholesale basis and almost every line rewritten. This was a concept that begged for a brief backstory up front and then a deep and long and uninterrupted dive in to a suffocating, claustrophobic, dark and forbidding place. Instead, "Gyeonseong Creature" is a tedious mess.

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Change is bad. And not changing is also bad.

Soundtrack #1 was a delightful, short, sweet drama. And while churning out another drama just like it would have been a bad idea and recreating something entirely new wholly unlike Soundtrack #1 wouldn't have made any sense, the creators of Soundtrack #2 kept the core elements the same - a production focused almost entirely on the romance between the leads and a backdrop occupied by the music industry. A few other elements seem familiar too. There's a facade of a love triangle, but it's clear from the moment that it appears that the late appearing third corner is a distant third wheel.

There's not a terribly prodigious amount of material to review. The episodes are short. There are only six of them. The supporting cast is capable but they are more props than characters - existing to prod a bit of dialogue out of a lead during the moments when the other lead isn't present. The music is a bit livelier than the usual drama ballad and it's pleasant, but it's not the stuff that is going to light up the charts and fill an arena. It's more suited to busking in a park.

Is the plot credible? There's no ghosts or time travel or generation-repeating curse so points there. A music prodigy ends up washing out and teaching music after school to kids? Easy sell. Probably happens all the time. Is a guy who churns out YouTube material and winds up crazy wealthy and driving every luxury car brand on the planet believable? Well, it doesn't violate the laws of physics as we know them so it's possible. Is it possible that THIS GUY did that? Less likely.

And that's where #2 lives up to it's own moniker as not number one. THIS GUY is not Park Hyung Sik. And while Steve Noh, even to a viewer who has no physical attraction to the male gender, objectively by scientific means of measurement is very, very physically attractive. But he is not anywhere near the talent as an actor that Park Hyung Sik is. And casting Steve Noh as the successor to Park Hyung Sik's lead role does not work. Not even a little. Part of it is that the character is so insecure. But the frenetic, try-so-hard-all-the-time, suffocate-everything-he-touches approach overwhelms all the other aspects that were meant to humanize the character. In short, where the previous lead was always cool and natural all the time, this lead tries too hard to be cool all the time. It's change and it's a bad change.

Meanwhile, Geum Sae Rok's Hyun Seo is too much like Han So Hee's predecessor. Musical talent? Check. Struggling in her career? Check. Has a musical white knight come along that recognizes her talent? Check. Unsure of her own feelings for the male lead? Check. In short, it's not change and while it's not as bad as what did change, it's still bad.

Points for being short and well-shot and having lots of pretty stuff to look at. But with so much riding on how good the leads are, these lead characters and the actors playing them just don't measure up.

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Like the title character at the beginning, it doesn't know what it should be

"I can't sing" says Doona when asked why she stopped performing but it's obvious that the issue is NOT that she can't sing. It's that she doesn't know WHY she is singing. And that after the years of training and performing, she's lost any meaning to what had once been her dream.

That much is clear.

And equally clear is that a kpop idol interacting with Yang Se Jong's Won Joon is like a plunge in to an ice bath. He's such an opposite of her. He's beyond his years in maturity. He doesn't smoke. He's a rule follower. His emotions are as grounded as a concrete block building foundation. C'mon, he's a civil engineer. As a romance? Legitimately, there are some terrific, compelling scenes between Won Joon and Doona. But this is not a show where any rational viewer is expecting a fairy tale - they get together, leave the world behind and live happily ever after. Immediately upon solidifying their relationship, the clock begins audibly ticking before their troubles as a couple will consume them. Regardless of whether or not the lovebirds find a way to be together, the main issue that is dramatized is whether Doona falls for Won Joon because she needs someone and he's the one that happens to be there or is he legitimately her soulmate? But somewhat ignored is why has Won Joon fallen for Doona as a person? Clearly he's a straight male and she's stunning and seems interested in him and that should obviously be enough for a brief infatuation. It's not enough, however, to explain how he overlooks all the negatives (and there are many) in her and she becomes the only woman for him. So the romance is intermittently great but, in totality, is more just going where it was pretty expected it was headed from before the first frame hit the screen.

Moreover, the secondary storylines have promise. Park Se Wan and Kim Do Wan are a fantastic pair. Won Joon's got a potentially colorful hometown connections subplot. Ha Young's Jin Joo has a troubled family life. But the shorter episode run times and 9 episode duration don't give these diversions ample space to really fulfill what could have been. Park Se Wan, in particular, is wild and colorful but shows up halfway just as things in the main plot are gaining serious traction. Even just a single additional episode could have allowed more screen time to cultivate what were some potentially entertaining developments.

Where "Doona" really hits (and, in a way, misses) is that Doona herself is this fascinating, complex, damaged and brilliant character in the midst of discovering herself and her passion for music. And, for as much as no other man but Won Joon can make her happy, the reality is that not even he can come between her and who she is as an artist and a singer. It's her journey from being a woman in crisis to finding what within her gives her a purpose and meaning that captivates. How it misses is that it is clumsily obfuscated by the demands of the industry that she return to settle her contractual obligations and the effect that her return to singing has on Won Joon. These are certainly points worth noting in her growth, but they overwhelm what could have been a better exploration of her personal awakening, finding meaning in songwriting, realizing what she loved about performing and that a life without music, for her, would be a life without meaning. Instead, her internal development is captured in only brief moments. It's a pity.

Recommended but with forewarning that "Doona" isn't what it could be.

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Fumbles the basics

If there is a theme that has trod a well worn path in recent dramas, it is the wronged-in-a-prior-Joseon-era-life-reincarnated-to-seek-revenge setup. Certainly, some of the most recent productions have left room to improve on this plot but "Moon in the Day" never approaches doing anything remotely competently.

There's some shoddy special effects during a fire scene.

The flashbacks to Joseon era are tedious and circle over the same plot points repeatedly.

These flashbacks would be more of a distraction if the modern era scenes were any more compelling but, oy, those aren't much better.

The supporting cast is not great. Even the usually reliable Lee Joon Hyuk is cast as a humorless agency fixer and it's not a good fit.

Pyo Ye Jin is somehow supposed to be both an asskicking firefighter and a stereotypical helpless damsel in alternating scenes.

One or two of these flaws aren't fatal. Even all of them together might have made just been annoyances. But there's simply no way that any show can succeed with a lead as badly acted as Kim Young Dae does here. He can certainly crush the petulant, lazy narcissist that present day Han Jun Oh is. But then he's possessed by the spirit of the Joseon era warrior and it is hard to imagine a worse pairing of character and actor than this one. Taciturn? Grizzled? Intense? Nope. Nope. Nope.

So, there's nothing new plot-wise, it's choppily directed, alongside an uninspiring cast and there's not much left that can possibly turn it around for the show. Not recommended.

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Monologuing

This will circle back to "The Kidnapping Day" but it will be a bit of a scenic route.

It's easy to pinpoint the scene that transformed Bill Murray from one of many cast contributors on an after-dark weekend sketch comedy show. Sure, he was already known as one of the charter members of Saturday Night Live but he was anything but a bankable movie star. But one modestly budgeted, lightly raunchy summer camp comedy changed that. In the late 1970's and early 1980's, the summer camp setting was became one of Hollywood's favorite locations for everything from horror to teen drama to comedy. In 1979, the poor ragtag kids camp up against the rich, spoiled kids on the other side of the lake was the basis for one such movie. In "Meatballs", Bill Murray played the first of the many iterations of the sardonic, sarcastic, lazy, laconic and acidic cool loner. And like in many other of these roles, the centerpiece of the role is an extended monologue where he sheds his aloofness and delivers a fiery speech to rally his followers to new heights.

The rest of "Meatballs"? Pretty generic stuff. But the monologue from Murray is spectacular. Much of it is simply repeating over and over and over again "It just doesn't matter!". Screaming the same phrase at the top of his lungs. It just doesn't matter. Repeatedly. It just doesn't matter. Again and again and again.

It just doesn't matter.

"The Kidnapping Day" is a drama, unsurprisingly, about a kidnapping. Myeong Jun, a dad down on his luck with a critically sick daughter, kidnaps Ro Hee, the daughter of a rich doctor, hoping to ransom er for enough money to pay for his daughter's surgery. But nothing goes as planned because nothing in Myeong Jun's life does. As things spiral out of control, there's almost everything but aliens and ghosts and mermaids thrown in. Murders. Crooked police. Power hungry wealthy families. Stoic killers. Mouthy bad guys. Unethical medical experimentation. Orphanages. Slums. Mansions. Hospitals. Boats. Beaches. There's so many elements that it's impossible to coherently piece them together.

It just doesn't matter.

The rich family floats in and out when necessary as a plot device but they're mostly there to advance some forward action by the bad guy. The bad guy is basically a mouthy venture capitalist. He's not a flop as a villain, but it's a fairly generic character. The crooked cops are even less prominent than the rich family.

It just doesn't matter.

Kim Sang Ho plays a critical support role but the script asks far too little of him and it's one of his least compelling performances. The problem is less severe with Kim Shin Rok's Hye Eun (Myeong Jun's ex wife). She's meant to be a morally ambiguous character, part regretful mother and part brilliant schemer. But the mother side is never convincing and the schemer side rarely makes sense. If she's supposed to be in hiding, why would she wear some of the most garish outfits in the Eastern Hemisphere? Why has she anticipated so many things but left an absolutely vital item unaddressed until far too late? And for a character that viewers should be on the fence about, she's indefatigably unlikable. The performance by Shin Rok is solid but she's too often asked to do things with the character that are, even in the most charitable light, confounding.

But it just doesn't matter.

Even Park Sung Hoon who has been on a tear of scintiallating performances in 2023 with terrific performances in "The Glory" and as an unconventional police officer in "Not Others" comes across flat here. It's the maverick cop with a heart of gold. And it's not a fresh take on the archetype.

Guess what? It just doesn't matter.

The plot meanders through the kidnapping, the morally murky medical people, the venture capitalists, the police, the power hungry family and ends up with a weak final confrontation. A cliffhanger from the end of one episode transitions to a completely different place and an almost total absence of a resolution to a main character on the verge of death. The police are dumb when it's convenient that they be dumb. And then they wise up at the most convenient time. The crime scene is abandoned. Literally. The investigators take the bodies and apparently then just leave. It's bizarrely implausible.

One last time. It just doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because the characters of Ro Hee and Myeong Jun and the performances by Yoon Kye Sang and 12 year old Yuna are transcendent. They are magical when they are together and the moments when they are pulled from each other are heartbreaking. It's an oddball pair, the rich girl from a sheltered life and a guy with a lifetime of fumbling away his chances at every opportunity. For Yoon Kye Sang, it is without question and by a considerable margin his best work of recent vintage. And for Yuna? It's a performance that can hardly be believed to have been rendered by someone of such young age. Among non-romantic relationships that have been portrayed in this genre, it is in acutely rarefied air. And it is why all of the other things just don't matter.

Minor items:

It is always welcome to see Kang Ha Neul in a brief but excellent cameo.

Same with Kim Di Doo.

Kim Dong Won does a nice job with the nearly mute assassin with unclear loyalties role quite nicely.

It just doesn't matter? Actually, nah. Not at all.

"The Kidnapping Day" is a tremendously entertaining drama thanks to the lead performances and it is highly, highly recommended watch.

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How to Ruin a Timeloop Concept in the Finale aka The Dog Dies I Guess

Just in case the spoiler warning above was not noted, this review is almost nothing but spoilers for the final episode so be warned and proceed with the appropriate caution.

Briefly, "A Time Called You" has eleven very solid, consistently paced, smartly acted, lushly photographed and skillfully directed episodes. Jeon Yeo Been is better as Jun Hee than as Min Ju. Ahn Hyo Seop is as good here as he's been in any show. He's not an easy sell as a teenager, but in K Drama Land, that's just the part of the terrain that we trod. There's some other nice casting for supporting roles. In fact, there isn't a below the bar performance to be found. It is somewhat disappointing that Seo Ye Hwa and Jang Hye Jin don't figure more prominently in the meat of the narrative. But that is somewhat made up for by Rowoon's cameo.

And props to the writers, director and editor for setting up the finale with a deft minuet between the time periods where characters are hopping back and forth. Although familiarity with the source material seems to have dampened some reviewers enthusiasm, having no such background found this production to be one of the more consistently enjoyable ones of recent vintage.

Until the finale.

The finale is when the timeloop malpractice bomb explodes.

Grievances:

1. A timeloop is already a do-over. Once you get a single do-over, that should be it. No do-overs of part of the first do-over. But after the excruciating exposition of exactly how Min Ju dies which is directly tied to Jun Hee's time travel, Jun Hee gets to try again and this time saves Min Ju.

2. Once Min Ju is saved, with the aid of In Kyu by the way, these two have about twenty seconds of resolution where Min Ju seems to have been won over by In Kyu and like everything is just jolly even though she was suicidally depressed earlier in the episode.

3. While Min Ju and In Kyu get short shrift, there are painfully extended scenes in the past era of Jun Hee in Min Ju's body and Si Heon traveling to and cavorting at the beach in the sand and in the water and watching the sunset. It's a necessary part of the narrative, but it feels like it consumes the entire second half of the finale.

4. Well, except for the showoff sequence of CGI dissolves that follows that goes on and on and on.

5. So the leads reunite for a moment of silence (yes, no words are exchanged in the street as the snow falls) and credits roll. It is quite the anticlimactic moment.

6. Where are Min Ju and In Kyu in this new future? No idea.

7. Did Park Hyuk Kwon's uncle character still open a cafe in Seoul? No idea. If he did, are the two leads somehow connected to it? Obviously no idea.

8. If nothing else in the future matters, why does it matter that Si Heon is now running a webcomic startup? No idea.

9. The real gear grinder is that of all the dramas where there is a completely unnecessary, unsatisfying and unconvincing rehabilitation arc of the villain at the end, this is the show where THE CONTEXT COMPELLED FOR SUCH AN ARC TO HAPPEN. IS Min Jin Woong's Oh Chan Young still a psychopath? Presumably Oh Chan Hee doesn't end up committed to an asylum, but his fate is completely left up to the viewer to determine. And as Oh Chan Young before the magic CGI dissolve had already killed the family dog before his journey via cassette to the past, we have no reason to think that he didn't still do it in the new post no-suicide-timeline. And since Chan Young killed the family dog, then that means that the family Mom is still going to freak out and since Chan Young is a psychopath, does Chan Young eventually move on to killing his mom? Is that how the universes balance out? Min Ju lives but Mrs. Oh dies?

But after careful consideration, the only conclusion can be that the dog is definitely dead.

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More questions than answers?

In lieu of the more traditional form of review, this author humbly submits the following questions:

Why is Hwang Min Hyun a more expressive actor when he is wearing a mask than after he removes it?

How many subplots can be introduced and left unsatisfactorily unresolved in a standard length drama?

Of the many dramas where one of the main characters is an idol, are there any that are actually compelling, complex characters? Why does an industry that is so heavily populated by idols so poor at portraying a fictional version of one?

Has anyone checked the family register of Hwang Min Hyun and Kim So Hyun to determine if they are siblings because if they were, that would at least explain the complete absence of heat in their shared scenes?

Since he didn't through the entirety of filming this show, does anyone know if Seo Ji Hoon has demonstrated any sort of emotional expression since production wrapped?

Has any paparazzi ever cared a whit about an artist who was strictly a songwriter?

Have the agent and casting director who thought Seo Jung Yeon should play a stonefaced, emotionally stunted assemblywoman been sealed in a homemade submersible and dropped to the depths of the Pacific Ocean yet?

Where does Park Kyung Hye rank among the legions of supporting actors that play the mischievous comic side relief best friend of female lead? All hail Queen Park Jin Joo obviously, but how far down the list after her is Park Kyung Hye?

Which creepy K pop agency CEO is the closest real life facsimile to Yun Ji On's Deuk Chan?

None of these are questions that really need to be answered because this is a show that the less it is thought about, the better. A point for novel concept and a strong soundtrack (if that matters) but everything else that followed was lacking. Not recommended.

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Why so serious?

For a program that is set primarily in a beach front town and featuring a cast of young, single twentysomethings searching for romantic entanglements and with no serial killers or zombies or alien invasions or natural disasters or economic catastrophes or even a mild food allergy, a viewer might expect "Manatsu no Cinderella" to be nothing but start-to-finish hijinks and giggles and cartwheels.

It's not.

There's few jokes that land. The romances are lukewarm. The dialogue is cliche. For some reason, most conversations between characters are blocked so they're standing at unnatural distances away from each other. Most of the cast has a single facial expression (pout, giant grin or shocked face). There's also a single entry on the soundtrack that is repeated nonstop. Twists though? None.

So not recommended?

There is one thing. Nana Mori puts on a clinic of taking a tissue thin character and imbuing it with enough charisma and an easygoing, natural air that when she's on screen, it's a worthwhile watch.

But that's it. And for those that might appreciate Nana Mori here, the recommendation is not this lifeless, empty summer yawnfest. Instead, flip over to Netflix and check out "Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san".

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