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Branding in Seongsu korean drama review
Completed
Branding in Seongsu
0 people found this review helpful
by Beatrice
Jul 26, 2024
24 of 24 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 7.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 7.0
This review may contain spoilers

Could be more subversive, but still interesting

Kang Na Eon is such a refreshing female lead character that got to be diabolically cool, smart, and cunning. She even has the smooth, swoony kdrama moves down like when she caught the male lead as he fell. Both leads have excellent chemistry too, starting with the moment So Eun Ho desperately dresses up in his literal funeral best and initiates some passionate kissing that she reciprocates. It was lamentable that she had to switch bodies so soon, but it was also cool to see how immediately went about acclimating and investigating the attempt on her life while in Eun Ho's body. She had a lot of cool moments while in his body, so I looked forward to her switching back because I really want to see a female character get to be a commanding presence, but the drama definitely favored her having intense and commanding moments while in a male form more alas.

The costuming for her started with her in the most garish colors like poisonous animals have, but she totally owned every outfit. I like that she took a liking to wearing suits after spending time wearing them in Eun Ho's body, but it's a bummer it's mostly over sized looks rather than bepsoke ones that would fit her to perfection. That would have been amazing. I really liked the reveal that Eun Ho was playing dumb and had a hole revenge plan against her too, blaming her for stealing his idea and the death of his girlfriend. The twist that Na Eon tried to fix the situation and apologize for it was interesting, the hint that she had a heart deep inside.

I found the body swap pretty easy to follow, there were even times where I felt like the show was over explaining who was in who's body. There seems to be two ghostly presences legitimately haunting Na Eon since it's not psychosomatic and Eun Ho experienced it too and later follows Na Eon to Eun Ho's body, one being the ghostly hands and the other being the body swap ghost girlfriend Da Eun. It's never explained but there was a bunch of people that rushed in to help the Da Eun before there was an explosion, so I wonder if they also died and are the hands. There should have been more of an attempt to explain how the switches are triggered and why is it limited. It was pretty arbitrary through out the end.

On the gender side of things, I appreciated that they didn't add stereotypically gendered movements to the characters when they've switched, it's more personality traits like Na Eon's aloofness and Eun Ho's over the top reactions which were an act on top of an act. On the other hand the portrayal of the only gay character Lex was suspect. It's totally fine he's effeminate and a fashionable drag queen, but the show had him be overly touchy to other male characters and the other male characters refer to him in gay panic moments. That's very unfortunate. The show seems to be making effort to destigmatize gay culture along with feminine hygiene, contraceptives, and sex toys, but still baby steps for productions that aren't lgbt specific.

The ending with almost all the antagonists redeemed except for the lone female executive was lacking. There wasn't enough from Yoo Mi or Nam Byul for them to be redeemed. Also Jung Woo would go as far as being so physically violent and attempted to murder Na Eon, erasing the evidence, and left her for dead is all forgiven because Hee Jung told him to is extremely nonsensical. That man committed a huge crime and she shouldn't be on friendly terms with him at all, at least not with how things turn out. Yoo Mi went off the deep end hating Na Eon's guts too and there should have been seeded more scenes of her caring enough about Na Eon for their return to friendship to mean anything. Otherwise her not wanting to murder Eun Ho is good enough for them to have some sort of begrudging understanding. Nam Byul was literally a character on the side plotting against Na Eon the whole time with no emotional connection to anything.

Though the drama would have been better if there was a bit more grit and angst in a bit of a darker tone, it was still an interesting take on the body swap genre.
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