This review may contain spoilers
Interesting story ruined by its nonsensical ending.
This is one of those titles that I would have enjoyed watching when i was still 15. I would have put a higher rewatch value and would have liked this drama much more than i do now when i'm older and seen many detective dramas with better writing (one of them from the same writer).Story, pacing and writing:
So many plot twists and mysteries. The story was pretty intense and kept me up, but it had lots of plot holes and did not make sense a lot of the times. I watched a lot of mystery kdramas, but this one was confusing as hell, and not in the best way. As some reviewer already pointed out, it felt like a puzzle that was revealed piece by piece each episode. But think of it like that - this puzzle has many missing pieces, and many pieces were forcefully put in the wrong places. The puzzle is not complete.
The way some of the plot lines were lining up did not made much sense at all, there is no way it would all connect the way it did. There were many missed opportunities and loopholes, and you would think that in the span of 18 episodes they would give us a proper explanation but it did not happen. The pacing was also messy, draggy at times when it was not needed and super fast at times when it is not supposed to be. Everything was leading up to a boiling point, and the big reveal was completely ignored. It does feel like it was supposed to be 20 eps but they squeezed everything in those last episodes (better say the last 20 minutes of the last episode).
Cast:
I have heard lots of bad reviews about Go Ah Ra's acting, and I tried to avoid her kdramas. But i recently watched Voice 4 with Song Seung Heon and i grew a liking towards him, so i gave this a chance. FL was a typical damsel in distress and i guess it was fitting with the overall story.
Final opinion:
If you want a detective + mystery + romance + thriller kdrama with bits of comedy, don't really care for logic in the writing as much and don't tend to overanalyze stuff - then i would suggest this drama to you. I ran out of good detective thrillers, so i resorted to watching Black even though it had mixed reviews. I do not regret watching it, even though i was very disappointed with the ending. Again, it seems like it is not the writer's fault. This kdrama deserved a better ending.
The ending and my venting (contains spoilers!!!):
The ending was dogshit awful and very nonsensical. After I've read articles saying that it was the director who came up with the last 5 minutes trying to make it a happy ending, completely disregarding the writer's original script which made much more sense to me and many other viewers. I'm wondering that was in the director's head when he came up with with that granny make-up and fairytale-like ending? This kind of story did not need a happy-end, although i wish that at least Ha Ram found out about the whole grim reaper thing while he was still there, i was waiting for the moment of revelation and tried to imagine how it would turn out. Missed opportunity to explore that old man who also saw shadows - was he also a half grim reaper, and another one with her mom who knew that her husband was a grim reaper and now her daughter's romantic interest is also one as well. Also, maybe it was just me, but for the most part of the kdrama i thought that that shady doctor and evil killer-stalker guy were the same person. The actors looked a like and it made no sense to me that this doctor had that much time to do all of the stuff he was doing... Just wanted to add that here lol
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