dtulipano

Realistic comfort drama

Realistic drama in which two people face the ups and downs of surviving the demands of the corporate world, the wounds of the past, family stories and beliefs, and the challenges of living together, balancing the realities of different ways of life and how much you can give while still being yourself.

The plot approach is realistic, without the excessive puritanism of Asian dramas, with the necessary intimacy to make it credible, without being a Western series exploiting sexuality in excess.

Except for the manager, portrayed with excessive exaggeration, all the characters were within proper limits for a drama.

The way both couples resolve their differences and overcome setbacks makes the drama very enjoyable.

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Entertained drama

Even when the plot is dramatic and leans toward an action drama, the episodes have a great rhythm; they are easy to watch, keeping the mood up throughout. For me, it was very easy to watch several episodes without losing track of time.
The plot with the main leads could be more realistic, since they kissed, broke the intimate space, and they were living together, with impeccable acting representing the tension between them; the concept of selling excessive purity is not convincing, and, as a Western, it makes the script look fake, beyond the usual dramatic license that appears too frequently in the episodes. The FL always arrived before the police and the firefighters.
The healing together was nice; the audit process was overly aggressive in its approach to police investigation, with very few editing mistakes.
The end seemed to miss more commitment in terms of marriage, which was being announced during the last episode,

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Nice drama to watch

This is a nice drama to watch, especially for the FL, who always delivers a great performance.
Even with the license of exaggeration about the corporate world, showing several secondary leads that are impossible to exist in the corporate world, closer to a comic book than to reality, the episodes were easy to watch.
For me, the most important part is the reflection on having a relationship in the company (no serious organization would allow your subordinate to be your partner), the difficulties of living together with a partner with the demands of the competitive corporate world, and the evolution of the female leader as she seeks to find and overcome her flaws to build a relationship.
Overall, I had a good time.

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Mixed emotions

I ended up with mixed emotions after watching the drama.

On one side, I got a dopamine hit from the happy ending and enjoyed the main 'leads' performance, which convinced me of their true feelings, since, from my point of view, it is very difficult when you are framed in rom-coms. I personally like the no-dating-in-high-school campaign; I like this trend of the FL with great achievements complementing and even saving the ML, and the scenery and costumes, which made it worth going through 29 episodes.

On the other hand, the plot relied too much on main-character chemistry and soap-opera-typical drama, with exaggerated characters, and it lacked a consistent script, scene sequencing, and a credible story to identify with.

For example, when they eloped, they took a train with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, then suddenly appeared with a fully complete, neat wardrobe. Then two teenagers full of hormones living together, kissing each other, and nothing happened—too much asian drama style.

From my perspective, exploring the challenges of a rich ML suddenly exposed to poverty, doing low-level, hard-working jobs, and the challenge of daily life as a couple at such a young age will be very interesting, and even educational as a wake-up call.

The gangsters were also exaggerated, as was the grandfather, whose character could be deleted and nothing would happen, and no wonder the father almost looked like a silent-movie villain. The half-brother's performance was poor and unnecessary, with the same expression whether happy or sad, losing the opportunity to develop a good story about an illegitimate child born out of wedlock.

Then the ML's behavior after they found each other years later was like a maniacal, dominant psycho, and the independent FL suddenly became submissive, accepting the most outrageous situation.

The second leads’ story was very good and deserved more scenes, since it showed the challenges of a couple after getting married, as the female lead expressed in one scene. Still, it was left hanging because it seemed easier to rely too heavily on the main-character chemistry.

No wonder about scene mistakes, changing locations within the same scene, the typical wardrobe mistakes in Chinese dramas, sudden solutions without explanation, and characters living a great life without income.

In the end, I enjoyed it, but I regret not watching a better drama that wasted the great chemistry between the leads.

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Another product of the mass production Asian drama industry

I started watching this drama because of the high reviews, but it quickly slowed down and became very difficult to watch.

I expected another drama-light romantic comedy built on sure bets for general public acceptance; for a moment, it seemed interesting, but it ended up as a superficial attempt to explore the challenges of adult relationships in today’s challenging world, with a hard-to-believe script.

It starts with a hard-to-believe love story between a PhD who becomes a makeup blogger, then suddenly jumps back to college to teach, establishing a romantic relationship with a bad-tempered millionaire PhD researcher who didn’t want to work in the family business. Their entire initial interaction stems from a college-day vendetta. Is that the behavior of a PhD?

From the start, a credible development of the plot wasn’t an easy task, but it went worse with scenes such as the lack of communication when the male lead went to study abroad without a word (is that really happening nowadays?), the exaggerated FL’s parents, and the unbelievable puritanical interaction between two almost 30-year-old people who like each other very much, they are also are neighbors and even sleep in the same apartment; the drama gets downgraded to a mass-produced, really basic level.

I liked the conservation message, the protection of savage species, but come on, all the plot around it seems more like a cartoon than a near real-life situation. From the dialogue, the costumes, the bad guys' attitude, and the arrest, it all felt too fake.

The drama relied too much on Esther Yu's signature cute, slightly mischievous expression, and the ML delivered a not-colorful performance, with few opportunities to show anything beyond a grey performance.

The supporting couple was exaggerated, hard to believe or explain, and so unnecessary that the drama wouldn’t change a bit if all their scenes were deleted.

Both antagonists were exaggerated and faced very poorly written characters.

For me, this was clearly a product of the mass-production Asian drama industry, meant to entertain the public, and it was only useful to wait for the next episode of the drama I currently watch, enjoying only Esther Yu’s signature expressions.

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Another typical romance drama

I have mixed feelings about this drama. I enjoyed it, and even the +1-hour episodes flew by. I like Hyeri a lot because she always delivers a strong performance, even as the stereotypical romance drama FL.

But as is happening in most dramas this year, their success is based mainly on the chemistry and the performance of the main leads, passing up the opportunity to develop interesting adult stories, playing a safe game spending too much time on youth and memories, and solving a forced happy ending in the last episode, full of plot holes that are very difficult to believe, lowering the quality of the drama.

In this case, they could cut at least half of the unnecessary story of their youth, which was frequently repeated throughout the drama, and spend more time on Ju I Jae's feelings and her need to study, the expected support of her partner, how to manage a long-distance relationship, and how to support her without invading or shadowing her, especially when supossely wrote and directed a movie in Canada in less than two years, when their movie took more than one year. She was selfish, just disappeared, and made “her dream,” with no interest in Woo Su Bin’s feelings. Additionally, who would believe that a rookie director in their first movie would disappear during editing, post-production, and promotion?

Woo Su Bin’s role was plain: it didn't convey much emotion (sometimes I feel the same face happy or sad), didn't define a clear behavioral line, and relied on looks. His character could explore in depth the ups and downs of a romantic relationship with a partner who wants to be bright and stay out of your shadow. His dad was another exaggerated character, and the drama didn’t do much to expose their regrettable behavior. At the end, the bad guy keeps his fortune.

The attempt to exploit the viewers' feelings with the breakup and magic return, as if nothing ever happened, to receive an award is too much of a cheap emotional trick, the same as the sudden and unnecessary death of Sim Yu Geon’s father.

CEO An Su Hui was exaggerated, to the point of being a discordant note each time she appeared. I know the “bad guys” are necessary, but in the context of the drama, they could give the character a more realistic entertainment CEO script.

Sim Yu Geon and O Ha Na’s story was naive, not a story at all, and pretty much felt like a forced script to fill in the second leads, with no clear character definition. It tried to sell a 30-year-old rich, beautiful, famous virgin, never-kissed actress with an unknown actor, almost under the same conditions, alone in their room and only briefly kissing. Is this believable?

On the other hand, the other secondary couple, Seo In Uk and Chae Sa Rang, is a man-predator woman, with almost the same on the man's side, who started a relationship on a fake, ridiculous reality show. After the only smart quote from that couple, when she said it was too difficult for her to keep a serious relationship, then, out of the blue, she appeared as a writer selling books, and he was buying the books. The last scene between them was dumb. Once again, they could explore the challenges of being a couple with no commitment, only enjoying the moment, who suddenly find someone who makes them change their minds.

The drama served to entertain, evoke emotions, trigger dopamine release, and function as another romance drama, missing the opportunity to do something better.

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Did the job as expected

I didn't have many expectations when I watched a drama called “Genius Girlfriend,” with Xiwei Tian as the main character, especially after the social media marketing campaign showed only a few romantic scenes.

As expected, Xiwei Tian's cuteness and convincing acting were the backbone of the drama, and the remaining characters, including the male lead, were just there to support her showdown.

I didn’t read the novel, so maybe, to avoid the project failing, they played it safe by sticking to the original plot to meet the difficult task of fulfilling hardcore fans' expectations. But from my mature perspective, they missed the opportunity to develop a contemporary story exposing the challenges of balancing a career, family, and love, which has been the challenge of the modern world and, from my point of view, the greatest challenge of modern society, even for mature people.

For those who love high school stories, the drama is accomplished. For me, I expected high school to shape the characters' behavior, but it spent too much time on slow, unnecessary scenes that added nothing to the plot.

As for the supporting characters, it was another missed opportunity to develop great stories about the challenges of becoming an adult, and Lai Wei Ming’s character was absolutely useless and unnecessarily punished. The only interesting contributions were the main character accepting the love, avoiding the usual antagonist trying to split the MLs, and the sick girl's quote about healthy people worrying about superficial issues when survival is the challenge for others. By the way, the final voice-message scene was unnecessarily melodramatic, illogical, and poorly timed.

About intimacy, I am still trying to understand the message of Asian dramas because, as far as I know, Westerns and Asian dramas have the same physical motivations. I think between the extremely sexualized American dramas and movies and the puritanism of the asian dramas, we can navigate more realistic situations.

Xiwei Tian's cuteness covered the huge plot holes. As part of the romantic-comedy license, money comes from heaven; the ML just wanted to study, and after five years of struggling with money, he could magically afford to pursue his studies, and just like that, he was a successful researcher.

For me, developing the story of how they became successful while trying to build a new married life, working remotely, was the real deal, and summarizing in a few minutes the most difficult part of their life was a wasted opportunity, forcing a happy ending which could be achieved, as we all expected, making sense of the plot.

As for cinematography, nothing special; as the comment said, it used too much AI, which didn’t affect the plot or cover the hole.

In the end, I had fun; the drama did its job, and it is another drama.

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Did the job

This drama reflects a mature entertainment industry that needs serial productions to keep the cash flowing, which, in my view, isn't a bad thing, since the drama did its job.
The main leads' chemistry was very good, and it was the backbone that helped the drama succeed. As support, they relied on simple physical scenes and exaggerated (almost comic-book) characters to entertain viewers.
As usual, they showed a world with plenty of bad people, extreme Asian puritanism, social-class differentiation, and successful people coming from humble origins. It seems that coming from the orphanage is a must to be successful.
Unfortunately, the opportunity to develop a good story of mature adults was lost in the need to make the show entertaining by relying on easy-to-achieve licenses such as exaggerated fights, extremely bad characters such as the gangster (it seems incredible to find people like him in Korea), and the village sisters who could beat armed gangsters.
They missed the chance to develop a strong second-lead story about overcoming social differences to stay with someone you love, beyond a Cinderella cliché.
Of course, to make all that fit, tons of potholes emerged in the script.
In the end, I had a good time and felt satisfied, since my expectations were very low for a smart script after seeing a good gangster fall in love with a very important prosecutor who disappeared after a near-death torture, as if the authorities were stupid.

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Could be a better plot

It was a pleasant drama to watch. The episodes weren't boring; the acting of all the characters was good; they conveyed both the sad and happy situations; and the casting was good.
Sometimes the plot used exaggeration for humor, making unnecessary gestures that, really, as in the final scene or the third couple, supporting the mother of the supporting male, who was close to ridiculous, left the son as retarded, which seems very surreal even for Asian cultures, and suddenly she accepted the girl because of a dance, which couldn't be faker, making all their appearence unnecesary.
The FL and the ML wasted too much time solving the overly dramatic deeds of bad people, which detracted from the reality of the acceptable verbiage used.
For me, as a Westerner, it seems improbable for two grown adults living together and liking each other to waste too much time on a sometimes-lacking-credibility "pure behavior".
Overall, it was entertaining to watch the drama, and it brought good feelings.

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