This was like a gift in a time where bromance and BL was banned in China.

After watching almost all the bromance available in China, this was the next thing that kept me glued and entertained. It had the Shizun X Disciple elements, which I sometimes have a hate and love relationship with but this one did it well. It kind of reminds you of the Chinese novel SVSS which is a BL, it feels like a life adaptation of the novel. Anyways, based on acting the cast did a good job and the storyline was very addicted as it's in short episodes which is easy to watch (I binged watched it in two days) but the second season...it was good but I won't spoil it though, the ending felt kind of rushed out and confusing at the same time, though I highly recommend it.

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Overly slow burn revenge show

First thing, the acting of the younger "bullying" cast was good. The older cast tried in general but were lacking in some aspects.

The story itself makes me watch it longer, as someone who has experience with bullying I want to watch all the bullies pay for their crimes, but the pace is so slow and even after these eight episodes not much has happened.

Personally, I believe that a revenge drama especially of this kind needs to be fast paced and it needs to show results to the viewers that something is being done. But, it fails from the very beginning when the female lead goes to introduce herself to the perpetrators and tell them she wants revenge, & even some of her plans and motives (indirectly/directly) to them, like who does that? Tell the people you want vengeance over the truth?

I also disliked the addition of the male lead, after everything she's faced, do the writers really think that she is in need of a love interest? And the way that after she told him what happened he was immediately "who do I kill for you" he basically left his long time job and changed city to be with her (after she has repeatedly avoided his message and has shown basically 0.0001 interest in him) it felt very far fetched and cringe. It also kind of feels like he is a different entity in behaviour from the rest of the cast, (too cheerful, too polite, and kind) and his character has been pretty useless except teaching her how to play GO.

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A rather unsatisfactory revenge

Let me first talk acting:
• I think a lot of the actors/actresses acting made me embarrassed in this second part, where everyone was shouting for no reason at times, or laughing hysterically in place where they are supposed to convey emotions.
• The female lead generally has one facial expression. I know that the character of Moon Dong Eun our female lead, doesn't have much reason to be happy in life but there are different flavours to acting than just staring plainly in every scene.
• The male lead (which was completely unnecessary and a character just created to add romance where romance wasn't necessarily needed) only knew how to act cute, even in front of Dong Euns enemies he can't help himself but act cute.
• That said both main leads need acting classes.
• The supporting actors were far more better, for example Kang Hyeon-Nam played by Yum Hye-Ran, the housewife with an abusive husband had more acting skills than the two of them combined.

Onto the storyline:
• I hated how slow it took, it took 8+ episodes for the revenge to really start off and when it did it was terrible slow.
• The villians forget to use their thugs when it comes to the female lead, Park Yeon-Jin who has killed twice does not even try to kill her even when she threatens to bring her child into her revenge plan.
• There was more chemistry between the FL and Park Yeon-Jin husband than between the male lead and her, and they didn't even intend to happen.
• I found the female leads mother to be a bad actress, her acting was exaggerated and didn't feel real enough.
• The plot twist of suddenly turning Park Yeon-Jin husband into a killer just so that the drama summarizes does not make sense, what we know of his character is that he is an organized businessman, someone who uses his brains and not his fist.
• The script writers were extremely lazy on that one.
• I recall the FL promising to kill Kang Hyeon-Nam husband in exchange for her help, but the poor woman had to do it herself, she promised to help teach her child and she does that, but instead she sends her abroad and tells the mother she can't go with her.
• If I also recall, the FL had abundance money at the end of the show and since they were done with revenge she could have let her meet up with her daughter.
• The shaman story wasn't properly concluded, they were never exposed by the public so young girls will still be fooled into going there. The FL knew but I guess it wasn't her buisness since she's not part of the revenge.
• The female lead just had so much good luck in her revenge, people from all sides kept popping up to help her. Where were all these people many years ago?
• The ML dropping his whole life to help her didn't make sense when he barely even knew her. That last speech of ML mother saying FL saved her son was... strange, because it's been him helping her in her revenge, funding the revenge, stalking her to join he revenge even when she was but a stranger.

Did I regret watching? No
Would I rewatch this? Also no.

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It's hard to write everything I'm feeling rn

Before watching this, I had read some reviews on how similar it was to Sky Castle (which I haven't yet finished), yet I didn't expect the similarities were so glaring, especially in the first episode.

~Plot~
The plot is an "okay" plot, it doesn't keep you captivated as long as it should. At first, I was watching to see who killed Min Seol A, and the bad guys get punished, but my interest to know who the murderer was, slowly died down, then I cared more about the infidelity case, Soo Ryun revenge, the identity of Logan Lee, but still I lost interest. It felts like so many unnecessary scenes, and events were added up to increase the episodes run.

~Characters~
The characters in penthouse are not meant to look as good people, the drama doesn't aim for that, they show the reality (sometimes exaggerated) of life. Even the two characters, that are supposed to be the "good" people in this show are hard to like, e.g Ro Na, and her mother, the only difference between Ro Na, and the other rich kids were their social background, she was very ungrateful to her mother who was willing to give up even her life for her, and Oh Yoon Hee was annoyingly naive she, has been betrayed twice, gone through so much yet she didn't mature a bit, both of them treat their problems with violence. Then there's Seo Jin, who only cares for her power, and little for family, I feel pity for her poor daughter who tried to please her, both are wrong but still.. Joo Dan Tae was just poor evil, and controlling. There are some comedy relief characters that I liked though, like Kang Ma Ri, Lee Gyu Jin, yes they are bad but they gave me a good laugh even though they were just puppets in the game of power. The actors tried their best, (a shout out) to the younger cast who really stole the show, and the actors and actresses of Logan Lee and Soo Ryun!!

I rarely listened to the OST, because I always hurriedly skipped to the next episode, but the times I did, it was okay.

Rewatch value: 5.5. I don't recommend this to people who easily get angry or annoyed though, and the rewatch value is only for special scenes that I saw the actors/actresses really outdid themselves, but rewatching the whole drama from the beginning..no thanks.

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