goldenskies
ーマルセイユ辺りー
Bride of Habaek fails to deliver a great story of a genre that has been done exceptionally well many times before.
The drama looks good at first even though the main plot, as well as the side plots, are not original at all. Still, I wanted to give it a try for the casting, and after seeing how successful other dramas of the same genre were, I have to say, I had high hopes for this. I have seen a lot of people say they had high hopes for this and that was lowkey what ruined everything; I think they are not wrong, but there is no way you couldn't have high hopes for this as both the cast and the story were pretty hot at the time this was released.
What went wrong? Let's start off with the plot and the story in general. I didn't read the manhwa when I started watching the drama -and I still haven't. Because of this, everything related to the world of the gods was quite confusing to me, I personally think the writers should've focused a little bit more on explaining what went wrong with Habaek, the different gods and their problems, etc. In the drama, we don't really find a lot of scenes explaining that kind of information, which is the genesis for the rest of the story. So without a clear base, the rest was almost nonsensical, is like everything turned into a rom-com drama but at a certain point, you wonder, how did we get here? Besides this, everything becomes cliché, extremely repetitive, and very confusing.
Some characters were a waste, at least for me, because of the lack of evolution. We had the (typical) main couple and other couples with their respective side plots. Great, that is how it's supposed to be. The problem arrives when the characters barely evolve throughout the whole drama; I'd dare to say the only character that evolves a little bit and shows us some change is Moora (Krystal) -no wonder why she's the fan-favorite of the drama. Seeing a character evolving, showing us their weak points and different faves is very interesting, especially when it comes to characters like Moora, and that makes me wanna watch more of them to see where are they finally going. But when a character barely evolves and remains almost the same from the time we first met them, then it's a disappointment, almost makes me wonder why did I even watch that in those cases. In Bride of Habaek we barely find the evolution of characters, just like we don't find a grey area, it's either black or white when it comes to the actions of the characters.
Another problem with the characters is how bad they are distributed, or rather the lack of investment in them. We have gods in the modern-day world, making their best to adapt to the world of humans while the "villains" put some traps, and I honestly really liked that, I wanted to see more of that as I thought that could have been a great "thing" for the drama, but it seems like the writers didn't think that way. Without that, do the villains really have a purpose in the drama? Probably yes, related to the original plot regarding gods and all that; if only they explained that! The other issue with the distribution of the characters is how bad they invested in great characters that most parts of the audience liked, like Shin Hoo Ye (Im Joo Hwan) or Moora (Krystal).
When it comes to cast and acting, I have mixed feelings. I think the characters were poorly written, as I explained before, which is a minus point to this part of the review already. I loved how some actors did their roles just like I despised others. Starting with Nam Joo Hyuk, what can I say? I didn't get any vibes from god from him at all and he is supposed to be one of the greatest gods; now that is a problem. It was like I was seeing a man in his 20s being rude and ungrateful for every little thing that happened to him, and not even that really fits Nam Joo Hyuk. Was Shin Se Kyung good? Well... probably? I don't know exactly what to say because her character was really (really) intense and that got on my nerves most of the time. I've seen a lot of people talk about it as a drag for her acting, but I don't think it's her fault but the writers' fault for building up a character that unlikeable. On the other hand, I think Im Joo Hwan was exceptional, Krystal's aura was already defining her character and Gong Myung did quite well for his role too.
The music was one of the best things about the drama. Having as the singers for the OSTs the acclaimed Yang Da Il, Kassy, or Junggigo really added a lot of emotions to this drama. I even still listen to the songs from time to time!
All in all, would I rewatch the drama? Not exactly rewatch the whole thing at all, but rather revisiting some scenes and parts that got stuck on my mind. I think there were some wasted talents on this drama and the potential and the high hopes already asked for a lot of things from this drama that it clearly didn't have from the start. A bad script, poorly written plots, and flat characters make this drama deserve a 4 out of 10.
The drama looks good at first even though the main plot, as well as the side plots, are not original at all. Still, I wanted to give it a try for the casting, and after seeing how successful other dramas of the same genre were, I have to say, I had high hopes for this. I have seen a lot of people say they had high hopes for this and that was lowkey what ruined everything; I think they are not wrong, but there is no way you couldn't have high hopes for this as both the cast and the story were pretty hot at the time this was released.
What went wrong? Let's start off with the plot and the story in general. I didn't read the manhwa when I started watching the drama -and I still haven't. Because of this, everything related to the world of the gods was quite confusing to me, I personally think the writers should've focused a little bit more on explaining what went wrong with Habaek, the different gods and their problems, etc. In the drama, we don't really find a lot of scenes explaining that kind of information, which is the genesis for the rest of the story. So without a clear base, the rest was almost nonsensical, is like everything turned into a rom-com drama but at a certain point, you wonder, how did we get here? Besides this, everything becomes cliché, extremely repetitive, and very confusing.
Some characters were a waste, at least for me, because of the lack of evolution. We had the (typical) main couple and other couples with their respective side plots. Great, that is how it's supposed to be. The problem arrives when the characters barely evolve throughout the whole drama; I'd dare to say the only character that evolves a little bit and shows us some change is Moora (Krystal) -no wonder why she's the fan-favorite of the drama. Seeing a character evolving, showing us their weak points and different faves is very interesting, especially when it comes to characters like Moora, and that makes me wanna watch more of them to see where are they finally going. But when a character barely evolves and remains almost the same from the time we first met them, then it's a disappointment, almost makes me wonder why did I even watch that in those cases. In Bride of Habaek we barely find the evolution of characters, just like we don't find a grey area, it's either black or white when it comes to the actions of the characters.
Another problem with the characters is how bad they are distributed, or rather the lack of investment in them. We have gods in the modern-day world, making their best to adapt to the world of humans while the "villains" put some traps, and I honestly really liked that, I wanted to see more of that as I thought that could have been a great "thing" for the drama, but it seems like the writers didn't think that way. Without that, do the villains really have a purpose in the drama? Probably yes, related to the original plot regarding gods and all that; if only they explained that! The other issue with the distribution of the characters is how bad they invested in great characters that most parts of the audience liked, like Shin Hoo Ye (Im Joo Hwan) or Moora (Krystal).
When it comes to cast and acting, I have mixed feelings. I think the characters were poorly written, as I explained before, which is a minus point to this part of the review already. I loved how some actors did their roles just like I despised others. Starting with Nam Joo Hyuk, what can I say? I didn't get any vibes from god from him at all and he is supposed to be one of the greatest gods; now that is a problem. It was like I was seeing a man in his 20s being rude and ungrateful for every little thing that happened to him, and not even that really fits Nam Joo Hyuk. Was Shin Se Kyung good? Well... probably? I don't know exactly what to say because her character was really (really) intense and that got on my nerves most of the time. I've seen a lot of people talk about it as a drag for her acting, but I don't think it's her fault but the writers' fault for building up a character that unlikeable. On the other hand, I think Im Joo Hwan was exceptional, Krystal's aura was already defining her character and Gong Myung did quite well for his role too.
The music was one of the best things about the drama. Having as the singers for the OSTs the acclaimed Yang Da Il, Kassy, or Junggigo really added a lot of emotions to this drama. I even still listen to the songs from time to time!
All in all, would I rewatch the drama? Not exactly rewatch the whole thing at all, but rather revisiting some scenes and parts that got stuck on my mind. I think there were some wasted talents on this drama and the potential and the high hopes already asked for a lot of things from this drama that it clearly didn't have from the start. A bad script, poorly written plots, and flat characters make this drama deserve a 4 out of 10.
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