So moist!

The premise had so much promise but didn't live up to any of it.

Think of this 'drama' as extended product placement - for some low-brow serums and other desperate-for-cool advertisers - and you won't be disappointed.

On the plus side, the leads are nice-looking, the kisses are real-looking and . . . that's it.

On the distaff, there's only a wafer-thin plot, largely unsympathetic characters, and massive over-use of 'flashbacks' to scenes you've watched 5 minutes ago (presumably to give us more scenes of serum applying).

And the 'acting' is some of the worst I've ever seen - there are lots, and I mean LOTS, of wordless staring into space scenes, much repeated by characters who look drunk, stoned, or in a brain fog. I fully expected drool to start appearing.

Ugh, avoid.

Read More

A curate's egg

I ended up liking the middle segment of this show after a wojus beginning. And then it arrived at an inglorious and tedious end.

Full disclosure: After jerk male leads I really, really hate female leads who are screechy, violent drunks, particularly those who go on to blame everyone else for their subsequent predicament. There's something weirdly misogynistic about the way that this is being served up as the new normal, anti-Candy for heroines. So the first couple of episodes realised all my worst fears.

PROS: Luckily, the character of Lee Geun-young started to calm down, become more real - and more compassionate - and even, eventually start to take responsibility for her own actions. I also think that Choi Soo-young acted well - even if that meant making the character unlikeable. I also liked some of the side characters - her friends, the production team, though would have liked to see those characters fleshed out a little more. And Hwang Chan-sung made a convincing antagonist. I also think it did a good job at sketching out how 'reality' TV works and how much it manipulates our perception.

CONS: The leads had zero chemistry. They were saying the right things by the end but it wasn't convincing. And despite this being 2021, I noticed that she kept he mouth tight closed during the kiss scenes, as if she wished she were somewhere else. I never really got a sense of who Hoo Joon was, either. I didn't think he was a jerk, but he was relatively opaque. I don't know if that points to the writing, directing or acting. Also, the father/ring part of the plot - what did it add to the story? And the plot holes/omitted narrative - Hoo Joon's mum, his previous 'relationship' (if any) with Oh In-hyung. I also think they wasted the character of Go Soo-hwan (he was barely in it) despite him being cited as a main character.

OVERALL: It was all a bit 'meh'. I won't remember it in 3 months.

Read More

Buttoned up doesn't mean emotionless, but bland might

There's a scene midway through this story where the FL lead remarks that Ji Soo-ho (played by Yoon doo-joon) speaks the language of silence. I thought that was beautifully put. He doesn't do Acting 101, he doesn't give a theatre-style performance, but you're never left in any doubt about his emotional state - his love for the FL, his pain at his family situation, his jealousy of the FL/2ML dynamic, and his bewilderment at lots of commonplace things.

Sadly, I can't say the same about Kim So-hyun as Song Geu-rim. For someone who had no problem having full-on screechy meltdowns in the first episode, her interactions with the ML are curiously bland, pallid, and listless. Her affection for Soo-hoo was almost imperceptible. I think she was more interested in modeling lipgloss than performing.

Meanwhile, almost everyone else was overacting - though not always to the story's detriment. Both Yoon Park as Lee Kang and Kwak Dong-yeon as Jason gave us crazy, over the top and Oh Hyun-kyung as Nam Joo-ha was suitably villainous.

The story was fine, plain, nothing new. The side stories/secrets weren't really developed but weren't confusing. I wouldn't watch it again but I would like to see more dramas featuring some of the actors - particularly Yoon doo-joon and Kwak Dong-yeon.

Read More

Why aren't all dramas this good?

A rom-com almost entirely without tropes and with lots of both comedy and realistic, painful, passionate romance this wipes the floor with all the cold chaebol/screechy candy drivel.

This was a story about mostly ordinary, working-class people and their struggles to make their dreams come true, sometimes in roundabout ways. But it was all the better for that. Even the 'birth secret' (OK, one trope) seemed natural and believable.

The acting, from the whole cast, is top-notch, creating real, believable characters that you root for. I have lots of favourite scenes - Dong-man's conversation with his Dad on the park bench (I ugly cried), Seol-hee calmly throwing a glass of water over Ye-jin and then pointing out, equally calmly, that it was OK for her to do that, the 'bed' scene the night before the big fight, but really the whole thing flowed, the whole thing was engaging, the pacing was near faultless.

Read More

Trying to be Buñuel (and failing)

The pros: some very attractive people to look at.

The cons:

What was the film trying to say? It was mostly people mooning around, unconvincingly, interspersed with some mild sex scenes.

Also, tropes: unappetizing old 'genius' providing our heroine's sexual awakening, love (or is it sex) triangle, violent, screechy mother.

It tried hard - too hard - to be profound but much of the dialogue was just nonsensical. It was clearly also going for an art-house vibe, but the lack of emotional engagement made that a slog. Watch if you're bored and have no other way of accessing very soft porn.

Read More

Great performances, well-crafted story, beautifully shot

I loved this. It easily made my top 10 k-dramas list.

The story was clean and simple, with only one modest trope that I could find - and even that worked, in fact it was essential, to the overall story. The characters were real, human, and beautifully drawn - with the story giving each space to breathe. The story explored grief, guilt (including survivor guilt), PTSD, and found families.

The acting was very, very good - particularly from Lee Jun-ho (outstanding, actually, particularly as acting isn't his day job), Kang Han-na, Yoon Se-ah, and Kim Kang-hyun.

I'm slightly - just slightly - conflicted about the ending. Would it have been slightly better if what appeared to be the arc for one character followed what appeared to be its trajectory? Maybe. But overall a wonderful drama.

Read More

Where do I start?

I realise that this was meant to be comedy - and in many ways it was (at least there were lots of comedic scenes, particularly in the beginning) but there was also a lot of quite disconcerting material presented for laughs.

The pinnacle of that is the chief, who incomprehensibly decides he's 'in love' with our hero and then proceeds to stalk him (he has a whole file of paparazzi style photos) declare his love and grab at/press himself against him at every opportunity.

True, the employee doesn't make it clear he's not interested (though even when he does the chief is having none of it) but neither does he show any sort of enthusiasm. I suspect that if the subordinate had been female there would be lots of uses of the word 'toxic' and 'sexual assault' but somehow its OK because the victim is male.

Our hero - he's funny and nice-looking but also one of the most passive characters I've ever seen in a real drama; things happen to him but he does almost nothing to respond to his environment or the multiple declarations of love he gets. Even now, I think he was looking for a Mum replacement - someone to cook and clean and pick up after him - rather than a lover. He wants to be loved - but doesn't want to love back. He also spends quite a lot of time screaming, often about nothing.

As for the other characters, we have 2 noble idiots, your basic BL bitch, a fat office gossip and a few hangers-on.

Read More

What?

The word 'What?' constitutes around 80% of the dialogue for our titular heroine. I wondered, at one point, whether there would be a Big Reveal that she's been brain-damaged, or her hearing impaired, during her plastic surgery. But, no, this was just her personality, such as it was. It would be a good drinking game to take a shot every time she said 'What?' but you'd get drunk pretty quickly.

She also remained completely blank-faced through most of her scenes - happy, sad, angry, peaceful - who could tell? Through the botox nothing penetrated.

Jo Woo-ri was convincing as the cliched 2nd female lead - bitchy and conniving - and the young lads playing the male lead(s) were fine, but the character around which the drama was based was badly written and badly acted, irritating and depressing.

Read More

A female lead with an endocrine disorder?

I’ve been watching Hello Mr Gu and Please Feel at Ease Mr Ling in tandem, not least because – at least on the surface – they’re similar in premise. I normally watch Korean dramas and so am used to the rich/cold/jerk male lead and thick/childish/poor female lead tropes. But where dramas normally have – or attempt – character development, Hello Mr Gu does the opposite, at least in respect of the female lead.

On the plus side both leads are very decorative.

The actress is young and hopefully she’ll get better but I’m currently on episode 24 (of 30) and, if anything the FL’s episodes of sulking, glaring and pouting seem to be getting more, not less, frequent. Among the things that have raised her ire recently are (a) being sent chocolates by her boyfriend (she’s not a diabetic) and (b) her best friend and brother dating. Very little, or nonsensical, explanations are given for these near-endless temper tantrums and in the last episode it was made clear that the CEO boyfriend, her best friend and her brother are full on scared of her and/or her anger.

Will the denouement be that she has a personality or endocrine disorder? I won’t probably make it that far.

Read More

If you like to see half-chewed food in someone's mouth this drama is for you!

This dumpster fire of a drama started off bad and got steadily worse. The FLs 'acting' was particularly awful, consisting almost entirely of boggle-eyed staring, gasping, panting, OTT lip-licking, and a jaw so relentlessly slack that I expected drool to start appearing at any moment. Oh and screeching, let's not leave that out. And close-ups of her open-mouthed chewing. The male actors were only marginally better; less annoying but also charmless and wooden. The non-plot switches from the thinnest, most pallid of rom-coms to incomprehensible melodrama halfway through, too. Just no.

Read More

Another paean to Sasaeng

Imagine the scene, a DHL delivery driver comes to your door. He has a parcel for you. But he won't actually leave the parcel with you. Instead, he insists, verbally and physically on pushing past you into your home because he's your Number One Fan and just wants to see where you live. Romantic, huh?

I watched this drivel for 5 whole episodes before I gave up. Maybe it gets better after that, but:

- the premise that a man/woman you 'love' will return that feeling as long as you bully/stalk them enough is repulsive (to me);
- this is another failed kdrama attempt to create a MPDG - a flawed concept at best - but particularly where the 'M' instead of 'manic' means barking mad;
- the ML spent the whole first 4 episodes SHOUTING pointlessly, at every turn (only some of which was justified by the FL's creepy behaviour); and
- they've cast a 40-something woman as the FL who tries to appear more 'youthful' by doing the dumb/blinking/staring thing. Repeatedly.

Read More

Gobsmacked at the premise

This is a sweet story about a woman who sexually assaults, stalks, and lies (e.g. about thinking she might have been raped while blackout drunk) in order to get a man's attention. I know that Kdrama isn't known for its sensitivity about these sorts of things but come on . . .

P.S. It's also executed really badly, with a boggle-eyed, pouting staring 'heroine' and constant elevator music.
P.P.S. Master's Sun had a similar plot device but (a) she was honest from the start about why she needed to touch him (b) they had a mutual interest in her doing so and (c) there was no forced kiss/sexual harassment or rape lies.

Read More

Ideal drama for those who like screechy female leads

I probably should have dropped this after one episode, when the female lead had already had 4 incomprehensible, pointless, screeching fits, two of them accompanied by grabbing or violence.

But I'd liked Hwang Jung-eum in She Was Pretty so hung in there hoping this was a soon-resolved thing - in the way the writers did with the FL in My Shy Boss.

Sadly, it was not to be.

Jung-eum swung between weepy drip and neurotic, screeching drunk (the latter seemingly a growing trope with the writers of Kdramas - the opposite to Candy but no less repellent). I could see potential in some of the other characters - the second male lead, the quirky coach, the funny client - but my ears had started bleeding by then so I gave up.

Read More