Doesn't deliver on a great promise

I wanted to like this more than I did. The leads are hot, they have great chemistry and they could have sizzled. I'm not entirely sure I was onboard with the weight loss premise but they did make it a lot about being healthy on the inside which I can totally get onboard with. And kudos to the makeup people for doing such a great job with the female lead's "before" look. The male lead's little squad were totally adorable and I really enjoyed all the scenes that had all 3 of them, or all 3 of them and their "ma'am". I did enjoy watching it and wanted to get to the end to see how they worked out.

But overall, I found the writing and the pacing a bit uneven and it disappointed on quite a few levels.

*spoilers ahead*

- I don't get why he had to go for a year in rehab without her. The reason he gave - that he didn't want to see her pain - was really simplistic and I thought spoilt what was meant to be their growing relationship and at that, a mature relationship together. This kind of noble sacrifice makes for good tortured scenes where they both miss each other but in this it just felt like they had undone all the work they had put in to building a solid relationship, where they could be strong and weak together. So ugh. Even the knitting wasn't enough to save it. Great proposal scene though, one of the best I've seen!

- The epilogue is ridiculous. They literally undid all the lessons learned - about health and good habits - and neither did it feel plausible. Firstly the hero goes up for some do-gooding for 3 months (when they've just been separated for a year and promised to always see each other) and then she puts on THAT much weight just from being pregnant? It's like they inserted this section just for laughs

- This is a minor plot point but I don't get why it's ok to have the female commercial queen be quite so stalkerish on the UFC champion. She was too OTT and he was too reticent, a little less of the both and it would be fine, but you can't have a drama that is trying to talk about domestic violence being NOT ok and then signalling that stalking (even if it comes from the opposite sex) is ok.

- The second leads are BORING and they didn't need to be (though I'll be honest I'm not a huge fan of this actress) - but they had a backstory and they could have been made to work better than they did. As it was every scene they were in made me want to go get a cup of tea or something because I didn't care enough.

- The supposed villians are not villianous enough. I don't get what Uncle gains from male lead not being the head of the firm? This isn't made clear. It was quite half hearted, really.

- It could really have ended at episode 14.

- the dimples thing was annoying, not cute. They could have done more with this couple, chemistry wise - it's like they shied away from this.

And as appealing as So Ji Sub is in this, it was just not enough to save this.

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Words can't do justice to how great this drama is - just watch it!

Quite possibly my favourite drama ever. Not being hyperbolic - it’s seriously excellent - and bring tissues. Make space and time for this drama it isn’t easily binged as it’s a bit heavy for that but it will totally reward you for that time.

Spoiler free summary - my words can’t really do justice to this drama it’s that good. You just need to watch it - persevere through the initial bleakness - and you will be rewarded by wonderful drama on the heart in humanity, what it is to live, the power of making a connection, community and the kindness of strangers.

The cast are amazing, most especially the main leads - I’ve seen and loved both IU (Hotel del Luna) and Lee Sun Gyun (Coffee Prince) but they are both on another level here. The direction is deft and the writing assured and subtly brilliant. The characters are so wonderfully rounded and authentic, it’s practically trope free for a KDrama and the OST is just top notch.

Please just watch this - it’s a total masterpiece.

Longer spoiler filled review.

Things I liked:
IU as Lee Ji An. I loved her layered performance. She managed to be so dead in her eyes when we first meet her and we know she’s telling us the truth when she says she can’t wait to die. But she’s also scrappy and strong and in those moments she gets a real fire. In later episodes when she cries, when she tells the selection board what it’s meant to have been noticed and treated well by Dong Hun, when she says sorry 10 times, when she thinks Park Dong Hun is mad at her for wiretapping, she shows such emotional vulnerability and her journey from making herself invisible to growing to love and care for Dong Hun is beautiful.

Lee Sun Gyun - he is such a fantastic actor - this role gives you the whole gamut of his range. He basically was Dong Hun. He inhabited that man of deep emotions and not very many words. His voice, so deep and sonorous was like another character in this drama. I absolutely loved the last part when she picked it out in a cafe and was drawn to it. But even his breathing and his footsteps were marked in this. I love how Ji An said they moved her when she heard them.

Them together - I loved their undefined relationship. I loved how they conveyed how special they found each other’s company, how they could be authentically themselves with each other but so subtly. We see how he’s only really able to be himself in her company rather than the guy who doesn’t answer questions of his wife, Mum and brothers. They know each other and they recognise they know each other. It’s the kind of relationship that I know exists, but so rarely gets portrayed. As someone who spiritually believes in a reincarnated life I think these two have deep relationships in the past and in this life they were brought together to heal each other. I loved that she was so frank with her emotions but despite it, it didn’t need to then turn into a mawkish unrequited love or romance, as it wouldn’t fit right.

The brothers - I don’t have a lot of experience of brother only relationships but to me this was such an authentic trio. I loved how different they were, how fiercely they loved each other, faults and all - and most of all like their mum said - when a bad thing happened to 1 of them they were all depressed. They bought some much needed levity to the drama and again these actors just inhabited their respective characters.

The villain - firstly I just love Kim Yeong-Min as an actor - and he made this wholly unlovable character so believable. Rat-like and such a jerk, but a bit menacing with it, we know what Yoon-Hee means when she says she is embarrassed she fell for him. I like that we didn’t need flashbacks to see what kind of person he was at college and how he came to be CEO.

Gi Hun & Yu Ra - they really grew on me and in my own continuation of this drama they get back together again (though they will probably split up and get back together..) I love how they made Yu Ra, this seemingly ditsy character have a lot more depth and some of her lines were some of the most profound in the entire drama. I loved the scene where he broke down and explained why he’d been so awful to her in their movie. Amazing. (I didn’t like this actress Kwon Nara in Suspicious Partners so am glad I’ve seen this performance from her)

Special shout outs to Dong Hun’s Mum - the ever brilliant Go Doo Shim - to an evil but vulnerable Jang Ki Young (giving us glimpses of the man he could have been without the abusive dad) and to Ji An’s grandmother, who made me cry so badly in so many scenes.

Things I didn’t like - nothing. Really nothing. Everything was just pitch perfect.

In fact for me, the writers got everything right in this drama including the bittersweet ending. The only thing I was missing was an explainer on Ji An’s relationship to Ki Bum - I assume he was her childhood friend in the one flashback they had with all 3 of them after one of the times she’d been beaten up. But it s a tiny minor quibble.

And the OST. This is amazing. It’s on repeat. Even if it does make me want to curl up in a morbid ball and sob. Thanks Viki translators as ever but especially for the lyrics of the songs which went so well with the drama.

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Wow this is so good, why is it so underrated?

This drama is soooo good! It's so, so, so good. And the ending doesn't screw it all up! Yay! And if like me, you love a KDrama that squeezes your heart and makes you cry (I cry a lot anyway but for this I CRIED) then you'll love this too.

I don't say this lightly but this is a bit Healer-esque - the hero, orphaned and separate from society for his own reasons, learns to get back into society with help from heroine... and also like Healer, wasn't popular domestically but has more fans internationally. Let's give this the love it deserves!!

... and for anyone who loves a great kiss scene this one has so many, the ML does GREAT KISSING.

The FL is really great but the ML KILLS it in this drama. He does all the emotions so well, there is one scene he switches between 5, barely needs any words he just does them all with his face and his eyes. And he has one of the best smiles in KDrama surely?

Other things I really loved:
- The central romance. Every time these guys were on the screen it was great, whether they were bickering, doing banter, all the romance, all the pain, they lit up the screen when they were together. The actors have amazing chemistry and do such great acting with their eyes. The scenes after the "reset" were so painful but so good. The scene where he counts down his fingers to "fold" in the drinking game, totally killed me! The other scene that I loved was also after the reset, he rings "President Cho" and she breaks down as soon as she hears him on the phone, and then in meteor shower scene she admits she if she heard his voice again she wouldn't be able to resist going to find him. *the feels!*
- The way they got to revisit the emotions and their joint story, both in the locked warehouse and in the meteor shower scene were beautiful. Sometimes dramas leave out too much of this opening of hearts of things their characters went through and just jump to the reconciliation scene.
- We never quite knew what was happening, so I was on the edge of my seat the whole way through seeing how the whole story would get resolved.
- The Santa Maria crew were so cute and funny!

Discussion, questions and spoilers below:

- did we ever find out who Madame X is? Did i miss that?
- this drama had very few things that bothered me but one of them was the SUPER BAD English speaking actors. seriously if you're even a semi decent actor get yourself to Korea (and they also need to subtitle the Korean actors who speak english, especially the older ones ;p)
- i wanted to see the scene where he gives her the necklace - but OMG the beach scene (the one I mean where he switches between 5 emotions with so few words)
- and anyone else prefer Pi with curly hair and glasses?!
- oh and i wanted to see the new Aji3 - i was hoping for a cameo from a famous actor :D

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Frustrating because it could have been so much better!

MAJOR SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

I wanted to like this so the fact it fails on so many levels is disappointing. Even Lee Dong Wook - and I count myself as a kind of fangirl a isn’t enough to save this unfortunately.

The main thing I liked was the brother bromance and basically Lee Rang as a character, and acted well and a character with depth and layered. I think the story was compelling enough to want to know what happened next, even if there were plenty of plot holes and unanswered questions, especially those last 30 seconds (like, WTF?!) and there was plenty of action to keep it going up.

My main problem with the whole drama is that’s it’s kind of boring. The hero is played with dash and flair by LDW but why do I care about him? He’s all mysterious and all knowing and powerful but suffers from lots of “telling” but little showing. So we keep being told the heroine is his big love. Why? No idea. They float around in period costumes (stylistically they even manage to make LDW look bad by dressing him in red voluminous robes and bad ombré hair) gazing at each other. But what is so special about her that a mountain god falls for a mortal? We see more of the reasons why but not till much later episodes but all the ones before mean I don’t care. Their romance feels rushed and the emotion forced.

He keeps not telling his people he’s meant to care about things - mainly for plot points not because there seems to be a reason to it - so that he didn’t actually try to kill his brother and he actually does love him. And doesn’t tell heroine about their real backstory until we’ve had some mopey noble idiocy (which he gets over pretty quickly and we don’t know why).
The central couple for me lack chemistry so again I don’t really care if their supposed epic love story ends happily or not. Like, I admit I think we are spoiled by LDW and Yoo In Na levels of chemistry in previous dramas but even setting that aside I’m not feeling this. Not even in the bedroom sexy scenes. Sigh.

The side characters are ok - the second leads are cute and their story is nice but I don’t love them.

The boy and villain isn’t very scary, he just feels stroppy. I found the elders a bit annoying until the end. Kudos for cute puppy boy who is seriously cute.

The whole pacing and tone is kind of weird, it takes a lot to juggle fantasy, drama, emotion, romance, humour and a little bit of horror and I’m afraid the times it transitions between these all are clunky.

The main thing I did like though was that it was quite unpredictable, sometimes (though not - ah it’s just started to rain and there is Lee Yeon with his umbrella after wandering in the wilderness of his unconcious ready for a kiss or oh here’s heroine crossing a road so she’s about to nearly get hit by a truck) - but there are some genuine plot twists, though the later one with the wooden sword was one too many - and it’s mainly this curiously over how it ends and how the my resolve the whole evil serpent thing that keeps me going.

The last 2 episodes did wring it out for me a bit and did make me feel, and I did enjoy them but I could have easily not finished it before to get to that point.

But sorry way too many problems for me and I wouldn’t recommend to others - I know lots of you loved it!!

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I forgave much of its faults because I loved the central couple

In brief: I enjoyed this drama a lot, it made me care and it made be cry - but this is despite many issues - in short I forgave a lot in this drama (that I’ve not forgiven In others) because it got under my skin and I loved the central characters so much, as well as the wider cast. It never truly delivers on its initial premise or promise - which is a shame as it really had the potential & the right ingredients to be AMAZING. I would still absolutely recommend watching it to form your own views (but I do get the many who have negative opinions on it)

Spoilers ahead -
Things I liked

- The central couple - I love the chemistry between #seoinguk and #parkboyoung - I thought it was crackly and hot - even their handholding would make my heart leap. I really cared and was rooting for them, wanted to watch them fall in love and then get heartbroken and then hopefully get their Happy Ever After
- the premise - sometimes fantasy premises can be confusing, the rules of the world they make opaque but the set up of this premise, the contract they had and the conflict it gave to their predicament was clear & promised to give us the melodrama this drama suggested it had in buckets
- the characters. Tak Dong Gyung is a really relatable heroine. Her backstory and how she came to be someone who masked her real emotions and the different but understandable way she reacts to her predicament - she’s strong & independent and funny - and played by the ever lovable #ParkBoYoung with humour and vulnerability
- Doom is a great fantasy hero, all cynical & arrogant and so ready to be brought to his knees by love. Played with cool, sexy confidence by #seoinguk - I was so ready to fall in love with this hero!
- the character set up of the second leads - writer Na Ji-Na and team leader Cha Joo-Ik - I warmed to and was rooting for them to have a great story
- the OST - the tracks are great and one of them is sung beautifully by #seoinguk
- the ending! So many KDramas don’t land the ending and whilst this drama didn’t knock it out of the park, I didn’t wail over it being ruined
- the black moment before the finale when they’re apart really tore at my heart. When she wakes and thinks he’s there in his lush house reading his book and he gazes at her with such love in his eyes and then… she wakes. Heartbreak!

Things I didn’t love.
- mainly the writing. This is the main thing that stops this drama being great rather than just good. The plot is all over the place. I hated the reset episodes where it felt like we got the same content over again - just to make the point that they were fated. I loved seeing badass cynical Doom again but this could have been a super quick montage. The characters say odd things, the script doesn’t flow.
- the second leads. They are so badly served by both the writing and their storyline. I really was rooting for them. I loved Lee Soo Hyun and his deep voice and ability to carry off a white flare. But ugh. This managed to be simultaneously underpowered as a storyline whilst also taking up a lot of screen time. Just didn’t get why they even liked each other, let alone why this was some huge tragic love triangle.
- development of central couple - much as I loved them - felt patchy. They fell for each other quickly, too quickly for me and when they did get back together felt curiously flat and not passionate enough. It was good but wanted MORE
- the goddess was a wasted opportunity for an interesting character in her own right. Instead she was a method to get plot points.

Ultimately I liked this drama a lot more than it probably deserved when broken down into its individual parts and this was down to a fantastic cast, a central couple I rooted for and loved (despite what happened to them 🙄), their chemistry, Seo In Guk’s portrayal of Doom (sigh) and a great OST

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Great potential but disappointing

This had all the ingredients to be a good show but somehow for me failed to land.

The premise is good, the arrogant boss who doesn’t realise how much he needs his secretary until it’s too late is a great trope. But in this he never does actually do without her or learn to live without her. She is with him not only all the way till the end she decides to stay being his secretary. I was really rooting for her to do the thing she said she wanted to do and find herself. She clearly had skills to be a proper manager and do things herself not just be his secretary.

There wasn’t enough change or journey for them, for me. He’s still narcissistic and arrogant at the end, making statements about how amazing he is which she STILL weakly smiles at and doesn’t pull him up on or tells him how she really feels about it even when they’re about to be married. She is still calling him Vice Chairman even when they’re not at work and being formal (I get the titles thing is odd from my viewpoint but her manner doesn’t change either).

This also another drama that didn’t need the full 16 episodes because it dragged. I liked kidnapping back story but also feel like his earlier very selfish behaviour didn’t really make much sense if he cared for her that much.

The actors are both great in other dramas so I don’t know why they are so “b-movie” and stiff in this. Park Min-Young especially is really not giving her character life, her smiles seem forced and other emotions are faked. I loved her in Healer so she’s a great actress. They do have decent chemistry but I found myself not really caring very deeply about them.

The side stories were cute with the other office romances and I actually really enjoyed the relationship between Vice Chairman and President and they gave me quite a lot of laugh out loud moments.

The author brother felt very 2D and there to serve a plot point but not very flashed out. Again not sure if it’s the script or the actor.

Overall, especially given how liked this is, this was a major disappointment for me!

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