Bad guys = don't hesitate to kill all the good guys, brutally, and have no moral dilemmas to grasp. They are just comically evil.
Good guys = adamantly won't kill any major bad guy and spend half the drama in the most unserious manner whilst almost the entire good guy cast gets killed off. They take such moral high ground that they even call an ambulance for a bad guy that was involved with killing their friends. That said, what makes this all hard to stomach is that at the end of the day they are still working closely with a corrupt cop. The good guys just end up looking like naive morons in most episodes.
General comments = Even as the drama progresses towards the end there's an overwhelming feeling that the writers are doing everything possible to preserve the possibility of a season 2. Kim Sae Ron clearly edited out towards the end and replaced with another character. Usual tropes appear out of nowhere (white truck of doom) etc.
This drama was exceedingly average but is watchable because it has fun fight choreography pretty much every episode.
If you want to watch a drama where almost every single character is infuriating and has the most poor decision making imaginable.... this is the drama for you. The way these characters behaved at time made me question my sanity, seeing other users use words like... 'realistic' makes my jaw hit the floor. Am I living in some sort of alternate reality?
There is no doubt in my mind - this is the worst drama I've ever seen. So far.
The constant shift in tone that happens between scenes leaves you with whiplash, sometimes trying to juggle romance, comedy, and serious drama all at once. I feel like it failed on all fronts. Rarely can a drama manage all three successfully at the same time, and with near all of the characters in this story being cartoon characters, it was a dismal effort. Getting to the end of this was excruciating.
I'm pretty sure people just want to see the pretty faces of the ML/FL and turn their brains off to everything else.
This drama is absolutely ridiculous in many ways, but I found it entertaining. It is one of the most 'anime-like' dramas I've ever seen. I particularly liked that they did not try to redeem any of the bullies as the writers left them all in a state of ruin (especially Harin) by the end.
That said, this should be a once and done story. The very last scene comes out of NOWHERE to intentionally kick the door open for a potential season 2 whereby a second pyramid game will be driven by new villains. This left a bitter taste in my mouth. It is far beyond how much I am willing to suspend disbelief and it completely undermines any positive reflections you might take from this drama knowing the producers are primarily thinking about making money out of hardcore bullying.
Did the lead (Jian) drive anyone else insane? Her character in the first few episodes was interesting, and it felt like she would embark upon a compelling journey. However in the last three episodes her character genuinely become absolutely trash. Bad decision after bad decision and then that moment when she started running away (dashing past guns) whilst all her comrades (including the Gollum guy) were sacrificing themselves really as a viewer expected a comical suspension of disbelief as to why all these people are mindlessly ending their lives to keep this brat alive (or kill her). Honestly. Spending 8 episodes in the house with countless """"ex-military""" who acted like Elder Scrolls NPCs was exhausting.
The ending where the bloke turns up again after all that was just the cherry on the rotten cake.
The viewers deserved better. You have to drop acid to rate this show so highly.
You have to suspend untold levels of disbelief when it comes to Jin Mu/Fake Queen somehow retaining credibility throughout the series despite being comically evil and even towards the end publicly involved in a serious scandal (which is immediately forgotten about in the world - and Jin Mu somehow escapes anyway lmao). The character of the Crown Princes kinda falls apart in the final episode too. The series could have been much better with some minor changes to the writing.
Very difficult to take Seo Yul seriously as a character when he is largely not expressive throughout almost every scene he appears in, seemingly only in it to be a friendly prince-like guy with nothing else to offer.
Mu deok, Jang Uk and Maidservant Kim absolutely carried this drama so hard. When they were center to the scene the drama was really enjoyable. When they weren't present or sidelined, it was often exhausting. The production values were really high and I loved the costuming and choreography. However the soundtrack was totally forgettable and I can say the drama as a whole doesn't have much rewatch value.
Jang Gang being hinted at all drama long and then him stumbling around drunk for a few episodes only for him to finally make his grand appearence only to commit suicide felt like the point where the drama nosedived in quality.
The prospect of season 2 scares me. I hope they can get the ending right.
IMO it's a step down from season 1, but still really enjoyable because none of the characters are annoying and there's some fun/touching scenes. I did not feel that any of the main characters besides the Captain developed much in the second season. The Captain takes a more prominent role in season 2 if viewers already liked him. There is a General whose actor gives off dad energy which makes it hard to take him seriously as a villain.
The door is left open for a season 3, but I have concerns about what more the series has to say. Yeah the Korean military and mandatory service is broken, what more does the writer have to offer? Because I didn't see much more in season 2 based on what has already been said in season 1.
I'm not sure if my opinion is related to me watching this drama 4 years after it was aired but I have to disagree…
I'm almost half way through and the plot is made up practically every episode, there's no sense of anything being planned up to the end, it's like they've just winged it.
The schizophrenic tone of the drama coupled with the 80 minute episodes which feature at least 20 mins of close-up zooms and slow mos of the characters is killing me. How this is rated 8.9 is beyond me, people must simp for the cast...
Episode 3 Eun Soo: "Because I finally understand what you meant about unrequited love."
If next episode wasn't the final episode I would have canned this series right there and then. To drop this line after you've just spent the night on a date with another dude who confessed his feelings and you didn't reject them is abysmal writing. Especially since the guy you're saying you understand has been feeling this way for many years and has been utterly committed. I understand the limitations of the 4 episode structure but this was inexcusably jarring and made her character utter trash.
Just reading the synopsis feels exhausting, I know this thing is gonna have a convoluted plot which makes me wanna stick pens in my eyeballs. Might leave this on the watchlist for a while and come back to it when I feel more masochistic.
Episode 6 felt far too contrived... a sudden nosedive in the writing quality this early was unexpected. IU was great in My Mister but she seems exposed here, I cannot handle the fake crying every episode any longer - in multiple scenes per episode. It's agonising. Park Bo Gum doesn't have any quality dialogue whatsoever, far too much fallback on facial expressions. Between this and the preachiness in almost every conversation, it's a drop from me. The series so far, despite a lot of detail on the sets and costuming, feels let down by an inauthentic script and poor acting. Gosh these 6 episodes were exhausting. Good luck with this. Although, it seems people see IU/Park Bo Gum and are going to 10/10 this no matter what. Baffling.
• The two ‘second in command’ in the series of the police unit (Pildo) and the gang (Taeju) should have had a 1v1 to the death. I was 100% expecting this to happen and disappointed when it didn’t lol. If Pildo was destined to die imo this should have been the way, then his death wouldn’t have felt so random but more an honour based deathmatch over the captain being stabbed or something.
• A clearer ending for Jiwoo, it felt the writer wasn’t sure what the heck the end looks like for her so they kinda just ended it as quick as possible after the final fight. It left me wanting a bit more to wrap it all up.
Honestly? I really enjoyed this. It doesn’t pretend to be more than it is by randomly trying to inject eye-rolling profundity. It sticks to its guns - a predictable storyline but one that is fun, action-packed and has great chemistry between the characters. As a bonus, they really nailed the pacing so the episodes go by in a breeze and there’s never a dull moment. It’s hard not to marathon it. The OST is pretty cool.
Han So Hee really shines and I think it takes a lot of work ethic to make some of these chaotic fight scenes work.
Also shoutout the gangsters main henchman, dude is hardcore ride or die.
This drama's wasting too much time on useless subplots and several minutes long close-up stares. No wonder each…
I relate to a lot of these findings so far, although you may be further along than me.
I am finding it difficult to enjoy it fully, because the ML in particular despite only being a few years deep in the marriage has developed some sort of Lynchian amnesiac qualities where he incomprehensively cannot believe that it's possible to simply sit next to his wife or casually hold her hand or hug her or dare I say it.. sleep in the same room - despite having very recent memories of doing all of these things. He makes everything tragically exhausting and awkward by design, and FL lack of open emotion directly to him is tiresome after 4 episodes, we as an audience see her smiling as she walks away, but the ML sees nothing of this. This is a repeated pattern of interaction. The relationship problems feel manufactured by unrealistic bordering on comical family dramas combined with a villain who lacks any value to the series beyond causing frustration. He's not even entertaining in the slightest - which really a villain should be at the least for a series that has episodes 1.5 hours each. Just having the CEO holding repeated 1-2-1 meetings not even with the major stakeholder about a singular brand is insane, this is a run of the mill commercial deal not something of sustained magnitude like a merger. I find her personal participation in this nonsense to be bizarre, if anyone of the executive would be really forced to conducting these meetings it would be more likely to be the ML than FL if anything given his legal position.
Reading the synopsis, I wouldn't have touched this ordinarily because it screams melodrama to the maximum but I like Kim Ji Won so I gave it a try. With the episode length it's already become a slog, I have no idea how I will feel by the end of this.
Good guys = adamantly won't kill any major bad guy and spend half the drama in the most unserious manner whilst almost the entire good guy cast gets killed off. They take such moral high ground that they even call an ambulance for a bad guy that was involved with killing their friends. That said, what makes this all hard to stomach is that at the end of the day they are still working closely with a corrupt cop. The good guys just end up looking like naive morons in most episodes.
General comments = Even as the drama progresses towards the end there's an overwhelming feeling that the writers are doing everything possible to preserve the possibility of a season 2. Kim Sae Ron clearly edited out towards the end and replaced with another character. Usual tropes appear out of nowhere (white truck of doom) etc.
This drama was exceedingly average but is watchable because it has fun fight choreography pretty much every episode.
The constant shift in tone that happens between scenes leaves you with whiplash, sometimes trying to juggle romance, comedy, and serious drama all at once. I feel like it failed on all fronts. Rarely can a drama manage all three successfully at the same time, and with near all of the characters in this story being cartoon characters, it was a dismal effort. Getting to the end of this was excruciating.
I'm pretty sure people just want to see the pretty faces of the ML/FL and turn their brains off to everything else.
That said, this should be a once and done story. The very last scene comes out of NOWHERE to intentionally kick the door open for a potential season 2 whereby a second pyramid game will be driven by new villains. This left a bitter taste in my mouth. It is far beyond how much I am willing to suspend disbelief and it completely undermines any positive reflections you might take from this drama knowing the producers are primarily thinking about making money out of hardcore bullying.
The ending where the bloke turns up again after all that was just the cherry on the rotten cake.
The viewers deserved better. You have to drop acid to rate this show so highly.
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExZjczbHFoeHF0bzJ5eW1zYm1hdTNjMndnMmszYzI3aG1sdTRuMGZjeSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/3oEjHCWdU7F4hkcudy/giphy.gif
Very difficult to take Seo Yul seriously as a character when he is largely not expressive throughout almost every scene he appears in, seemingly only in it to be a friendly prince-like guy with nothing else to offer.
Mu deok, Jang Uk and Maidservant Kim absolutely carried this drama so hard. When they were center to the scene the drama was really enjoyable. When they weren't present or sidelined, it was often exhausting. The production values were really high and I loved the costuming and choreography. However the soundtrack was totally forgettable and I can say the drama as a whole doesn't have much rewatch value.
Jang Gang being hinted at all drama long and then him stumbling around drunk for a few episodes only for him to finally make his grand appearence only to commit suicide felt like the point where the drama nosedived in quality.
The prospect of season 2 scares me. I hope they can get the ending right.
The door is left open for a season 3, but I have concerns about what more the series has to say. Yeah the Korean military and mandatory service is broken, what more does the writer have to offer? Because I didn't see much more in season 2 based on what has already been said in season 1.
The schizophrenic tone of the drama coupled with the 80 minute episodes which feature at least 20 mins of close-up zooms and slow mos of the characters is killing me. How this is rated 8.9 is beyond me, people must simp for the cast...
If next episode wasn't the final episode I would have canned this series right there and then. To drop this line after you've just spent the night on a date with another dude who confessed his feelings and you didn't reject them is abysmal writing. Especially since the guy you're saying you understand has been feeling this way for many years and has been utterly committed. I understand the limitations of the 4 episode structure but this was inexcusably jarring and made her character utter trash.
• The two ‘second in command’ in the series of the police unit (Pildo) and the gang (Taeju) should have had a 1v1 to the death. I was 100% expecting this to happen and disappointed when it didn’t lol. If Pildo was destined to die imo this should have been the way, then his death wouldn’t have felt so random but more an honour based deathmatch over the captain being stabbed or something.
• A clearer ending for Jiwoo, it felt the writer wasn’t sure what the heck the end looks like for her so they kinda just ended it as quick as possible after the final fight. It left me wanting a bit more to wrap it all up.
Han So Hee really shines and I think it takes a lot of work ethic to make some of these chaotic fight scenes work.
Also shoutout the gangsters main henchman, dude is hardcore ride or die.
I am finding it difficult to enjoy it fully, because the ML in particular despite only being a few years deep in the marriage has developed some sort of Lynchian amnesiac qualities where he incomprehensively cannot believe that it's possible to simply sit next to his wife or casually hold her hand or hug her or dare I say it.. sleep in the same room - despite having very recent memories of doing all of these things. He makes everything tragically exhausting and awkward by design, and FL lack of open emotion directly to him is tiresome after 4 episodes, we as an audience see her smiling as she walks away, but the ML sees nothing of this. This is a repeated pattern of interaction. The relationship problems feel manufactured by unrealistic bordering on comical family dramas combined with a villain who lacks any value to the series beyond causing frustration. He's not even entertaining in the slightest - which really a villain should be at the least for a series that has episodes 1.5 hours each. Just having the CEO holding repeated 1-2-1 meetings not even with the major stakeholder about a singular brand is insane, this is a run of the mill commercial deal not something of sustained magnitude like a merger. I find her personal participation in this nonsense to be bizarre, if anyone of the executive would be really forced to conducting these meetings it would be more likely to be the ML than FL if anything given his legal position.
Reading the synopsis, I wouldn't have touched this ordinarily because it screams melodrama to the maximum but I like Kim Ji Won so I gave it a try. With the episode length it's already become a slog, I have no idea how I will feel by the end of this.