Lilly
The concept of Extraordinary Attorney Woo is quite uncommon for a Korean drama: a young woman of bright intelligence who tries to overcome the struggles of being an autistic lawyer and the social challenges that come with this job.
With such a peculiar premise, I would have expected a stellar drama, especially considering all the praise that it has received so far from the viewers. However, for me it turned out to be just a "good" drama, definitely worth watching, but not "great".
For one, it's an episodic drama that presents a new case in each episode, and these take most of the screen time. There's some story development which usually happens in the last few minutes, and while the cases are easy enough to understand for a person that has no knowledge about law, nor is aware of the specific terminology, they still seemed as mere fillers, although they were interesting enough to follow. It's just that after 16 episodes I felt completely empty, because none of these cases had any long-lasting effects on me - they were all very forgettable. If anything, it seemed to me that I watched a 1-2h movie that somehow took 16h of my time.
The first few episodes were more impactful for me than the rest, simply because Woo Young Woo was shown as learning some valuable life lessons from the cases that she had, for example improving her understanding of behavioral patters of non-autistic people, and trying to adapt herself to them. However, after 2-3 episodes, this tendency was quickly forgotten and the drama entered a routine of the "one case per episode" that she presided as a lawyer; until the end of the drama there was little improvement from her part or attempts to warm up to / connect with the people around her, which for me was disappointing.
Secondly, aside from the fact that there's very little story development compared to the law cases, I disliked how the romance was portrayed overall. For the first time in a drama, the ML feels like an appendage of FL rather than an independent person, pretty much like any secondary character who exists only to support the FL's scenes (like a best friend for example) and who doesn't seem to have an own life and an own will besides that. The romance itself is nice and the ML is kind and fully devoted to her, yet the whole thing lacked some substance. Plus, his character development was also extremely weak and although I do like Kang Tae Oh as an actor, in this drama his character doesn't have a strong presence on the screen at all - it's not the actor's fault though, but the writers'.
The cases touch very progressive topics especially for Korean culture (LGBT relationships, pre-marital sex with a disabled person, suicide attempts due to social pressure etc.), but the writers seemed that they couldn't really decide what they actually wanted to convey. It's like they were not brave enough to state their opinion out loud, so most of the trials ended up with neither a black nor a white conclusion, but more like a grey one - perhaps letting the viewer decide what's right and wrong.
Lastly, while the drama is overall overrated and it's less great that it appears to be, Park Eun Bin's acting on the other hand was excellent. The way she managed to portray an autistic person down to little details like specific gestures, the inability to make eye contact, social anxiety etc. was remarkable and deserves a lot of praise. Also notable was the cheerful, explosive and poignant portrayal of Dong Geurami by Joo Hyun Young.
With such a peculiar premise, I would have expected a stellar drama, especially considering all the praise that it has received so far from the viewers. However, for me it turned out to be just a "good" drama, definitely worth watching, but not "great".
For one, it's an episodic drama that presents a new case in each episode, and these take most of the screen time. There's some story development which usually happens in the last few minutes, and while the cases are easy enough to understand for a person that has no knowledge about law, nor is aware of the specific terminology, they still seemed as mere fillers, although they were interesting enough to follow. It's just that after 16 episodes I felt completely empty, because none of these cases had any long-lasting effects on me - they were all very forgettable. If anything, it seemed to me that I watched a 1-2h movie that somehow took 16h of my time.
The first few episodes were more impactful for me than the rest, simply because Woo Young Woo was shown as learning some valuable life lessons from the cases that she had, for example improving her understanding of behavioral patters of non-autistic people, and trying to adapt herself to them. However, after 2-3 episodes, this tendency was quickly forgotten and the drama entered a routine of the "one case per episode" that she presided as a lawyer; until the end of the drama there was little improvement from her part or attempts to warm up to / connect with the people around her, which for me was disappointing.
Secondly, aside from the fact that there's very little story development compared to the law cases, I disliked how the romance was portrayed overall. For the first time in a drama, the ML feels like an appendage of FL rather than an independent person, pretty much like any secondary character who exists only to support the FL's scenes (like a best friend for example) and who doesn't seem to have an own life and an own will besides that. The romance itself is nice and the ML is kind and fully devoted to her, yet the whole thing lacked some substance. Plus, his character development was also extremely weak and although I do like Kang Tae Oh as an actor, in this drama his character doesn't have a strong presence on the screen at all - it's not the actor's fault though, but the writers'.
The cases touch very progressive topics especially for Korean culture (LGBT relationships, pre-marital sex with a disabled person, suicide attempts due to social pressure etc.), but the writers seemed that they couldn't really decide what they actually wanted to convey. It's like they were not brave enough to state their opinion out loud, so most of the trials ended up with neither a black nor a white conclusion, but more like a grey one - perhaps letting the viewer decide what's right and wrong.
Lastly, while the drama is overall overrated and it's less great that it appears to be, Park Eun Bin's acting on the other hand was excellent. The way she managed to portray an autistic person down to little details like specific gestures, the inability to make eye contact, social anxiety etc. was remarkable and deserves a lot of praise. Also notable was the cheerful, explosive and poignant portrayal of Dong Geurami by Joo Hyun Young.
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