While it started off a bit messy, Dream High sucked me in with it's charm. So fun! Plus the music and cast is a K-pop lovers dream. While it does take place in a school setting, Dream High was nothing I had ever seen before from my dramas. It transported me! Giving me everything I hadn't known I was looking for in my dramas. Even a little too much of everything.
The story is pretty awesome. There is a lot of EVERYTHING crammed into Dream High. The writers did a good job of balancing out all of the tropes. Characters that initially come off bad and just seem like another stereotype develop into actual people. Ones that you can go from hating to caring for. Sadly some of the time jumps and developments don't happen realistically together. Though I'm thankful for the development. At times jumps happen . . . but it's soooo sloppy. I will commend Dream High for bringing up the issue of sexism in the music industry, especially in South Korea. It shows some hard truths for women in the industry.
That aside the plot kept me engaged. A roll coaster of emotions! Happiness, joy, sadness, and confusion. My head was spinning.
The cast here is great! For me I started Dream High for Ok Taec Yeon. It was an accident that I watched him in Cinderella's Sister, but a happy one as he was the only thing I truly liked about the drama. Here he showed me again why I love him as an actor. In fact all the actors do a pretty darn good job. When they were allowed to. But it wasn't often. Because my main issue with Dream High is upon this review:
Water works fest!
Holy cow there were so many tears. It actually became painful for me to watch this drama. I had to take a break, despite how badly I wanted to finish it! Many state that Go Hye Mi (Suzy' character) cried a lot. However, EVERYONE cried soooooooooooo much. Heck. I was almost reduced to tears of frustration. As every sad bit, emotional break through, joy, fear--JUST EVERYTHING was represented by a cry fest! I've seen most of these actors outside of Dream High, I know they can act! It's just horrible that Dream High had the most crying I have every seen in a show.
Moving on.
The music is pretty awesome! I loved all of it featured here. Most K-pop fans are going to be super happy recognizing the songs and enjoying how the accompany the drama. At times I found it a bit repetitive with the choices. Which is funny considering this is a music show. IU is especially showcased well. Before I was kind of fan, but now I'm obsessed. (And even the crying couldn't stop me from enjoying her. You bet I'll be checking out her other works.) I enjoyed Suzy's vocals. It was also fun to see Taec Yeon not only wrap and dance, but do a ballad. It was lovely.
Overall Dream High is tons of fun. If you don't like Glee or musicals don't worry, this isn't a musical. It stands on it's own. Sure the story is messy and uses every trope they could think of to toss in. It does have a decent love triangle and I love that it stepped outside of the love triangle "comfort zone". All of the characters become loveable in there own way. It's nice not to see someone slanted as the villain, but that they're all human with their actions. It saddens me that the dramatic single drip crying was so overly used that it actually annoyed me. And to be honest the ending was almost as sloppy as the beginning. Still, Dream High is definitely something any drama fan should check out.
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