3
13
2
Sugar Crown
not a damsel - only in distress
This review may contain spoilers
Laughably poor excuse of a (Vampire) K-Drama
Alternative Title: Vampires that don’t vampire: Disappointing & Lackluster romcom - a chaotic Rant Review.
You could literally take out the words vampire and replace it with time travel, reincarnated one or terminally ill and the drama would be the same.
It drowned all potential vampire aspect in typical kdrama comedy in the worst way possible. (More on that later) In the end it’s a kdrama with watered down vampires, not a vampire kdrama.
It’s like they wrote a basic script for a romcom, added cookie cutter roles and were like hmmm what should we sprinkle on top… vampires!
Instead of actually being creative and writing a vampire kdrama. It ended at up being a kdrama with (boring excuses of) vampires.
I mean the vampire male lead doesn’t even sleep in a coffin, which is like the most basic vampire 101.
Rather he has a room lit with candles and sleeps on a couch. Like what?
Lee manwhi - the only somewhat real vampire (don’t get me wrong he’s still hella watered down) and villain / evil vampire is drinking blood from criminals and drug addicts.
- Which is supposed to be a bad thing apparently (in other shows this is how the "good" vampires drink blood where as the bad ones use normal humans).
Plus there is zero struggle of the vampires going out during the day and there is maybe 1-2 scenes of them sleeping.
The Vampires ain’t Vamp-iring.
I should have known when I saw the cast list and who played the supporting characters, that the vampire part would be mostly silly. Reminded me a lot of "Vincenzo". The supporting actors aren’t bad and they have been in some good dramas but they always play the same type of characters, that always serve the same kind of purpose and dictate the surrounding vibe of the show. In this case that’s a major flaw.
All the interesting vampire arc happened in the past and a little bit in the later part of the drama thanks to the anti-hero but overall very disappointing in terms of "vampires".
By episode 9/10, they used almost an entire episode on babysitting and being at an amusement park, at this point I knew this drama would be 95% romcom and 5% actual vampire plot.
But even apart from the vampire plot being a major disappointment… let’s talk about the guesthouse. I thought okay maybe this will be the main set up. Nope, they had like 1 guest the entire time and she disappeared when her stalker appeared.
So what really was the plot or reason of this drama?
The male lead actor maybe? The comedy? The romance? Dunno.
As a romcom I think it’s fine in the first half, nothing new or special at all but also not horrible. But the second half was beyond boring and I could not feel any chemistry nor did the actors portray a believable love story.
Additionally I really disliked the female character. It’s rare that I dislike someone’s style of acting (in addition with poor character writing) but in this case it’s a big no for me, as I kept on watching.
Another rant point:
Her dad. Major plot decive clearly, no character depth at all.
Gets freed from over a decade of being locked in a dark basement. And is fine??
No anxiety, no trauma, no nothing.
He gets a haircut and re connects with his daughter quite easily, that’s it?! Honestly this is lazy writing at it’s peak.
Watching the last 4 episodes at 2x speed definitely made me laugh because it just shows you how ridiculously bad and unoriginal it actually is if you take out long pauses and looks characters give each other.
I was already in a kdrama slump before but this certainly only heightened the threshold to start another kdrama in the future.
One last thing: as much as I love Ok Taecyeon, he was not right for this drama because he is too popular. If kdramas really want to venture into the vampire genre, they need to start with a drama about a serious vampire, with an actor that is not well known, hyped or an idol. Because only then will it be believable that he/she is an actual vampire.
Btw: this review are notes written down as I was watching the drama, the ending didn’t have an affect on this rant or the rating.
I mean it’s bad but at this point I could not have cared less if everyone was dead or got a happy ending.
- end of rant -
You could literally take out the words vampire and replace it with time travel, reincarnated one or terminally ill and the drama would be the same.
It drowned all potential vampire aspect in typical kdrama comedy in the worst way possible. (More on that later) In the end it’s a kdrama with watered down vampires, not a vampire kdrama.
It’s like they wrote a basic script for a romcom, added cookie cutter roles and were like hmmm what should we sprinkle on top… vampires!
Instead of actually being creative and writing a vampire kdrama. It ended at up being a kdrama with (boring excuses of) vampires.
I mean the vampire male lead doesn’t even sleep in a coffin, which is like the most basic vampire 101.
Rather he has a room lit with candles and sleeps on a couch. Like what?
Lee manwhi - the only somewhat real vampire (don’t get me wrong he’s still hella watered down) and villain / evil vampire is drinking blood from criminals and drug addicts.
- Which is supposed to be a bad thing apparently (in other shows this is how the "good" vampires drink blood where as the bad ones use normal humans).
Plus there is zero struggle of the vampires going out during the day and there is maybe 1-2 scenes of them sleeping.
The Vampires ain’t Vamp-iring.
I should have known when I saw the cast list and who played the supporting characters, that the vampire part would be mostly silly. Reminded me a lot of "Vincenzo". The supporting actors aren’t bad and they have been in some good dramas but they always play the same type of characters, that always serve the same kind of purpose and dictate the surrounding vibe of the show. In this case that’s a major flaw.
All the interesting vampire arc happened in the past and a little bit in the later part of the drama thanks to the anti-hero but overall very disappointing in terms of "vampires".
By episode 9/10, they used almost an entire episode on babysitting and being at an amusement park, at this point I knew this drama would be 95% romcom and 5% actual vampire plot.
But even apart from the vampire plot being a major disappointment… let’s talk about the guesthouse. I thought okay maybe this will be the main set up. Nope, they had like 1 guest the entire time and she disappeared when her stalker appeared.
So what really was the plot or reason of this drama?
The male lead actor maybe? The comedy? The romance? Dunno.
As a romcom I think it’s fine in the first half, nothing new or special at all but also not horrible. But the second half was beyond boring and I could not feel any chemistry nor did the actors portray a believable love story.
Additionally I really disliked the female character. It’s rare that I dislike someone’s style of acting (in addition with poor character writing) but in this case it’s a big no for me, as I kept on watching.
Another rant point:
Her dad. Major plot decive clearly, no character depth at all.
Gets freed from over a decade of being locked in a dark basement. And is fine??
No anxiety, no trauma, no nothing.
He gets a haircut and re connects with his daughter quite easily, that’s it?! Honestly this is lazy writing at it’s peak.
Watching the last 4 episodes at 2x speed definitely made me laugh because it just shows you how ridiculously bad and unoriginal it actually is if you take out long pauses and looks characters give each other.
I was already in a kdrama slump before but this certainly only heightened the threshold to start another kdrama in the future.
One last thing: as much as I love Ok Taecyeon, he was not right for this drama because he is too popular. If kdramas really want to venture into the vampire genre, they need to start with a drama about a serious vampire, with an actor that is not well known, hyped or an idol. Because only then will it be believable that he/she is an actual vampire.
Btw: this review are notes written down as I was watching the drama, the ending didn’t have an affect on this rant or the rating.
I mean it’s bad but at this point I could not have cared less if everyone was dead or got a happy ending.
- end of rant -
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