Festival of misunderstandings and a bit of clear thinking, highly enjoyable

Misunderstandings are one of those things that completely infuriates me when it comes to dramas. We know it very well, one of the characters mishears something and then we have to watch through five episodes how it spoils relations or leads to cringe situations. Complicating plot just because two grown ups cannot really articulate what’s wrong is just lazy writing for me. Saying that, I’m so happy, that those situations, in Her Private Life, even tough happen, ale so smoothly handled by well written and clear thinking characters. That was a great relief for me while watching this drama.
I’ve seen someone already writing that this series could end on 14th episode and I kinda agree. It seems like writers had the main plot finalised at this point but were bound by the contract to write two more episodes so they’ve just unnecessarily overcomplicated some minor themes making them a bit too long. This unfortunately spoils reception of the finale, but without much damage to the drama as a whole. I’d say it’s just slightly annoying. Luckily characters are cleverly written so all misunderstandings that come from this prolonged motives are quickly resolved.
The main praise I have for this drama must be characters. I’d say that this is one of those dramas that defends itself solely by the characters, making main plot secondary (what is not necessarily bad thing here). I had the same with some other series (like What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim), where action is used more for character development, rather that the action itself. With Her Private Life, feeling is similar. Characters are just so well written and interact with each other so smoothly, that watching it itself is sufficient.
But of course we have an action and we have classic drama tropes that are so repetitive sometimes in drama world, that we could make a drinking game out of them already. So one of the characters must have some sort of childhood trauma that took its toll on his adult life, we have long lost acquaintances that figure out that they’ve met long time ago very late in the drama. At least one of the parents has to be slightly unhinged (this time not even slightly, but I can fully forgive it, since the character is so entertaining in her quirkiness that it makes amazing comic relief). And of course second lead syndrome must be there, but in this case I’d say it’s here only because someone decided it has to, since it’s not very convincing and certainly we can see that it’s not gonna happen. Honestly, I’d see someone else on this position.
This all luckily is overshadowed by high quality of the drama.
Overall I highly enjoyed this drama. It’s one of those that you watch with constant grin on your face by how cute some scenes are. I don’t expect very much from romantic dramas, for me all they have to be is enjoyable and this one delivered it fully.

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Hold onto your pants, it's going to be a wild ride...

This drama is probably the biggest shocker I’ve got this year. Since I’ve finished Devil Judge I thought that nothing good will happen to me this year in terms of kdramas and I’m so happy that I was wrong. I didn’t have high hopes, since I didn’t really know what to expect from it. And boy, was it a wild ride.

So the idea is pretty familiar and I think that’s what put me to sleep at first. Over four hundred most desperate people stand to a fight for life and death to win a ridiculous amount of money. They need to compete in a games that resemble child play but the slightest slip may result in a gruesome death.

The whole drama looks very innocent, with those live pastel colours everywhere. Contrasted with violence and blood that basically everywhere it all adds up to a very weird detached from reality feeling. And the tasks also seem pretty innocent. Just until machine guns fire up to kill anyone that break the rules of the game.

Let’s talk about acting. From the beginning till the end everything is absolutely perfect (I’ll quickly ignore English speaking actors, since we know not to expect anything from them. Let’s just say, I’ve seen much worse). We have fantastic Lee Jung Jae in the main role and Park Hae Soo that I’ve doubted before (loved him in Prison Playbook but still wasn’t sure about his acting skills) but no more. The rest is equally amazing, but I'd have to list the whole cast here. Let's just say there's no weak link here. And cameos are pure gold. I’ll refrain myself from spoiling who shows up here, but just wait for it.

And the whole premise of it. At first I thought we’ll see something similar to teen dystopian stories that were so popular past couple of years. You know, Hunger Games and the rest that emerged on the wave of it’s popularity. But this drama focuses more on the true human nature. What people can do when they have no other option but to fight. How far they’ll reach just to survive. And we see truly heartbreaking choices that our heroes must make. We quickly discover that they’re not so pure of heart that we thought at first. But who would be with a gun pointed to their face.

Overall this drama shook me to the core. I was glued to the screen for whole nine hours of it and honestly it doesn’t happen often. It kept me at the end of the seat with barely any rest, as the characters that had no time to relax I’ve also felt continuous pressure. I’m writing it shortly after finishing the last episode and I think that those emotions will stay with me for quite a while. This drama is a gem and I hope to see more like that.

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I'd say the best drama of 2021 so far, but for patient viewers

Not gonna lie, I have a soft spot for time travelling and alternative realities themes. That’s why when I read synopsis for Sisypus, I knew I needed to watch. I don’t usually watch dramas as they go, I rather wait for a whole season to appear, but this time I certainly don’t regret the decision. Altdough I have to admit there was some moments when I was highly irritated that I cannot just binge watch it till the end.

This show doesn’t make it easy for anyone. If you wanted a light romance drama, that’s not it. The romance is not a counterpoint of the story and that’s what’s good about it, since it’s really not the most important part of the plot. Or maybe it is. It’s not easy to watch Sisyphus. Amazing production and soundtrack is not to blame. Perfect casting, great characters and actors neither. It’s not it. Multiple timelines and characters make is somehow hard to follow. It’ not easy to swallow romance type of the story. This is full on fantasy drama with all its pros and cons.

There’re some filler episodes I’m not gonna lie. But they’e not boring in any way. Usually we just get some background story that explains what drives our main characters. After watching one of those episodes I didn’t feel bored, at the end it just hit me that action didn’t move forward much. It was more of a breather episode, when we get to know our characters a bit more before jumping to the action once more. The ending though was perfectly timed. I really hate filler episodes at the end of the dramas. You know the drill, action actually ends on ep. 15th and 16th is just saying goodbyes to everyone. Not this time, till the last minutes I was hoping on some more answers. But it’s not so easy this time. Because this drama doesn’t give you easy answers, rather more questions.

All characters are important. That’s a very valuable lesson this drama gave me. Because if you forgot someone you could be sure that he came back to stab someone in the back (sometimes figuratively, sometimes not). And that was amazing, because I’m sure that 90% of characters could easily have their own spin offs and I’d gladly watch it. It’s just that even supporting characters have greatly developed personalities. They not only exist to be a background to the main characters. They have their own adventures and their own motivations.

Let’s talk about villain. Because I liked him from the moment he appeared but in the end I’ve absolutely fell in love with this character. Because Kim Byung Chul done such a great work with a character that could basically be a cartoonish Bond villain type. He was really close to be this type of cliche lurking in the shadow, plotting how to destroy the world type and yet still he was just full blooded human. He has a clear motive and a great backstory (I cannot praise his child version played by Lee Joo Won because this kid was so amazing I cannot put it into words). Abused by his father as a child, abused by his classmates at school. Tae Sul, the only person that helped him, finally turned his back on him. He grew up unsuccessful painter, tried to seek help with the police only to be beaten again. The story itself explains absolutely everything about what he did. Doesn’t justify, obviously, but we can actually see where all of this anger came from. And that’s what is great in this character. And also, that’s gonna be a huge spoiler, so if you haven’t watched the finale, beware. The way he was stopped! It was such a great idea to actually stop him not by killing his younger version but to actually help him. When I figured out what it about to happen I screamed. This way of dealing with villain will be forever remembered by me.

We have a long list of interesting characters and the way their storylines were solved. But I’d only focus on the main pair. I loved the way Tae Sul was the brain of the operation. Man who covers his eyes while facing gunfight and yet in stressful situation can find enough courage to think logically. He’s not a fighter. He’s a problem solver, a person who can barely punch somebody in the face but can get away from stressful situation with clear thinking. And we have Soe Hae, absolute opposite. Muscles of the operation. Person who will grab Tae Sul and escort him away from the gun fight. This reverse of the roles was so refreshing that I loved to watch it, and they compliment each other so well.

Plus their romance part. I know that Park Shin Hye was criticised that she cannot act the romance scenes. But here I don’t see that problem. She and Jo Seung Woo I think were believable enough. Plus it wasn’t like an instant romance story, it took their characters a while to admit to the feeling and I think it helped a lot. Especially that Soe Hae was an opposite of a romantic character with her background and upbringing. She’s not really fun. She’s very serious and I think that worked with the actress. Regarding how much character has been though it made sense for her to be a bit bitter. And still she enjoys those little things in life.

The plot was complicated enough to leave viewer pretty confused at some points. But not for long, usually the explanation follows, but first we get the solution. Everything seems to work backwards in this drama and I have to admit, I loved it a lot.

And the soundtrack. I’ll be lying if I said I wasn’t listening to it while writing this review. It just fits the series so much, is completely unique and nicely compliments the climate of the story.

This is one of those dramas that I’d love to rewatch. Partially to get back to some motives that I cannot recall how they’ve ended. But mostly to see the events with the knowledge that we get in the last episodes. Since nothing is just a coincident every choice that characters made matters. Everything just fits together so nicely. I’m in awe with the script, honestly.

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Nearly perfect

Not gonna lie, this was my second try to watch Vagabond, first time, one year ago, I’ve just watched first episode any for some reason decided to drop it. I don’t really know why, probably I was just not in a mood to watch action drama. This time, I’ve made it past first episode and that was one of best decisions I’ve made this year, I swear. This drama has everything and in perfectly balanced proportion. There’s action, drama, romance, even a bit of comedy, just name it.
Story is simple at the beginning and then throughout the series it gets more and more complicated. Cha Dal Geon, our main character takes care of his nephew when the boy dies in an airplane crash. Dal Geon is devastated but soon discover that a simple plane crash might’ve been a terrorist attack. He allies with Go Hae Ri, young agent for NIS and together they try to solve the case which will take them to the very top of Korean politics.
First of all, the plot that we get is from the start very multilayered. Very quickly we’re introduced to vast array of characters that represent both sides of the conflict, so we have broad view of the situation. This gives us more or less full picture of what’s going on on the surface. Because the case quickly turns out to have a lot of layers that we’ll expose them together with main characters.
I’ve quickly put my attention to the characters. Of course, there’s a lot of action, but the characters build the scenery here very well.
So we have Cha Dal Geon and Go Hae Ri, our main characters who in fact know the least of what’s going on, but are in the middle of the action and they are the reason plot moves forward.
Then we have, let’s call it, second circle, where I’d put Gi Tae Ung, who appears first with security audit when things start to get hot in NIS and Min Jae Shik, Hae Ri’s direct supervisor. They both represent group that’s in the middle. They know a bit more than Hae Ri and Dal Geon, but are often limited by their bosses. Right away we get where they stand on the moral compass. Gi Tae Ung may be stickler to the rules of an asshole type of guy since the beginning, but he’s kind of right. He doesn’t trust Hae Ri, which he admits openly multiple of times, but he has s good reason to do so. She shortly proves that she cannot in fact be trusted in this line of work by giving all the information to the Dal Geon, who is certainly out of the investigation, as he’s in no way connected to NIS. She’s too impulsive and in this line of work this is not a trait to be proud of (especially in the eyes of her supervisors) since it may mean risking somebody’s life. By the way, I love Shin Sung Rok’s (playing Gi Tae Ung) acting in this series. His character is not completely good, but in his rough honesty there’s very interesting, true to his beliefs character.
And we have the highest circle, characters that we should be the most beware of. They include villain but also the higher ups in NIS hierarchy. We soon discover that even among “good guys” there’re some shady figures.
As the plot is multilayered with characters it’s also multilayered in terms of action. Viewer doesn’t get rest for long here. Crime in this drama has so many layers, that after uncovering one, another one emerges.
And there’re some comedic reliefs as well. In drama with so much suspense and action, they work as a good pressure valve. It was nice to see infantile rivalry between Dal Geon and Tae Ung in some scenes. It wasn’t pushy or important motive, but it was an interesting add on that took a bit of pressure in a rather action packed series.
Let’s talk about acting, because this was for me drama of reception for some actors. I’ve already mentioned Shin Sung Rok, who’ve done amazing work with Gi Tea Ung.
With Bae Suzy I’ve had initial problem, because I’ve first seen her in Big. The drama was so bad and poorly written that I’ve wanted to forget about everything that I’ve seen there, including Suzy’s acting. Since then I’ve seen her in While You Were Sleeping and Start Up but finally here, in Vagabond I’ve regained trust in her acting, she delivered perfect portrayal of her character.
About Lee Seung Gi. Well, my first encounter was in King 2 Heart, which I still remember with a dose of cringe. His acting wasn’t that bad there, actually he was one of good elements of that drama. Here, with better written character, he truly shined, and I’m so happy about it.
Overall I have absolutely not his bad to say about vagabond. Everything, from music, through characters to the plot was on its place as it should be. Viewer get’s a solid dose of action with strategically placed comedic motives. Absolutely perfect. With one exception, so far there’s no news about second season. And that’s very bad.

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This drama is not okay, actually it’s pretty bad.

This is it, this is the drama that was haunting me throughout this year. It was appearing in various lists and countdowns, it showed on My Drama List more that I can count and it was constantly in my recommended section on Netflix. So I’ve finally decided to watch it. And honestly guys, I’m not impressed.
Don’t get me wrong, this is beautifully filmed drama with an amazing cast. But this is just so not enough for me to call it the greatest drama of this year.
Let’s start from the goodies.

Cinematic
Not gonna lie, that was one of the most beautifully filmed drama that I’ve watched. Both live action and animations were just stunning. Add to this beautiful sets and costumes and you have true eye candy of a series.

Acting
I’m gonna quickly brush past two leads and leave them for later. Because the true star here is Oh Jung Se playing Moon Sang Tae. I’ve seen him before in Touch Your Heart, but here in It’s Okay to Not Be Okay he shown his acting skills to the fullest. And the role he was given was very difficult and it was very easy to overdo it. That’s why I think that his win of this years Baeksang Award for the best supporting actor was fully deserved,

Music
Nothing to add here. Music was very fitting and memorable. I’m sure I have some songs on my playlist. Overall I can say that this drama is very ecstatically pleasing.
But now we get to the more problematic part.

The baddies

Acting
I said some good things about acting of Oh Jung Se and now let’s talk about main actors.
I’ve already seen Kim Soo Hyun and Se Ye Ji in other dramas and I really don’t have anything against their acting. It’s just that they haven’t shown anything new here. I felt in some moments that Kim Soo Hyun is just playing again his character from My Love From the Stars. The spoke with the same monotonous voice with close to non facial expression. It may be the similarity of both roles but it still bothered me from the very beginning. It wasn’t too bothersome but in drama so praised and for drama with actors so well known, I guess it shouldn’t happen. I know that both actors didn’t have easy characters to play, but it just didn’t worked for me. Especially taking under consideration fact that I had so much problems with characters themselves.
With Se Ye Ji, I found her character so uninteresting that I can’t really say a lot about her acting.

Characters
Talking about it. I’ve read many opinions defending Ko Moon Young for her behaviour. But for me that was just a show of toxic relationship and the way it ended it totally not understandable for me especially that their relationship for the most part was simply abusive. Amongst other things Ko Moon Young was blackmailing Moon Gang Tae using his brother but also threatening him to drive off the pier if he will not agree to spend the night with her. And at this point in my opinion her behaviour cannot be just simply justified by her sad past. And what really annoyed my at some point is that we were slowly being convinced that your past can be an excuse for the bad behaviour. Ko Moon Young was mistreated by her mother so not she can mistreat Gang Tae who should feel bad for her and support her all the way. This is straight up toxic relationship and shouldn’t be romanticised.

Plot
Or really lack thereof. I understand that really the relationship of the two main characters should be the plot but I think it’s just not enough. Of course there was some additional events, but they somehow just came and went away without really much impact on the action. And the pace was incredibly slow, and I think this was what really killed my interest in this series. I swear it felt as if some of the episodes consisted only with main characters staring themselves in the eyes in slow motion.

At the end I’ve figured out that I just don’t care about the main characters. There was nothing about them to see them as sympathetic of even interesting. So I just simply didn’t care what happens to them. This series in my eyes was saved by great production and some background characters. Not enough for me to call it great drama.

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Wasted potential of interesting idea

I’ve said it once before, the worst dramas to review are those that are simply good. Not bad, not perfect, just good. And unfortunately lately I’ve watched couple of dramas that are good, so my list to review is getting longer and longer with each week. So let’s get is over with. Please Don’t Date Him is a good idea that was basically wasted into oblivion by naive plot solutions and focusing on less interesting plot lines.

And the idea seemed so interesting at first. Young programmer get’s into possession of advanced technology that let’s her infiltrate private lives of people she knows by interface of a smart fridge. Quickly it becomes a tool to check background of men she and her fiends are dating. The problem arises when she meets Jung Kook Hee, young and very mysterious firefighter who seems to have a lot of secrets that he doesn’t want to share with anybody.

And this contrast between Seo Ji Sung with her magical spy fridge and secretive Jung Kook Hee was what made this series so interesting at first. We get a mystery that wanted to be solved, what happened that Kook Hee doesn’t even want to have his pictures taken? Why isn’t he using any advanced form of technology, what is he really hiding? And where is this amazing technology hidden in the fridge coming from?

The thing is, that the answers turned out to be so disappointing that I couldn’t believe how much buildup we had only to be severely disappointed by the outcome. And on all the levels. Because Kook Hee’s secret didn’t seemed to be so scary (the way it was told made us believe that he really done something absolutely atrocious), fridge secret somehow was dissolved so it wasn’t so interesting at the end. Person who leaked informations and wanted to kill Ji Sung at some point was just some random dude that nobody really paid any attention to before. There was just a massive buildup for basically nothing in this series. And that’s a shame, because I honestly found Kook Hee pretty interesting character at one point and was wondering what really his deal is.
And this drama comes up with such ridiculous solutions to very simple ideas. Like, you have someone tied by zip-ties to a kitchen handle. What do you do, considering that you’re highly trained special agent?Do you take a knife or a pair of scissors to cut fragile zip-ties? No, you take a thermoflask and try to break pretty sturdy looking handle with it. Oh, and everything around is on fire, but you’re fine.

There’s not many scenes like that here, but they absolutely spoil the fun of watching this series that beside that would be pretty fine story about smaller or bigger problems in various relationships. Because besides obvious main couple we have at least two more couples that would be very interesting only if we het a bit more time to get to know them.
So I’d say that this is pretty average drama with good idea that was somewhat wasted since so enough attention was paid to it and viewer get just more of side plots that were rather bland. There is nothing in particular that I’ve liked or disliked that much. I think that it was just one of those dramas that don’t leave any particular feeling after finishing it.

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Pretty solid but lacking in depth

It’s going to be a difficult one. We’ve been fed rumours, we’ve heard gossip, but the release date of The Silent Sea was postponed since the beginning of 2021 and made me question if we’ll really going to finally see it. Finally in December we’ve got what we’ve waited for. The big title featuring big names like Gong Yoo and Bae Do Na. And yet, there was barely any hype for this drama. Netflix showed maybe two promotional photos and trailer and that was it. It was all pretty much a mystery.
I was expecting a great show, really. With this cast, with an interesting idea, I thought that this will be drama to perfectly close 2021. Perfect Christmas gift. And I was waiting with this review for two months. Not because I’m lazy (ok, also that) but to be honest, I barely had anything much to say about it. But it must be done.

So, the story is pretty simple and a bit shallow maybe in how it’s not showed to the fullest. In the future humanity is faced with a big water crisis. Water is hard to come by and needs to be rationed. The amount of water that a person can get depends on the social status. The only hope lays in failed search mission on the moon. Rumour has it that in the closed off research station there’s a sample that can end the crisis. The problem is that station was closed due to radiation incident. A crew is assembled that will go to the moon and try to search for the lost sample. It will soon turn out that the information about the incident that they were given are not entirely true.

So, first of all, the background. Or lack of thereof. I know that it was probably done on purpose. Since we’ve closely followed only crew on the moon, we didn’t get much of the background. Just some slight retrospection of the characters. And I’ve wanted to know more so much. To know the characters more, to know their motivations and why are they there. How is humanity coping with the crisis? What happened that it’s so severe? We’ve got answer to none of those questions and it really irked me while watching it.

And everything is covered with thick veil of mystery. And not only to the viewer. Upon arriving in the station, our crew discovers that they don’t even have a map of the whole station. Some of it’s parts are unknown and the members cannot reach them. Which obviously, makes their search mission much more difficult. The lighting is very limited, frames very narrow which ads to the claustrophobic feeling of the series. The viewer feels locked out together with the characters on the station. Especially that there’s barely any soundtrack here and lighting is very natural so it’s easy to feel trapped.

Speaking about characters. We’ll wait a long time until we’ll get to know them better or actually at all. Since we don’t have a lot of retrospection all we can work with is what’s happening right now. We don’t get much exposition, so characters are mostly a mystery for us. We’re left with questions and speculation about what pushed those people to take part in this risky mission. But it all fits together perfectly. This drama just simply doesn’t give us simple answers.

I need to say a good word about scenography. It all looks very solid and very real, which in drama that takes place practically only indoors, is crucial and took great part in creating eerie feeling to the drama.

The action is pretty slow, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. The viewer is suspended in constant feeling of pressure. We don’t know what lures behind next door of the station, but from what we can see, it cannot be anything good.

It’s hard for me to somehow review this drama. It’s coldness and lack of emotional engagement made it difficult to perceive. Well written plot and overall amazingly created atmosphere of the drama were in plus but still left me wanting some more.

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This drama simply played with my head for sixteen episodes straight. From the very first episode, which was one of most impressive pilot I’ve seen in a while. Everything was top notch. Good action, constant tension, interesting characters and amazing pace, I was basically at the edge of the seat, not even completely knowing what’s going on.

Because viewer is very slowly eased into what’s going on. For most of the time, we’re not entirely sure what’s about to happen. And it’s because of two things. First of all, characters are absolutely unpredictable. We don’t really know much about them aside of what’s happening. There’s very little voiceovers and close to none exposition, so we don’t know what they’re thinking and what they’re planning next. For most of the time, they’re wild cards, especially main character. We don’t really know who’s on who’s side, are they ally or and enemy. Even when Si Mok assembles task team, we hope that he’ll finally find someone to trust, but soon we figure out that the team is mostly made up of his enemies or people who work for them.The other reason is that events are not really explained. Once again we know exactly the same as our characters and sometimes even less than that. For like 90% of the time we don’t really know what the characters are up to. This all adds up to very interesting murder mystery/ thriller story. But you need to follow is carefully not to get lost.

Let’s talk about main character, because Hwang Si Mok (in this role absolutely fantastic Cho Seung Woo) is a type of the guy who is hard to like, but you’ll absolutely learn to love.
Again, we don’t know much about him, some random facts, some glimpse about his private life, mostly rumours circling around. His biggest trait: he lacks emotions, completely. And because of that for most of the time we have no idea what goes through his head. Is he honest or is he just bluffing? Plus, he really doesn’t have anyone on his side, which he openly admits. He’s not liked in his work environment and gossips that surround him just pour more fuel on the fire. This drama is the reason I have trust issues because at one point I has questioning everything and I even starting suspect Si Mok of committing murder.

We have main plot line that revolves around murder of a person, who as it turns out had a history of bribing highly situated people, including some prosecutors. Obviously a lot of people wouldn’t mind his death, so there’s a lot of suspects and very few proofs. And the thing is that no character is really black or white. No-one is completely good or absolutely bad. All characters are somewhere is between moving closer towards one of the sides. And then there’s Si Mok, without emotions operating in absolutes. You did something bad, you’re not a good person, you need to be punished. His judgement is absolutely objective, there’s no place for personal input.
And because everyone seem to be guilty of something, finding out about another crimes stops being a surprise, really. More often it’s a question of what rather than if.

Characters are absolutely fascinating here and I’m not only talking about the main ones. It seems that everyone has a unique story or some secret that we don’t know about.

About the plot, there’s obviously main murder theme that is somewhere in the middle of the action, but what we really focus on is politic play that surrounds main characters. So before we get to the solution of the main case we get though so many issues that sometimes this murder seems almost secondary. Especially that we cannot be sure of anything. Even if the case looks like it’s solved there’s always possibility of something happening. Even when somebody admits to committing the crime we still cannot be sure that he really did it.

The pace of the show is rather steady. It’s a suspenseful thriller, not action packed drama.

I have to admit, I’ve started watching is for Cho Seung Woo, after his performance in Sisyphus, but I’ve absolutely stayed for how amazing this drama is. All characters are masterfully played (kudos to Bae Doo Na and Yoo Jae Myung among many others) but let’s be honest, from this cast we could only expect the all the best.

Plus there’s one good thing about this drama, it has a second season!

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Potential lost in a pile of ridiculous plot devices

The story is pretty simple and pretty interesting at first. Kim Dan is an angel, who for helping a human was sent to earth with a mission to make Lee Yeon Seo fall in love. The problem is that Yeon Seo is a bitter ballerina who doesn’t seem to be interested in love. In a weird and very “drama like” turn of events Yeon Seo falls in Kim Dan and that’s a big no no for an angel to fall in love with a human.

So I have a pretty big problem with this drama. It promised a lot but it fall through somewhere in the middle. We didn’t get any more character development and were stuck with a barely mildly interesting ones. The conflicts were not progressing fast enough and basically till the end the action was dragging.

The thing that I can see as a positive was main characters relationship. It seemed mature enough for the most part, so we didn’t get much misunderstandings that could result in dragging the plot even more. All conflicts between them were somehow managed pretty quickly. We don’t have to watch five episodes of understatements only because one of them decided to to share some detail (you know the thing the dramas do). Their love seemed to be pretty haste but considering the circumstances it was understandable.

Being in the middle of the drama I felt pretty underwhelmed with it. The story was barely there, characters painfully simple, their actions repetitive. I kind of liked Ji Kang Woo at first, with the whole idea of him being the fallen age for loving woman who looks like Lee Yeon Seo. But honestly, all he did was to obsess over her. This and him being exaggerated ballet perfectionist was his only character trait.

About actors I can only tell about wasted potential of Shin Hae Sun, who I know is great actress. But here I think she had her wings clipped by poor writing of her character. Kim Myung Soo at first gave me very strong Park Seo Joon vibes with his mannerisms but soon it turns out that he has pretty much the same face for all the emotions so I found his performance average at best.

Background characters including bad guys here were sometimes so uninteresting and one dimensional that even towards the end I had trouble telling who’s who.
So drama that started as a pretty neat idea and story about getting a person from the bottom and helping her finding true love turned out to be this pile of ridiculous plot devices that just seemed to be there just to fill the time somehow.

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A hit in a head that just makes you want more

There’re dramas that take time to get hooked on. And then there’s Mouse, drama that doesn’t give you a minute to think and kidnaps you for the over twenty hour long journey. And if by the warning sign at the beginning saying that child actors were provided with counselling we weren’t sure how serious it would be, after first episode the seriousness of the situation will be most probably completely clear. So hold onto your pants, this is going to be a wild ride with no seatbelts.

I’ve honestly couldn’t believe how intense was this first episode. It had this feel of a stand alone movie. With proper ending of it I’d gladly watch it in this form.

The drama revolves around existence of “murderer gene” which assumes that science is able to find a specific gene that can be found only in psychopaths and, very rarely in absolute geniuses. In the first episode we’re introduced to dr. Daniel Lee, scientist, who claims that can detect this gene and proposes to the general assembly to test all foetuses and abort the ones that are diagnosed with potential psychopath gene. We’re also shown two women who’s unborn children are supposed to have this gene and those women and their children will be our main focus point here. After first episode there’s twenty year time jump, after which we’re meeting our main characters:
Jung Ba Reum, kind young police officer who seems innocent enough to risk his own life to save a bird
Kim Mu Chi, detective and serial killer survivor with very high motivation of catching serial killers to get revenge for his family
Sung Yo Han- unsympathetic doctor with all the psychopath’s red flags

And here we are, we have two kids diagnosed with psychopaths gene and two candidates that could’ve been them, now the question is, was the science right?

Seeing that this drama had 20 episodes I was wary at first. I don’t trust dramas that are more than 16 episodes long. More often they tend to be too slow and motives dragged just to fill the time. Not this one. From the beginning till the very end writers provided us with a true killing speed. Viewer has absolutely no time for rest and a moment of inattention may cause that we’ll simply miss an important part of the story. Theories about who’s killer and who’s not change basically every episode and writers do everything in their might to not give us a simple answer. Every now and then they’ll toss us a hint that usually is just a trick. Even when there’s a seemingly strong proof of someone’s guilt, I’ve automatically felt unease. I was sure that it’s not the whole story. There’s so many “whos and wheres” and nothing is shown in it’s entirely so even pretty obvious scenes make us question what is true and what is not.

This drama basically has couple of beginnings. There’s obviously first episode, the very beginning of the story.

Second beginning is a second episode, when we are introduced to the actual main characters.

Third beginning is around sixth and seventh episode, when the story get’s a 180 turn. There’s change of scope, change of perspective and another problem, is the person we’ve pointed to as a killer, really a killer, or were we wrong from the beginning. This makes this drama so multidimensional, that after finishing it, we look at the beginning of it as a completely different show. After those 20 episodes, I felt the same as after watching three seasons of standard western tv show.

But the thing is that at this point the drama starts from the beginning we can say. We relive previous events from new perspective. Once again the viewer doesn’t know who to trust, and the same for Ba Reum, he as well is not sure what is real and what is not. Because here begins a bit of a fantasy motive, even though the writers tried to wrap it in as much science and logical explanation it still felt a bit far fetched. And this would be my only criticism towards the story. I'll not say more to make this review spoiler free.

The fact that some events are shown from subjective perspective of one of the characters makes them extra confusing. Oftentimes it turns out that there’s another side to the story. That this person only saw half of the truth and there’s much more to the story. In times when the same event is shown from perspective of three characters or more, viewer doesn’t know if he can trust his own eyes.

The story doesn’t really slow down even for a bit. Even when it seems that all the motives has been explained and everything supposed to be clear there’s always additional “but” lurking around the corner. New evidence, new memory, new character that shows up with additional information that can change what we thought we already knew for sure. This drama is why I have trust issues because even till the very end I wasn’t sure if this really is a final explanation to all of the events.
This was absolutely amazing drama. From the beginning till the very end. Ba Reum’s character, so multidimentional, so complicated was shown perfectly. And here a big kudos to Lee Seung Gi, it’s really hard for me to say, but I think that this was the role of his life and my only hope is that he’ll prove me wrong and that he’ll do it very soon.

This drama was extraordinary. It was rough, difficult, heavy on a stomach, but it was one of a kind. Mouse just hits you in the head but you still want more. Because the truth, even though it might hurt, is the most important thing here.

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Good dramas are the worst, since there’s nothing much to say about them apart from the fact that they’re simply good. You know the feeling, I could rant for hours about dramas that were bad, I could talk for ages about the ones that were amazing. But the ones that are simply good, are the worst. You just enjoy watching them but at the end you don’t really miss them much. For Start-up all I really wanted is for it to have a second season. And not because I cannot live without it. It’s not that I’m constantly thinking about it. It just gave me so much joy to watch that I would gladly continue to do so. But you know what they say, good things don’t last forever.

To be honest, this drama wasn’t anywhere near top of my list when it comes to drama watching order. I’ve decided to watch it, mostly because of amount of memes that traveled though the internet and the fact that it was nominated to Baeksang Awards this year and I’ve decided to watch all nominated dramas that I’ve already had on my list for this year. So the adventure begun.
And I have to admit, it was a blast from the very first episode, about which I need to write a bit more, because the way it was made was simply awesome.

So the first episode haven’t really dove deep into the actual action of the drama. It was more of a prequel we could say. It was absolutely amazing at introducing the characters, without unnecessary flashbacks and voiceovers. After it we didn’t need any additional exposition, we were more or less introduced to the characters, but in a way that shows only a part of the story that’s later relevant, only Dal Mi’s and Ji Pyung’s journey was known till this moment. Nam Do San, was barely mentioned but at the same time played a very important role in the first episode. And this was a great trick, because the viewer could get to know him as the rest of the characters did. After watching first episode I’ve concluded that it was so good at this point it could actually almost be a stand alone movie.

And this episode shown, what was later on obvious, that it’s very easy to fall in love with those characters from the very beginning. They’re all very well written and it’s not hard to figure out their motivations pretty quickly. Like Han Ji Pyung, who’s badmouthing Nam Do San to the grandma, because he’s obviously jealous of Seo Dal Mi, who was his penpal in the most difficult moments of his life. Like, those kind of thing that are very discreet, not shown to the viewer openly, are what I really loved about the series. And I’m gonna defend Ji Pyung here because I’ve absolutely fell in love with this character. And I want to make myself clear, I fell in love with how this character is well written. For me he’s hands down the most fascinating character of this series. The world was his enemy so he curbed it using his biggest strength. Even though he succeeded in life, he finally earned a lot of money, he’s not happy. He doesn’t have friends, doesn’t really have anything that makes him happy, work and money is all he has. And honestly, he’s not really a nice person. He’s petty and harsh. He helps people only if he can gain something out of it. Dal Mi and her grandma are the first people who he cares about, since they gave him his missing element of his life, and I think that admitting to this bond wasn’t really easy for him. They gave him warmth that he never experienced before. Either through giving him shelter and corndogs or just kind words in the letters. And I’ve honestly cheered for him till the last episode hoping he can finally find his happiness.

But apart from this first episode and some amazing characters, I don’t really have much to say here. And it’s not bad, that just simply means that this drama is simply good. There’s not one thing that I didn’t like about it. I could also add that the plot is pretty solid, not much time to be bored here. I don’t recall any filler episode and the pacing was on point. All characters are interesting, even background characters are entertaining but we all know that grandma stole our hearts. And the thing is that characters are just authentic. They’re not perfect, but that’s what makes them so likeable.

This review is slowly turning into a rant. So maybe I’ll end at that. Even though I don’t find this drama exceptional, I think it’s pretty solid piece of entertainment, that’s why I gave it a pretty high score. And I’m really hoping for this second season, just for fun.

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Perfect drama that will shake you every episode

That was an absolute wild ride. From the beginning till the very end. I’ve never watched drama that could shake me every episode. That each time surprised me with plot twists. That I could not anticipate what will happen because it was so absolutely unpredictable. And at the same time, drama that would be so perfect in every aspect.
When I prepare for writing review, I always make notes. Not much, just the overall thoughts that I have while watching drama. That helps me to organise my writing later on. Usually those notes are not longer than two pages of handwriting. Maybe four if drama is especially complicated or I have a lot of comments about it. How many pages I’ve written watching The Devil Jugde? Freaking 10 and I still think that’s not enough to barely touch the subject.

Let’s talk about Yo Han
Let’s talk about Kang Yo Han, because there’s so much to unpack here that we’ll going to be here for a while. First of all, huge kudos to Ji Sung for carrying this role, I hope his back is ok after that. He shown his acting range in Kill Me Heal Me, his attachment to the role in Defendant, but I honestly think that Yo Han is going to be his crown jewel. Because who is Kang Yo Han? Nobody knows. Nobody. We don’t know what’s actually sitting in his head. He’s so unpredictable that he can be double bluffing and we’ll know if two episodes later. He’s master of manipulation which basically means that once again he cannot be trusted, all he does may be just a way to fulfil his plan. From the beginning we see that there’s something wrong with him. The way he talks about hunting for example in one of first episodes. Right away I had a thought that the prey he would like to hunt is human. And I wasn’t really wrong, because it seems that his whole life was a battle. He had to fight from youngest years and one of his greatest weapons is manipulation. I was watching with my mouth opened the scenes when he was basically steering people in a trap that he prepare for them. How he manipulated them to be in exact position that he wanted them to be. No hesitation, no remorse, everything to achieve his goal.
And it seems that he can weasel himself out of every situation. Every time he was backed to the wall somehow he managed to get out without damage and it was so amazing especially that it was done so effortlessly that I could barely believe what just happened. I have to admit, I’ve said the phrase “Yo Han, you sly fox” more times that I care to admit
Yo Han is incredibly sure of himself when he interacts with people he manipulates and at the same time he’s absolutely awkward towards his family and the ones close to him (which totals to like three people, and I’m being generous here).
It’s clear that Yo Han’s methods are often too much, but seeing some scenes involving members of the Social Responsibility Foundation , the injustice and lies of people on the top, it’s hard not to sympathise with him. From time to time he makes us doubt if normal, according to the law methods are the right ones in this brutal reality. The truth is that Yo Has has his own slightly crooked form of justice, but at least he’s true to it through and through.
Yo Han is an incredibly complicated character, with many layers to him.

Cinematics
From the very first scene, cinematic were the element that I was totally in awe of. Remember it? Black Corvette riding thought the city at night. In the background Drop The Game by Flume & Chet Faker. This song, even tough was used several more times, was linked for me with this scene. Till now I thought that It’s Okay to Not be Okay was the pinnacle of cinematography in dramas, but I have to admit, The Devil Judge topped that. With amazing light (scenes in Yo Han’s office at night!) And scenography it just created amazing background to the main plot.

Music
That must’ve been one of the most searched out for me. It fits so seamlessly into the action of the show that after every episode I could just listen to it on repeat. And not having whole album already to listen to really hurts. But from now on every car trip starts with Tempest and that’s perfect way to go anywhere.
So how they say, choice of music in some scenes is *chef’s kiss*. I believe that’s this is one of there most memorable soundtracks I’ve heard.

Created world
I love dystopias. After time travelling, that’s my favourite motive. I was raised on 1984 by Orwell and Brave New World by Huxley, so I have a bit of soft spot for it. But when those two were till pretty much recently rather far away. With what happened in them, then The Devil Judge seems terrifyingly familiar. A great plague? Checked. Society in disarray after the crisis? Checked. Nationalist movements? Unfortunately, where I’m from, almost checked. So with all that in mind, watching The Devil Judge with this new scary form of Live Court seemed just too probable. And that was why this drama hit so hard. Is Live Court something that could happen? Hopefully not, but in society where all hope is lost, why not? We already have corrupted politicians and greedy corporations so we’re not far from there. Is the idea of people actually deciding about major court ruling absolutely terrifying? Of course. I have to admit, I chuckled couple of times watching those hearings (I mean the video from American prison was a bit over the top) but I also understand that the format of the Live Court was supposed to be a bit flashy. It was supposed to be a tv show. The way that it also become the battlefield between Yo Han and the Foundation was amazing. It looked like a true chess game, where each side had to be very cautious about next move.

The villain
This is a pure gem right here. Who do you fight psychopath with? Another psychopath. Yo Han could actually be a villain by himself with his very particular form of justice. But the writers decided to go a step further and gave us Sun Ah. Sun Ah at first seems like a perfect opposite to Yo Han. Where he want’s justice, she wants power, no matter the cost. But at the same time they share a lot of traits and this is pretty much scary at some point. And what I love about this character is how at the beginning she let everyone to underestimate her giving her the perfect point of attack. I mean, who would suspect a secretary?
Her lecture at school where she speaks to young girls about what to do to be a good child is a perfect introduction and explanation of motives for this character. For her survival can only be achieved through power and power is gained with wealth. Person must do everything to survive. She’s ruthless and her prey are men who are abusing women. They have to be destroyed. She finds their soft spot and hit it till she achieves her target.

Welcome to the world in which the ones talking about power don’t really have it, and the powerful work in the backstage meticulously steering their puppets.

About acting, apart from extraordinary Ji Sung and Kim Min Jung we have a vast array of amazing actors, even the smaller roles leave a mark in a memory. I mean great example is Park Hyung Soo as attorney Ko In Guk who really left amazing impression for me. Park Jin Young’s acting wasn’t convincing for me at the beginning but I was glad to see much needed progress throughout the series. But that might’ve been because the role he had wasn’t easy either. I could write something else here about Ga On himself, but I think that in the end he was exactly the person who he was intended to be and not much more.

This must be first drama that I gave the score of 10 with absolutely no hesitation. I had absolutely no choice to do differently, since this drama for me is simply perfect. Acting, characters, cinematic, music, everything comes up to the show that I will from now on compare others to. This would be a best series that other could only aspire to. I know that these are big words here, but honestly, I’ve never waited for another episode with that much of anticipation. I’ve never beed so hooked on a show in my adult life. This ladies and gentlemen is a perfect drama, thank you very much.

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The most lovable frustration in small doses

This series is a hot mess, but the one you actually enjoy watching. Let me explain.
Quick summary, Suspicious Partner is about young intern Eun Bong Hee, who just started working in a prosecutor’s office. Her boss, Noh Ji Wook is the type of guy that nobody likes professionally, but gets the job done. The problem arises when in a weird turn of events Bong Hee is accused of killing her ex boyfriend and prosecutor in charge of her case is Ji Wook. She manages to partially prove her innocence but now wants to find the true killer.

So first thing that I want to talk about is how weirdly the show is divided. Instead of standard 16 or 20 one hour long episodes, we have 40 30 minute long ones. That wouldn’t be a problem, I’ve already seen drama that has shorter episodes, but the thing is that it doesn’t work here. It just looks like the episodes were divided like that in post production and weren’t made to be like that. Sometimes episode just end abruptly without sense. Do you have in your country international series that commercial break were made for other format, and commercial just gets in the middle of the scene? Sometimes I felt exactly like the watching Suspicious Partner. Luckily I’ve just binge watched it, but still the credits showing out of nowhere were simply annoying sometimes.

Let’s talk plot then. Honestly there’s not much going on there. Mostly it’s just back and forth romance based on understatements and lack of communication and it’s incredibly annoying to watch characters break up only because they cannot talk about what’s bothering them. Main plot line, with murderer case that Bong Hee is pursuing is so thin that sometimes it’s just get’s abandoned all of a sudden, like nothing happened. And it’s a shame, because villain in this drama is one of the most interesting I’ve seen in a while. And I’d love if this motive was expanded a bit more, since it was so interesting, and I think that in terms of acting Dong Ha showed some amazing skills portraying Jung Hyun Soo.

For most of the time it looks like one of those dramas where characters think that other side doesn’t like them so they don’t admit to their feeling and it’s just vicious circle for like ten episodes till they finally find out that they love each other from the beginning. But in this case it’s not ten episodes, but almost forty. Every time it was close for the main couple to end up together weird event occurred and they’ve just managed to find reason not to date. That was a wild ride, honestly.

The thing that for me dragged the show down were all those cliches. We basically have everything here. There’s childhood trauma that shows in adult life of a character and it’s magically cured by presence of one particular person. We have a relationship that nobody wants to admit to. We have a whole pile of understatements and lack of communication that spoils everything and slows down the whole plot. There’s even a bit of amnesia. At that point I wasn’t sure if I really want to continue watching this show. But…

But the thing is, that beside all of those cliches and filler episodes the show for most part is just enjoyable to watch. If we don’t expect much out of it. If we don’t mind lacking plot and slow development of both action and characters, if we just admit to watch it for fun, this drama is actually not that bad after all.

In the end I’ve found it somehow cute and endearing, with lovable characters (like all of them, seriously). I’d just like for some plot parts to be more developed I missed some closure at the end and felt that some important motives were closed just too quickly. Like, how fast can you forget about psychotic murderer that was about to kill you? And of course, the fact that it took almost forty episodes for the main couple to get together was really infuriating. If those two acted their age, this drama would be ten episodes long. Which, obviously would be a great shame.

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Time travelling (?) perfection

Time travelling motive has a special place in my heart for quite some time. And I mean movies, tv series or books, I don’t care, if it involves time travel, I want to see it. I think it says enough that aside of Kairos, I’ve just watched Signal and I am watching Tunnel right now. In span of a month.
Of course one may say that in Kairos there’s no time travel per say, nobody’s travelling in time, but let just include communication between different timelines in the same group here, since it’s such an interesting idea. And between three mentioned dramas, I think that so far, Kairos is doing the best job.
There’s this Hitchcock’s quote that everyone loves to put in situations like that. The one that everyone knows and it’s almost a cliche to mention. But unfortunately, it fits perfectly. Because Kairos starts with an earthquake (not literally) and then the stress continuously increases, basically till the very end. From the first episode, even before anything happens, the viewer is put in a state of constant pressure. We know that something is going to happen, and even when it happens we then know that is not over yet.
I’ve watched Kairos simultaneously with Signal, which is very similar when it comes to the main plot idea. And if you haven’t watched Signal and really don’t want any spoilers, please beware. Signal was for me this mythical series, praised so many times, that I had very high expectations towards it. And honestly, I was let down very hard, since between Kairos and Signal, the first one I liked much much more. And I think it was mostly because how emotionally attached we get to the characters of Kairos. In Signal viewer is distanced from the characters, there’s not much of a emotional bond there. But in Kairos, we get pushed into their lives. Plot is told from a very subjective perspective which gives us opportunity to see the characters lives as they see it. And sometimes it’s the reason why we don’t get the full picture.
Like Seo Jin. At first we see him as this caring father figure, before his daughter is kidnapped. Then we see some scenes when he’s nothing like that, he’s scolding his daughter for something she’s done by mistake. We see that at this point he values the company’s and his image more than his daughter well being. But then again, after some time we see how it really was. How he felt remorse that he didn’t tell Da Bin that it was not her fault. And we get this change of perspective couple of times, towards different characters and this makes the series so unpredictable. We really don’t know who to trust and who’s on which side. And at one point I’ve noticed that nothing in this series is as it seems to be. We explore this drama layer after layer showing more hidden lies.
And we’re spiralling in a very repetitive but not boring spiral. Things get more and more complicated especially that it started off as a pretty simple revenge story. Now it seems that everyone is more or less involved in events that are way above the original plot line.
I like how we have several side plots revealed but they’re clear and don’t really collide with main plot, but rather merge together in a very neat story. It’s actually evolution of past events thanks to which the next ones are explained. We soon discover that they have a deeper meaning and they’re all somehow connected.
And the characters. At first I thought that it would be impossible to manage the same characters in different timelines. I was sure that we’ll soon get lost in who’s when and what’s going on. But on contrary, everything was so well written, that sometimes the clock showing the date was not necessary (although sometimes very helpful, but when the action really sped up).
The characters are well written and very easy to like, even when they’re not so nice. Even bad guys have a good story to tell and their motivations are pretty clear.
This is the series that gets you hooked very soon and does’t let you go till the very end. I think that it was one of better dramas that I’ve watched for a long time.

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You'll cry (mostly of laughter)

Mr. Queen was somehow shot in the dark when I decided to watch it. I basically seen one scene somewhere and it seems crazy enough to make me watch it. And it was so worth it.

This drama is weird and one needs to understand it, but from the first episode we get full force of weirdness of this show.
This drama starts off with a self absorbed womaniser waking up in woman’s body somewhere in Joseon era. And obviously this woman is no other than a queen. Go figure. And right away we get full freakout in fear of losing genitals and this may not sound good, but thrust me, this scene is pure comedy gold.

From the very beginning thing that I noticed the most was acting. And here a moment of sidenote. We have a situation where we have a man in woman’s body. All voiceovers were at this point made by Choi Jin Hyuk, actor who played main character before we has brutally misplaced to a different body. And this was reason why we couldn’t forget that the queen is not exactly the queen, but not only because of that, but also thanks to Shin Hae Sun’s class A acting. In my opinion it’s crucial to watch some other drama with Choi Jin Hyuk before Mr. Queen to know how amazing job is Shin Hae Sun doing with recreating his mannerisms. It was absolutely amazing.

It was around second episode when I notices how well balanced this drama was. Comedy mixes with mystery in great proportions. Plus amazing OST making it feel like we’re watching contemporary drama, not quasi historical one, and it doesn’t let us forget who’s trapped in Queen’s body.

The pace slowed down a bit by ninth episode, but it was saved by bringing up the subject of Jang Bong Hwan’s comatose body. Honestly I think that screenwriters could’ve focus on this subject more, because it was at this point just showed once and then immediately dropped.

By the tenth episode I noticed that drama was slightly loosing it’s appeal. We were deep into the palace intrigue which is not the most interesting motive of this drama. Plus there’s less and less Mr. in this Queen. His internal voice was suddenly changed to actual queen’s voice (at least it was properly explained why it happened) as well as scenes from the hospital that were just cut and till the last episode not to be seen. As the drama progressed is gradually turned from time travelling to period drama. Pace slows down and even though there’s some amazingly funny scenes, the drama loses its spirt which made first episodes so unique.

Because honestly, this drama could solely focus on cooking scenes and still would be amazing, since they’re truly highlight of the show. Just imagine recreating instant ramyeon during Joseon period or making veggie burger for very official palace meal!
Absolutely fantastic acting of Shin Hae Sun carried this drama. The most amazing part was that the viewer could clearly see when Bong Hwan took control of the body and when the queen was back., The difference in movements and even tone of her voice was staggering.

I was surprised that writers decided to change person doing voiceovers. I think that first choice- Choi Jin Hyuk was a very interesting idea and changing him, for Shin Hae Sun made it lose a bit of character. By then the viewer sometimes had to remind himself who’s mind was in queen’s body.

Chemistry between main characters, even though sometimes a bit confusing was working very well. Reintroducing the queen and some of her memories made the story less chaotic compared to the scenes when only Bong Hwan was in charge of the body.

Some background characters were not so distinguishable at first, but this issue was solved later on. I mostly mean here two older queens and duo of Kim Byung In + Prince Yongpyeong who at some point were barely distinguishable and it was hard to tell who’s on which side. Or maybe that was just my feeling but I felt a bit confused there.

And I cannot forget about the music, with very contemporary sound perfectly fitted with character of the drama not really being a period series but a time travelling one.

Overall I think that Mr. Queen was very good drama, the one you just watch with pleasure. Some pacing problem and filler episodes were easily balanced by comedic scenes. And the most important, acting was absolutely top of the class.

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