The story is just like any other adventure story you'd find in that time and space. However, oddly enough I found this story well written compared to other popular dramas in this genre. The story actually made sense and it was so clear on what it was trying to say that I felt completely immersed. It had one task and it did well to convey itself from beginning to the end. Sometimes long dramas tend to add subplots that stray from the main story but this one, everything that was happening made so much sense. Perhaps it was because of how elaborate it was. It felt like they actually planned out the life of each character. The characters they focused on had a part and a history. Although it could have done better near the end I am pleased with the story and the ending. Also I felt like I got what I was expecting.
The acting and cast was good. I wouldn't say excellent but it was believable - and seeing as they have to convince us that they have super powers and can fight like crazy - they did well. I also haven't seen any of their other works but from their bio's on here it seems like the main leads are new actors. If I had to nitpick though, the actors seem better in the comedic scenes than the serious ones especially near the end. Furthermore, I wish there were more scenes of the main leads in the beginning because more scenes together would of made us feel a stronger 'love' connection between the two later on. I wish I felt more angst or... pain(?) for the main pair - like a longing for the love between the two. I understood it but I didn't feel it. This is where I'm wondering if it's the actor's acting or the way the scenes were shot and cut. Personally when it comes to this section, I can't tell if it's the acting that needs more improvement or the production team. Sometimes I find that scenes were too long but I felt that it wasn't because of the actor's acting that it felt weird but it was honestly how long the producer and camera men spent on their faces.
Music was not memorable but I personally skip ops and ends so I can't really give my input here. They weren't memorable in my opinion. But the soundtrack within the show was just like any other soundtrack of an adventure in this genre. They weren't blaring in your faces but it wasn't memorable to the point where I'd look for it after watching the drama.
The rewatch value is 6/10 because it's long. I wouldn't put myself through 50 episodes again. Perhaps the first 20 so episodes I would rewatch cause they were cute and I like how they established it. I watched the entire series at once so sometimes I felt like some parts were unnecessary so when rewatching I'd click through quite a lot just to see the main pair.
Overall it's an 7 /10 because I like when the drama makes sense and things tie up. Also the main leads were cute together. Wish there were more sparks(?) but they were cute nonetheless.
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I must say, I liked the female lead too. She's quite different from the usual female leads who appear weak and dependant on the male lead. In Moorim School the female lead is as independent as she can get, and has a unique and interesting personality which is portrayed perfectly by Seo Ye Ji.
As for the male leads, well, they have this bond together themselves which I feel is one of the best parts of the drama. Their friendship and 'bromance' is definitely one of the things that I just wanted more of. And though at times it does waver, it still remains throughout the drama. And even those times where it wavers, is due to the strong bond and emotions they feel for each other.
The casting was perfect, and I honestly can't imagine anyone else playing these characters. Each and every actor suited their character perfectly. The acting at some points, could be better though. But don't worry, it isn't that noticeable.
The music...well the music was perfect. It went perfectly well with the drama. Now I'm not saying you have to find the music pleasurable (although I find most of it pleasurable), I'm saying that the music WENT WELL with the drama. The right songs were used at the right times, thus amplifying the emotions we're supposed to feel for each specific scene. It was a great music choice.
My rewatch value for this drama is higher than many others I've watched, so that says something. It'll probably take a little while before I rewatch it though. Nevertheless, the drama was great.
I RECOMMEND!
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I finished watching this drama in 3 days, when the show is soooo good, i just cannot stop watching it. The story is so different. It's funny yet very sad, i cannot describe it. My emotion was like up and down when i was watching it. It's just wrecking my emotion, i understand now, how my friend has been tru. Coz i have a depressed friend who sometimes i cannot understand why she is acting like that, I thought she only wants to get attention from other people, but i now i can understand her better. People with mental illness cannot control their behavior, the illness just play with their life, and causing so much harms.
I really hope we and society think twice or thrice before we treat someone else, coz if we are not careful, someone might get hurt and they will be depressed. Anyway, i need to review this drama haha.
I have watched this drama 2 times, going to watch it again. Coz when i feel sad and if i want to relief my emotion, i will just watch this kind of drama. hufff... I like all do hyun's characters and i like shin se gi the most, coz this is a part of cha do hyun that needs to be healed. His characters are wonderful and Ju Sung can act really well, natural and convincing. When i watch it, i feel that the drama has absorb me into that world, and i forgot that it is just a movie. I really can feel all the emotion in this drama, wow, the acting is damn good. I LIKE JI SUNG!
I mean my life is not so boring anymore after i discover that a drama can be this satisfying and wonderful. Gonna watch other good drama soon, Thanks Ji Sung, Thanks kill me, heal me team for making this wonderful show. I really appreciate it.
The music is also awesome. Thanks for the soundtrack team! Especially auditory hallucination, it brings up the soul and emotion of the scenes in this drama. I am gonna sleep while listening to this music :)) U GUYS DID A GOOD JOB!! THANK YOU!!!
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My lovely Sam Soon has stood the test of time. It is over the top, at times ridiculous but still a funny, raw and engaging story with some of the most refreshing characters that would still shine even today.
Sam Soon is the center of the story, a not attractive, frizzy haired, slightly chubby girl with some horrendous table manners. She yells, she burps, she does it all and stands the test of time as the most realest female lead you will get.
What makes Sam Soon an engaging character is the little details that fully realize her character. She often imagines herself in scenarios far braver than she is and it's a quality that rings true in all of us. She's bold yet also insecure, she is so perfectly imperfect and little details like her constantly frizzy hair and awkward habits make her very relatable.
The other characters are definitely just as well done. We have a second female lead who seems so stereotypical at first, but as her side of the story is revealed she evokes sympathy and understanding. It's a drama that truly makes you torn as you start to understand all the parties involved.
The writers did a great job blending humorous and serious topics without changing the characters. I for one am very glad, there was no makeover involved in Sam Soon's character. Sam Soon definitely sells this plot though as a loud, at times awkward yet not clumsy female lead. She breaks all the stereotypes that we've grown accustomed to, so much so that surprisingly, when I was watching this, there were numerous comments about her unsightly appearance and habits. It made me realize we've been beaten into accepting beautiful, female leads that wake up perfectly with not a hair out of place. Funny thing is we all realize we're not like this.
An 8.5 this gets for me for just being a refreshing rom com that I would recommend to anyone.
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I also like how this movie turns the second lead female to be friend with the first female lead.
Love rival doesn't mean making people into bitch hahaha.
actually the story is so typical, rich chaebol likes poor girl. Nothing new, just that the girl is pretty strong.
I like all the acting here, everything seems natural. I watch this drama because I like Ji Sung.
But all the castings here are wonderful, especially president Cha hahaha.
But towards the end of drama, it's getting boring and annoying, it just dragged. Like typical drama, there is a big misunderstanding, poor communication between them, I actually have skipped 4 episodes for those unnecessary mellow drama, i just hate the sadness and tears that caused by misunderstanding, it's just unimportant, i skipped and just watch the last episode hahaha, and just read the recap in between when i dun understand. Coz i don not want to waste my time watching a very lengthy kdrama that has pointless plot just to lengthen the drama and episodes.
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I know I will get a lot of flame for this as a lot of other reviewers praised for well balanced darkness of the story I instead found it bothersome. I know that extremes of bullying in Korean school and consequences of it should be talked about but for me mixing it with such comedic element was kind of bad taste. It's my personal opinion so if you like the mix of two then this drama will be for you. I still got quite a few lols out of this and GongJoo is goals xDDD
Didn't find music memorable, tho the eerie tune they used really got to me, I was scared I'm gonna have nightmares after this (weak ass nerv system), but I guess fitting for the occasions they used it.
The actors are good. Guy who plays Ahn Dong Chil really makes you hate him with all passion of your soul.
In general as much as I find the story interesting and grabbing your attention again and again the dark eerie moments leave really bad after-taste that's why I can't rate it high. But I guess I just watched this at a bad timing as I was hoping for something else so it doesn't mean that drama is bad. Maybe I should've read some reviews before watching it.
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The major flaw is having 20 something year old actors playing kids 7 to 10 year old. That... let's try to forget about it. Also Gou was definitely overstated in the events in the first, say 13-15 episodes of the drama, which is weird since, once adult, she didn't appear to me as not submissive to everything that happened to her. That is not to say that is a weakness of the drama.
This drama is about the hardships women of that era go through, their pain and suffering, and their inability to do much. They try the best they can but once war breaks, all they can do is pray for their loved ones. I think this drama succeeded in portraying that to me. The weird thing about it though, which made feel a bit uneven, is how the beginning has quite some whitewashing of certain historical figures and events, and how in the 2nd half of the drama, they were pretty much frank about the harshness of their realities. In general, this drama started succeeding in my eyes the moment it stopped taking liberties in history and started presenting us things are they are, as much as possible.
Ueno Juri was amazing in that role, and so was Osamu Mukai. One highlight is Miyazawa Rie as Chacha, the transformation of her character was marvelous. I was afraid Mizukawa Asami would ruin the drama for me but she didn't. I think as a character I liked her most, but the actress was a bit lacking in some emotional scenes. Still overall I think I can come to term with that actress. I think my favourite though was Kitaoji Kinya as Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was perfect in portraying such a cunning man, though at times hateful but overall a great leader. He managed to make me understand such a historical figure and why he did the things he did. I also loved Suzuki Honami as their mother, and her voice as the Narrator.
I gotta say, I love the choice of music used here in the drama. It's nothing too noticeable, just perfect in the background, either emphasizing on the feelings of the characters, or bringing us from one point to another.
As flawed as the drama is, it is still a splendid and enriching ride. Do give it a try if you are curious of the state of women in the warring are. The Azai sisters and their mother are the perfect example to represent the generation, but we see the hardship and strength to live of many of the women around them as well.
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Now, let's move on to the specifics. As far as I'm concerned, the book this drama is based on groups 6 short stories, which are unrelated to one another. This drama uses, in one way or another, 3 of them (the protagonists of the drama being characters from the last story) and make a small reference to another story, which is not fully covered. The other two are, as far as I can tell, nowhere to be seen. So, if you read the book, don't worry, you don't yet know how this is gonna turn out because the plot twist in this drama has nothing to do with the book.
I find it strange that, being the actual writer of the book involved in the drama (and performing in it), he'd choose to make such big changes as to end with a resulting different story than any of the others, but maybe it was taken as an opportunity for people who had read the book to still be surprised and for people who haven't to still have a chance to read it and find out other perspectives. Still, I find the resulting story of this drama a bit lackluster in comparison to the ones in the book, in the sense that the plot twist of the drama is not the most unpredictable one you'd see, which contrasts with a story that was pretty heartfelt and trying to be very honest.
I enjoyed the performances, especially from Renn, and I think the drama is enjoyable as a whole, yet it may have benefited from either following the self-conclusive aspect of the short-story style the book has, picking one and going with it from start to finish or providing more episodes for this style they chose to really take flight. As it is, I like the idea of the "stories inside a story" style they pick for the first part, it's a good narrative device when used well, but being the amount of episodes so little, I found the change of perspective a bit forced and it didn't allow the self-discovery and emotional-fulfillment aspect the drama was trying to go for at the end to fully show.
There is a speck of LGBT representation in this drama, not as well handled as in other dramas of 2015 I've seen, but it is there and it's more than just a BL-ish fanservice note, it has to do with character development, so it's worthy of noting. In the book, though, the outcome of that character seems to be better.
All in all, it's an interesting format and it deserves a go. It has a bit of mystery, a bit of fantastic and a lot of emotion. To me, it was interesting in a narrative level, as to see the use of different devices and how that worked (or didn't). I'd like to see what other stories can Shige bring in the future.
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this is one drama I would have loved to say I liked, and while I enjoyed some parts of it and found it overall entertaining, I still dreaded a lot of other things about it.
I went into this drama because I am a bit of a Jung Kyung Ho fan myself, and also because I felt like watching a light romcom after my long hiatus from Kdrama watching.
well, I am not necessarily disappointed and definitely can't say it was a waste of time, but this drama failed to thrill me, or make me enthusiastic watching it.
# First and foremost, the story
It is a very common old-school romance comedy with a touch of angst, and by old-school I mean....well I'll get to the point; cilched.
It had the childhood friends which were separated and reunited as adults, and the one-sided love from the hero reigniting towards the pure and kind-hearted heroin.
We also have the love triangle, and as angsty as it can get with the two males being best friends.
The only new twist about the story might be in the fact that all of the sides of the love triangle (well, most of the characters in the drama!) are divorced (thereby the title of the drama), and the hero has a kid which he brought up himself. Oh, and also maybe that the heroine is an ex-idol.
So overall, there's nothing super special or unexpected going about in the story, you're kind of watching waiting for the next expected step to happen while enjoying some fun interactions between the leads. Also towards the end the drama felt so dragging with not much going on for any of the characters. It made me always eager to find out how they will fill up or the remaining episodes, and why don't they just cut the thing shorter.
# The characterization
This drama has a huge amount of characters, main characters, side characters and in-between them a bunch of filler characters. We have the main 4 ex-idols/old-time BFFs (hereinafter "the quartet"), we also have our main lead and his best friend (and also the third angle in the love triangle, hereinafter referred to as"3rd angle" ) and his ex-wife.
The main male lead was by far my favorite character, maybe thanks to Jung Kyung Ho (heheheh) or simply because he was very well-written realistic character which Jung Kyung Ho helped to bring it to live as a relatable and lovable single-father. The main female character is also nicely written and brought to life by the hands of the ever cute baby-faced beauty Jang Na Ra. She's a woman who has been through many tough challenges in her life making her a strong and independent person. The two's chemistry and the zing you felt in the way they talked and looked to each other was so lovable and irresistible, you can not help but cheer for them.
The story being the kind of simple one that it is, it was only normal that the writers felt obliged to create a story-line for each character or a couple of them. In doing that they had to stretch all these story-lines in order for each to develop parallel to the main story. The problem is not in the large variety of characters and their consequent story-lines, but rather in the fact that out of all the characters only one or two felt believable and their stories ones that you could relate to and care about, with the rest of the characters being either odd-balls that downright drove you mad, mediocre with uninteresting stories, filling the drama with scenes that were meh making you feel the urge to fast foreword.
As for the other 4 side characters; the 3 ex-idols and the 3rd angle, only one of them made me care about her and that was Da Joeng and the rest of them were just there to add either a spice of comedy or angst but were never quite convincing . Regarding the quartet, I have to add that I couldn't help feeling that not only was Dong Mi and Ae Ran's characters lacking and mediocre and there scenes sometimes boring, but I also felt that the actresses were ill-chosen, both not really fitting their respective characters...one didn't give that ajumma or lacking-on-the-looks-side feel that she was supposed to give, and the other was the other way around, never feeling that hot or sexy like she was supposed to be, but rather looking older than everyone else around her.
As for the remaining character of the quartet, Dajoeng, as I previously mentioned her story was the only one I found interesting, with an idea I believe has not been introduced many times before in Kdramas. I have to sadly admit that at a certain point when the main lead's story was relatively settled with not many developments, I was more curious to find out how her story will progress even more than their's ( I also believe I read in several other reviews people saying they were watching eager to know how her story ends), it might be a good thing,but I also believe we have to admit it should be considered as a flaw in the writing.
I don't want to go into details not to make this any longer, but I hated a certain character so badly I could barely hold myself from throwing something at my PC screen, and that is the 3rd angle aka. Dr. Goo Hae Jun. I couldn't quite understand what the writers were trying to tell through his strange admiration towards the main female lead, but if they were trying to sell it as love or even attraction they failed, at least for me. To me it only felt as a strange obsession and a wish to relive his sad past differently on other people's cost. He always gave that bad-loser aura, a guy which doesn't know when to stop and simply give up....AND I HATE THAT KIND OF CHARACTERS. There were many moments in which I sincerely wished he would act in a certain way and salvage his horrible character putting an end to all the meaningless angst he was causing, but no NEVER...he always disappointed me right until the end...there was no salvation to this guy.
# Directing
The editing between the scenes was sometimes odd. I know there are many side stories going on, but you don't have to show me someone receiving an urgent call telling them to rush over because something bad has happened, and the next thng a totally unncessary and boring scene of two people chatting over a cup of coffee, that could wait believe me.
# Music
Overall a fine OST, liked some vocal tracks that started playing towards the end when the angst arch was at its peak.
I'm gonna try to sum things up:
If you're looking for a fun & light rom-com + you're either a Jung Kyung Ho or a Jang Na Ra fan, you can go ahead and give this drama a try, it's a fun watch.
But if you're looking for a rom-com with a bit of a new touch, that would make you thrilled and on the edge of your seat waiting for the next episode, then I would advise you to look elsewhere.
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I would have to agree with other viewers about the number of flashbacks in this drama. At some point I found myself thinking "yes we know", LOL My favorite drama of 2016 so far.
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The performance of Han Ye Seul was the best thing, it was so wonderful that in many episodes, especially between chapters 10 and 15, I just kept watching the series because of her character.
I continued watching despite the fact that in the half some things very unreal and meaningless happened between Go Hye Rim y Choi Soo Hyun, he at various times was very annoying with his obsession for his own work and she was very naive (contradicting her personality in the beginning).
I would have preferred that it remains a little more insightful, because at various times the feeling is that he is the only wo can be smart enough to realize the games between them.
Although the final has not been bad, for me lacked logic: Hye Rim despite having suffered never questioned his own emotional distress.
A second weak point was the relationship between Soon Hyun and his mother and father, it all happened very fast, especially with regard to the father. So, it is used to try create an empathy with the feelings of abandonment of Soo Hyun (to justify his cold and obstinate conduct), but this failed and the all explanation sound very forced and inmature.
Another strong point: the relationship between Dr. Bae Mi Ran y Seung Chan - each episode in which they appeared was a joy because it formed a beautiful relationship of trust..
Again, every time Hye Rim open her fan, it was guaranteed laugh. No doubt her actor's job and charisma were unforgettable.
The soundtrack not had any detachable music.
I do not attend again because I think the story get lost during the second half and the good rhythm of the first part not remained.
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