It was my first time watching the male lead,Oh Soo, and he caught my attention not because of his good looks but because there is a connection between us,(viewer and actor), and i admire him for that.. He portrayed his role very well, and he didn't just act the said role, it's as if he really is the gambler, con man, the trash, who wants to be a human for the first time when he met the female lead..
For Ah Young, it is difficult to act like a blind when you are not, and she did a good job by making me believe that she really is a blind person..
All the characters in this drama have done a great job in portraying their role very well..
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Really just a magnificent drama from beginning to end. Some people seem to have problems with the end. Seems some don't understand it, and I'm not sure why they don't, it's pretty straight forward.
There are usually tons of things that end up bugging me in dramas, but there was only one here and it came in the last episode. It's the decision Kim Bum's character makes in the end. It felt like a last minute tacked on thing just to give the drama it's last OMG moment. But even still with that, everything turns out fine in the end, so it's minor and it certainly didn't ruin it for me. Some people may think the ending was interpretable, but I don't think so at all.
Acting was absolutely fantastic. I was blown away by Song Hye Kyo's acting, she was so great. Zo In Sung too.
OST is also fantastic. Only 5 songs though, but can't stop listening to Winter Love by The One, such a powerful song.
All in all, a great drama. Great beginning, and great ending. Completed about 50 Kdramas now, and this one definitely enters my top 3.
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STORY
The story has been done before, many times, in many different ways, but that doesn't mean it is any less interesting here. The description that is given, pretty much sums the very base idea, without spoiling anything,i just want to add that he doesn't JUST start living with her, there is a reason. I feel that the description should have made that reason clear to attract more viewers. The description, certainly, didn't make me curious about the show, the diverse reviews did (and the lead actors).
The drama revolves around the ideas of life, death, love and loneliness (with emphasis on the life and death part). Why should someone live? Is something or someone worth living for? Should people just die because their life has no meaning? Should someone live for himself, or find someone worth living for? All those ideas and many more are getting depicted in this drama. I loved the fact that the show adresses certain questions about living and dying. I am not sure if they can be appreciated by everyone, or you may, possibly, need to suffer by chronic depression or manic-depression to understand and appreciate them. However, i, myself, have quite a few times over the years troubled myself with such questions, and i found it refreshing that a show assesses such notions in such a wonderful and unique way i may add.
Love is obviously used here as the reason that someone should live and not give up. How can someone should live because someone else loves them, and you can learn to live and love yourself through that someone's eyes. Wonderful in every way. This is what this show does best, and it is basically the main reason i rated it with a high grade!
Since i started talking about the positive things of the show, i'll continue by saying that another thing this drama got right was the character development. The characters grew in 16 episodes so much. They went from being selfish, closed up, self-hating and cynical to accepting theirselves, forgiving theirselves, and learning from each other how to love themselves. Wonderful once again how they start and how they end up.
The drama is very character driven. Pretty much, nothing happens plot wise.... ever... If you are expecting a melodrama that will keep you at the edge of your seat with plot twists and backstory developments, this is not the show for you. The show is good at what it does and that is to show how the 2 main leads grow closer together. If you like romance, you'll like this since their moments are officially the most romantic moments i've seen in any melodrama ever!
And this brings me to another great thing of the show and that was the fact that it wasn't the excessive tear-jerker i was expecting it to be. Did i cry? Yes. Did i cry a lot? At the beginning yes. Was my cry justified? Totally. I couldn't help but compare this to Missing you which was a total and absolute tear jerker. I remember the leads poored buckets of tears. Here, yes you will cry, but the cry is because of happy moments. I was crying with a smile on my face and i liked that. I also appreciated the fact that the most sad moments were the ones that weren't told. I mean, they both have sad and sentimental stories, but they are never told in our faces, we see them in flashbacks, but they aren't thrown at us in order to force us to cry. I'll give an example, the main actress has mommy issues because she was abandoned by her mother when she was young. You can feel her pain and how she feels without ever telling us she misses her mom. You can tell she still hurts and you can tell she cries herself to sleep every night and she cannot trust anyone because of it. The actess and the writting made me feel that without ever being told. I appreciated that a lot!
This pretty much, sums up what this show got right. The drama, however, sadly, had quite a few drawbacks, that really made me angry along the way. Firstly, the show starts wonderfully, and it keeps it up for 5 episodes. Sadly after that it loses steam little by little, to the point of getting slow and borderling boring. Even if the episodes were easy to watch and didn't really drag, the drama was too character driven and some episodes felt too slow. Episodes 2-11 pretty much focuses on how the 2 main leads grow closer together. I loved it at first, then i bared with it, and at some point i was done. Still, all their moments (and they were many) were flawless, absolutely romantic, and unforgettable. (I praise the romantic soul who wrote them)
The main problem i had with the show, and the one that forced me to give it a 7.5 were the stupid and inexplicable character decisions... A drama that is character driven, relies on the characters and the way they act almost completely. Their actions, reactions and decisions should be rational, so the viewers could understand and relate. Here, i seriously had to force myself to let go of any shred of rationality i had in order to continue watching. There are some super ridiculous missunderstandings happening here for no reason, and on top of that (even when you let them go and you accept them even if it feels wrong), they get forgotten and never mentioned again in the next episode, like they never happened. On top of that, the characters' attidute was changing faster that the wind, making their actions even more inexplicable, stupid and unrealistic.
Overall, the story isn't anything groundbreaking, but it is indeed wonderful to watch them grow closer together, but not being able to be together for serious reasons. This combined with great character development and amazing romantic moments, made the show for me. The only drawback was those stupid irrational moments that made me angry.
ACTING
Almost flawless
Jo In Sung gave the performance of his career. I liked him in its ok thats love, but he outdid himself here. His emotional moments were the best i've seen in a kdrama thus far. He made me believe he was actually crying, the way he was desperately trying to keep his tears from dropping in a lot of the scenes, broke my heart. He was great and wonderful.
Song Hye Kyo. My first time watching the actress and she was great. She pulled off what i thought it wasn't possible, she made me believe she was blind. She wasn't flawless, but she was good at what she did.
Jung Eunji. I am not a fan of eunji as an idol, but omg the girl is talented. She can obviously sing, but her acting is good too! I wouldn't have guessed she is an idol originally if i hadn't already known. I've seen her in Reply1997, but there was no competition there, most of the actors were idols. Here she showed what she can really do, even if her character felt a lot like her reply1997 character. What i loved the most were the moments of mixed feelings she really got through to me. Her character was conviniently used to tie loose ends of the story, and was underdeveloped in general. She did good.
Kim Bum. I feel he was overshadowed by JIS. He was good, but in front of JIS he felt small, if you understand what i mean. However, he definately didn't bring the show down. The 2nd male and female leads were underused and underdeveloped in general, it probably wasn't even the actor's fault i feel this way.
RECOMMEND/REWATCH
To be honest i'd recommend it only if you a melo fan. I think melo fans are ready to sit back and watch slow episodes with only romantic and dramatic scenes between the 2 leads. Nothing *wowing* happens here in terms of story, so this is definately not for everyone.
Would i rewatch this? Probably not, it was alright, but it did feel slow after a while, and infuriated me at some point, so no.
THE ENDING
I'll give the ending a special part, of this rather huge review that noone will read, since i saw that most people hated the ending. It is true that the drama gets dragged after episode 12 (interestingly, i enjoyed the last 4 episodes more than the middle of the drama). Episode 14 felt like a very logical and nice ending that flew normally out of the show. The writters, apparently, wanted a happy ending though. Episode 14 ends in a rather pessimistic way, but not necessarily sad. However, the last episode was the best episode of the show imo. It exceeded expectations, and it was another reason that i rated the drama with a 7.5. Up to episode 15 i was getting ready to give it a much lower score, but the ending was wonderful. It keeps you guessing on whether what you see is real or not, but this is not your typical ending on a cliffhanger. Here, the ending basically depends on how you comprehend what happened up to that point, and what you want to believe but in any case, without it being too unrealistic and without letting more loose ends that they absolutely had to (that were unimportant from where i stand), they gave us a happy ending (no matter how you choose you see it) that really healed my soul after a roller coaster finale episode filled with emotions! I'd be so angry if it had finished any other way.
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Acting/Cast: I can't imagine anyone doing these characters any better. I can't think of much to say because all of the characters were portrayed perfectly by the actors. ^^
Music: The music really matched the visuals of the drama and the songs were all amazing.
Rewatch Value: I wanted to start rewatching it before I finished it!
Basically, you should really watch this drama. It was shot beautifully and the story and acting is phenomenal. Definitely my favorite one to date.
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The good poinnts first. I was so hooked in everything this drama had, from story to its ost(the ost was on repeat on my ipod for a really long time). I was worried at first because when it wasn't yet airing the preview looked too perfect I might get disappointed when the drama airs. This drama turned me into a Jo In Sung and Song Hye Kyo fan. This drama was just so darn good. It was so good, it changed the way I choose what drama to watch next. Yes it wasn't perfect, but the way Jo In Sung and Song Hye Kyo performed saved the drama. Just amazing acting skills, especially JIS.
Now the flaws. The first few episodes was really good. But as the story progresses, I felt like it lacked something. It just felt like the story just went on and on and on without any explanations. It included too many unnecessary scenes. And of course, the ENDING. It felt like the ending was to simple to end such a good drama. It was dragged, and confusing.
I don't want to end my review negatively, so anyways this drama is still GOOD and I would rewatch this just like the other dramas I loved.
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I think I will begin with good points.
First of all this drama held me on the corner of my chair all the time. As the drama is about deception, and the liar is the main character, and none other than the handsome and unbelievably hot Jo In-Sung, I felt conflicted all the time, from one point I wanted Young to believe him, I wanted him to win over her, so that he can get the money and love on, but from another, I was against her falling for his lies, as I liked Young's cold and calculative logic about his behavior, and every time she caught him on his act, I checked points in her favor.
Another good point: the most mature male lead character ever seen by me in a Korean drama. Can you believe it? A mature Korean drama character... I was shocked myself... The moment I came to really adore Soo's character is when he got the bracelet from Young and was thinking that for the first time he was thinking, how much pain HE is going to live through after his farce was over. He, of course, knew how much pain he would inflict into Young, but I liked him more as a human being as he knew, he was in that lie deeper that he ever wanted to be.
I can't say say all the nice things I was thinking about Young in the beginning of the drama, as they all got erased from my brain because of her zombie acting during all 4 last episodes...
The character that does not leave my mind is MooChul... damn... that man's charisma was just oozing from him, though of course, everybody will hate him from the start, but after knowing him more and after his character's development... I think everybody must come to like the man!
Now the bad point! The ENDING! The director and the writers can give lessons "How to ruin a perfect drama with the last 4 episodes"... What the hell was wrong? How could this drama end like that? I was so shocked, I couldn't believe my eyes. Nothing made sense... everything just happened... and then one year later... and then again... some thins happening... the end... Oh My God... I was going to give this drama a 10, but damn, they ruined it so badly...
Not end my review with a negative note, I am saying, this drama is great, I honestly love it, no, really, despite the ruined ending it gave me a lot of breathless moments and beautiful (a little strange, yes) romance and friendship (?)... The music was great, both the score and OSTs. The cinematography is awesome, so clear and so vivid, I definitely like the HD camera SBS has gotten its hands on.
Try it, for sure, I know I will come back for it too...
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The actors.. were really great. Jo In Sung and Song Hye Kyo were both exceptional; all the supporting cast were very good. Kim Bum's character in this leaned towards his role in 'Unstoppable High Kick'.. the unshakeable,loyal friend. He was good, though I didn't really understand why his character did everything he did.
The music was on the spot, without being too much. I liked it.
The story was good. Wasn't overly dramatic. I couldn't digest some things initially- like the weird definitions of love that people held and what it drives them to do, but the story tries to make us understand even that.
I also liked all the very pretty earrings Song Hye Kyo wore in every scene(though it probably has nothing to do with rating a drama).
What I didn't like so much:
Like I said before, many characters(except the main leads), have a weird understanding of love.
And, Though the ending was made out to be picture perfect, it was more like a dream sequence made to please the audience. It didn't answer many questions, or feel naturally arrived at.
Also, it gets a bit slow towards the end, and maybe there wasn't enough 'chemistry' between the leads or what- but I didn't really care if they got together or not in the end. In fact, I think I would have preferred a more real ending to this.
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Let's start with the good points: star-studded and gorgeous cast, gorgeous colours, stylish sets & shooting locations, and moving music.
Additionally, the show started off really well. Song Hye Kyo (Young) and Jo In Sung (Soo) have great chemistry, and it's exciting to watch Soo do all he can to con his way into the hearts of Young and those in her core circle. Kim Bum (Jin Sung) and Eun Ji (Hee Sun) also contribute some laughs to this show.
Now that brings me to the bad: because of that great chemistry, I felt there were several uncomfortable moments in the show between the pair (can't say more without giving it away). And the story disappointingly deteriorates (towards the final third (approximately) after the good start.
There were so many unnecessary twists and turns in the story that did not contribute at all to my understanding of the characters, or their motivations for their past actions. I went into this with my eyes fully open that it was a makjang type of show - full of tragedy, chaebol antics etc. However, I expected more seeing that it was from the writer of Padam Padam, which was tragic, moving, and TOTALLY MADE SENSE.
I would only rewatch this drama for the cute moments between Soo and Young, as well as Jin Sung and Hee Sun.
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But this drama is worth your time! Because the acting is amazing! I fell in love with all the actors and how well Song Hye Kyo portrayed the blind Oh Yound. I even fell in love with the bad guys! The chemistry felt so real, they have chosen the right actors for the roles.
Also the music, it really sets the tone and they fitted well with every scene. Sometimes it was a little bit to much of the same song in one episode, but that's personal.
I think I wouln'd rewatch this soon because of the dragging at the end, it was bothering, but that can be personal n_n.
Very well, watch this drama if you're in for some romance, little laughs, bits of action and a quite good story.
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Three words: Beautiful. Stellar. Heartbreaking.
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