Asp
chilling under the foliage
This review may contain spoilers
What started off as a rather interesting story ended up mediocre about halfway through. Despite the decent chemistry between the leads and a refreshing premise mixed in with two rather cliched tropes, the execution of all of these things together was incredibly confusing to digest. The drama attempted to be a few different genres in one, which was kind of reminiscent of Strong Woman Do Bong Soon but that one was actually fun to watch even with some amount of nonsense that it had. But in this case, the bit of romance that we had was pushed aside in the latter half for the sake of the story, so you might think to yourself that it's because the story is going to have a big revelation and the qualms over human morality that will surely follow with it. Yeah, no.
So past episode 10, there were some horrifying lessons about pushing blame onto a third party for your own problems and that if you lack any professionalism while working it's good because in both cases someone else should have empathy for any issues you might have as an individual. This means that instead of seeking professional help or finding ways to cope with it, you force your own burden onto others because your life and how you are living it is apparently their problem, especially if they have no close ties to you whatsoever. I can't stress how ridiculously stupid and also dangerous a message that is - to lump all of that mental weight onto another party in order to ruin their life because of a single thing that they did (which is a purely professional decision at that).
The mental maturity of supporting characters in this show is in unison equal to about a 3 and even that is stretching it. Some scenes made me question what the director was smoking while approving them because serious workplace issues shouldn't be comedic due to the skewed moral lesson you are trying to pummel your viewers with.
It's laughable and on top of that insulting that a country with a really high rate of suicides deals with the subject manner in this way through the content that they offer to their audience. What's even more aggravating is people going scot-free after doing criminal acts because we live in lulu land and people should forgive and live and let go when someone literally walks away from murder with zero regrets. Ridiculous.
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Between a great love and even greater responsibility
Ancient love poetry has been a slow drama to get into right from the very start. The first episodes were a bit tiring to go through and the setup they hold for later execution felt weak and underdeveloped. Supposedly the lives of the great Gods should have a bit more backstory than what we were given in the beginning, considering everything that comes after is reminiscent of their relationships and origin. From about episode nine or so there is more development where the story is finally getting somewhere interesting, but then eventually we have a huge time skip, and oh my, does it help to keep the show alive. Although at that point the story becomes a rehash of cliches a lot of Xianxia novels and shows made after them have, I still think this was the strongest point of the whole show.This brings me to the last part of the story where all of the beforementioned development goes nowhere in particular, as the same old problem from the past is brought back again. Unlike Ten miles of peach blossoms, for example, a story where love is a secondary objective at best, Ancient love poetry is a story primarily about love and sacrifice for the greater good. The whole time during watching this the viewer struggles alongside the characters with the same dilemma they have, in the process hating many decisions the characters make for the sake of attempting to keep both love and responsibility satisfied. Is all of that worth it? The ending itself makes it unclear, but I suppose the whole point is that we get to see just a glimpse of that story, and we get to decide how much trouble a love that great is worth.
Plot discussion aside, I was impressed with the male and female leads that were chosen; their acting leaves little to be desired and their chemistry is superb. Whatever faults I can find when it comes to them I attribute to cliched writing at times and lack of romantic scenes for a good portion of the story. We could have had and certainly deserved to see much more than that. The love triangle is practically unobtrusive and non-existent; the second male lead has his faults but treasures his friends above everything else.
One major positive aspect of this story are its supporting characters, as there are more than a few of them that you will come to care about during the progression of the show. Despite some plot holes and unresolved stories, the majority of what is shown gets a resolution in the very end, which is also another plus for me.
The villains are of the saddest and scariest kind, those that start of perfectly normal but end up evil due to blackening over time. Of course, this means you have a lot of tedious scenes of power misuse that people around them tolerate beyond any reason or common sense, which made this old cliche dampen a lot of screentime that could have been used differently. However, it's not as bad as in Ten miles or Ashes of love, but maybe only because this drama has fewer episodes. I'm kind of scared to think what other scheming we could have had with an additional ten to twenty episodes, for I have already seen more than enough of it. The villains get away with a lot and get little to no repercussions for it, and at times it feels like the protagonists just ignore a lot of what they do which will make just about anyone watching this angry. But hey, it's a cliche.
The music that was used in the background of the scenes, as well as the opening, was pretty good, however not as memorable as some other similar shows.
I wouldn't rewatch this show; it's a bit too sad and too frustrating to deal with for a second time. However, for its very likable female lead and sometimes the male lead as well (when he is not hit by the hammer of the scriptwriter/novel writer themselves), side characters that I cared about and that each had a purpose for being there as well as overall world-building and great acting from everyone, this drama was more than a good watch. I'm hoping we get a second season that is based on the sequel of the book so our collective grievances over some characters can be put to rest.
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- male lead who has eyes only for the female lead,
- male lead written by men/women who hate relationships and normal human socialization,
- female lead written by men/women who hate women,
- villains that don't get any consequences for their malicious actions towards others,
- good side characters (who randomly disappear for 1-2 episodes at a time),
- time skips that feel unnatural,
- plot ???
Bit of a chore to get through because of the forcibly good-natured female lead who is portrayed as a very shallow person towards her own family and yet is nice and trusting to every random character sprite that loads into any episode. Her parents disappear for half of the drama and she doesn't care because she has reasons which don't make sense to anyone but whoever wrote this character. On another note of why she is the contender for the worst character ever, even after she starts returning the feelings to the male lead, she treats him worse than anyone else she knows. She is more appreciative of people who mean her ill will than someone who always fixes all of her problems. A good example of this is her being dismissive of her female friend at times, whilst that same friend is the one person who stands up for her in the face of any problems that occur.
The male lead is disturbingly controlling, obsessive, and pushy with the female lead for the best sentence we have all heard as women while growing up, 'He's a boy, that's just how they act'. The first part of the show is one giant bully guide because, as the male lead himself says in one of the episodes, 'Only I can bully her, no one else can.' True love right here, omg. But I guess we will forgive him because he is super hot and does all these kabedons, as that is more important than having a non-toxic relationship portrayal in a show being watched by people of all ages.
Rejoice, for there are no love triangles, quadrangles, or other lovely geometrical shapes, mainly due to the male lead being super obsessive, so everything that is not the female lead is non-existent to him. This did, however, create a bunch of friendships and some decent side characters that were least painful to watch in this whole ordeal.
The shitty people category was taken straight from a historical Chinese romance novel where we have an 'innocent flower' villain who hates the female lead over the dumbest things ever, like picking up a blade of grass that they wanted when they were three years old. Yes, it's that stupid. And no, they don't get punished or redeem themselves in any manner because who would want to see that, right? The smackdowns that this person gets from the male lead were kind of funny though, but it all goes down the drain because the female lead is there to coddle them.
There are three time periods this show takes place in, and they're weird because in one episode they're in high school and after two school events they're graduating. Then university time where they're graduating after two episodes. The female lead, for example, swaps so many jobs in such a short time that I wondered if they were time traveling. I guess they wanted to show a love story that spans a longer period of the characters' youth, but to do so, they could have extended the episodes a bit so it would have felt natural and didn't require a timeline chart.
Then there was a bunch of seemingly interesting plotlines that were started and then didn't go anywhere. They just get discarded and we never see anything about them again. The side characters have some problems to resolve, we proceed to not see them for a while, villains do villainy shit and then the side characters are back after that. It's all one big glob of an ill-cooked plot.
This show could have been better. They had the characters and the right idea but it seems that current media just can't let go of promoting toxic relationships and how to build them. Luckily we as the viewers can stop supporting these kinds of stories and watch shows with better quality.
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It feels like you get beaten over the head with this line all the way through the first part of the show. I don't like the sentiment that we shouldn't seek justice for our families or our people just because we should live and let go. I especially don't like the narrative that because we are women we shouldn't go for that and instead should shove our morals and integrity aside and just consider having a fun and chill life with someone. Because if we do try to follow our own path, moral code, values, love and respect for our family and fellow countrymen, the show scriptwriter will make sure to beat us with the idea that revenge is bad and women can't do anything and need to be saved all the time. I wish I was joking with this statement, but then again I have seen this whole thing in its entirety. The amount of times the female lead goes about her plans completely recklessly and then needs to be rescued exceeds the amount of patience I had to watch it happen.
If I squint, it might be forgivable that she doesn't use her brain if that is just a part of her personality but the problem is, she lacks having any in the first place. In fact, the first actress that appears as the female lead has portrayed a completely different person from the second actress which made the transition between the two so jarring and questionable over the course of the rest of the show. I tend to like Zhao Lusi's acting but I have felt the very lack of it in numerous serious scenes that could have been done better. It often left me with a weird feeling of what the show wants us, as the viewers, to consider it to be. The comedy sure is there but with such a grim starting point, I have found it quite weird to swallow after the first episode.
Now here comes the biggest problem in the whole show, which is the plotline and its arrangement which most of the time doesn't make any sense. We start off with a big event, then there is a whole load of nothing but creepy behavior from the male lead upon his very disinterested female lead. Then there is this idea that the female lead should feel sorry for something she has done to the second male lead as if we didn't see the shitfest that happened in episode one. Why? Just for the sake of tying in the romantic aspect of the story while the female lead herself has absolutely zero interest in any of that. It comes off as so ingenuine and cheap that I wasn't sure what I was even watching.
All of that gets somewhat rectified in the second part of the drama where the plot starts unwinding at a rapid pace. There the romance and love scenes between the leads truly flourish and were enjoyable to watch. That is if I understood where such big romance came from in the first place. From the male lead, we understand that there is a big obsession due to plot exposition but when it comes to the female lead and her abrupt flip in feelings towards him, the transition makes zero sense.
The secondary couple suffers even more, as their scenes are boring and we are not given an explanation why the second male lead likes the second female lead; it just sort of happens as if it was there the whole time, even though she had nothing likable to him in the first place. I think there is a pattern here when it comes to shoddy romance writing.
The villain couldn't have been more cartoonishly evil so they made sure to give them the super evil-themed villain laugh as well. I guess if you gotta go the whole way, you just gotta.
The supporting cast besides the second couple I have found more enjoyable to watch, but sadly just like everyone else in this story, they never get any character growth. I understand the show writers; if you can't even make your own main character bearable to watch in terms of basic intelligence and logical reasoning or your main selling point (romance) believable, then fleshing out other characters would be a really difficult task to do.
The only thing I liked and never skipped in this drama was definitely the OST, as the song is bittersweet and tells of a story better than the one we got in the end.
When it comes to the ending, as you would expect after this essay of a review, of course, it's been stamped with the Chinese drama endings seal of approval. I honestly don't find it to be bad, albeit extremely confusing unless you have read the book or you have your fun at theorizing what did the writer want to say. Speaking of the book, I think the majority of the issues with the drama version could have been avoided if they revamped the order of the plot and added more backstory to the main characters. It would have helped to build upon that connection that they have shown later on in the show, as well as this great love of the male lead who has silently watched the woman he adores from afar for many years. Hey, Guardian has done it well, they could have too. Even if it meant extending the show length to another ten to twenty episodes.
All in all, I expected more and so should you.
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Decent romcom ruined by clichés
I would've originally rated this a 6.5 and left it at that, but the scriptwriter made me quite angry with the last ten episodes of the drama so I will share why because I need to vent my grievances.If you want to watch a drama about a young romantic couple that's lighthearted and heartwarming, then you should watch the first twenty episodes of this show. Anything beyond that has sadly fallen into the trap of lazy, cliché Cdrama writing that was insulting to watch and then even more so insulting to realize that it will drag on for another ten to twelve episodes for no reason other than stretching out the number of episodes for the views.
The very characters that seemed to have some salt in their heads would go on to make the dumbest suggestions that allowed the plot development to regress into what every Cdrama viewer hates - a misunderstanding blown out of proportions and characters acting completely differently from how they were originally presented in order to fit the dumbed-down narrative. If I wanted to watch women battling it out in a royal harem, I would go and watch shows that have done that in a much smarter manner. They could have added practically any other plot device to extend the show and it would have made the story more believable and less unbearable to watch. Also, excusing some criminal behavior that puts people at risk of their lives just for the sake of making everyone friends? Why? I have seen it time and time again in Cdramas but I certainly don't like the message they're pushing to the viewers and that kind of a character getting a good ending after seeing their screentime mostly consisting of pushing people off metaphorical cliffs. And it's not even one character but a few of them, utterly ridiculous.
Of course, this show also falls apart when it comes to the second male lead, who comes out as a genuinely pitiful, kindhearted person that deserved much, much better than what he was given. At one point in the plot, it seemed he would be given a good story of his own, only for the plot to kick back in and make him miserable again.
Everything good about any of these characters is ignored by the third part of the drama for no reason whatsoever; the plotlines and relationships that were developing thus far have been abandoned for the sake of dragging unnecessary conflict between the main couple, which to my horror, didn't finish until the very last episode. Otherwise, if the show did end at twenty episodes this would have been a very enjoyable watching experience.
All in all, it was a watchable drama until the last third, which I consider to have been a fever dream anyway.
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When melancholy becomes the selling point
This was a passable drama that suffered from a lack of engagement in the plot. Contrary to what I'm seeing a lot of people's reactions to the ending are, it made a lot of sense for what was the premise of the story. The ending is one of the decent things about this drama.The main problem I had when going through the episodes was not related to the story itself, but rather the chemistry and connection between the lead actors. A big part of that is how the scenes and interactions themselves were written and also the wooden acting from the female lead, as she only shined when it came to acting sad or meek. Now that by itself wouldn't have been a problem if the whole drama didn't, as a result, have that depressing vibe from the start to the end. The scenes with these two left me half-asleep at best and skipping watching an episode for days at a time at worst. The other couples incidentally also have sad stories themselves.
The only instances of comedy that can be found in this whole show are the scenes with the lovable trio of the supporting cast, who very much kept the show going and made it watchable. I cared about their friendship and found it important for them not to have a shabby romance plot forcibly inserted into what was a well-crafted relationship between people who would typically be in a love triangle.
To summarize, has the story accomplished the goals of its setup? It has.
Has it taken the viewers on an interesting, well-paced, meaningful journey to get there? No.
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The story is realistic and naive at times but doesn't forget to leave an impression of hopeful at the end. Even though they're crucially very different, I would say it reminds me of 'Always (2011)' in its development of characters and the way they connect to each other. It rolls out as a comedic romcom at start, building up the bond between the couple naturally while maintaining its realistic integrity, and gets more serious as the plot goes on without forcing the narrative on you, which is always a plus.
Park Joong Hoon carried the movie, his character reminiscent of comic-based gangster guys who are frank but not explosive, as well as being caring and supportive of the main female without any annoying egoism involved. I cared for this good-natured gangster, and in return he made me care for every other character next to him, so it is more of a movie about him with her being a part of his life, rather than it being otherwise. Jung Yoo Mi, for her part, did really well alongside him and their chemistry was felt even in the scenes where I think it wasn't planned out to be.
If you want to sit down for a heartfelt weekend movie that will leave you with good thoughts and positive attitude, give it a try. It's a beautiful movie.
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The story barely made any sense and even when it did, it left you wondering if perhaps they wrote a little bit of the script and then realized how many plot holes it has and then added onto it, which made it very weirdly paced and mostly mellowed out and too chill for what this was originally supposed to be.
Kudos to Im Joo Hwan, I'm pretty sure that during the airing time of this drama the commentary that I've read both on MDL and other websites pointed out how fond the viewers were of his character and how much we've all been invested in his story from the very start. The other characters, however, were quite bland and felt a little bit like stand-in cardboards for Twilight-ish kinda roles, definitely not that appealing. I did root for the secondary couples, since the main ship had zero chemistry and even the romantic scenes felt awkward to watch most of the time.
The saving grace of this drama is its OST, which I'm sure we'll all remember for quite awhile, it greatly helped in a few moments in the plot where the acting was terrible and the overall musical background to the scenes was well-thought out.
To be honest, the only reason I could watch this through all of its episodes was because I watched only one episode in awhile, and took it as a slow-paced but consistent messy drama that it is. I would definitely never watch it again, but it was surprisingly such a miss in so many aspects that everything lacking did lower its level to a very linear-feeling experience which was, due to its comfortingly non-changing nature, strangely watchable.
If you're here for a supernatural romantic story, go watch something else from the genre. If you're here for a slow-paced, not so serious, modern-setting varation of the original manhwa that you're not gonna binge watch, you might want to try it. It would be very dishonest to recommend this as anything else, so if you want to experience this kind of a story in a proper way and to enjoy some beautiful art and writing in the process, opt for the manhwa instead.
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This review may contain spoilers
This drama is relatable and fresh; it surprised me by how much I waited to watch it every week and the scenes themselves didn't make me skip anything, so it's a good length for the watch value.The story itself is centered around office work and interpersonal relationships of the workers rather than romance, although there are very dramatic elements to it all the way to the last episode which were a bit predictable but still kept it going.
I loved the cast; even though it was a pretty tame genre, the conflicts and overall relationships between the employees reminded me of some more action-driven teams in other dramas that are in detective or court setting.
The main OST is very nice to listen to and embodies the MC well, while the musical backgrounds in scenes were not intrusive or awkward.
In my opinion, I wouldn't rewatch this drama because the conflicts have been resolved and it's not the type to be rewatched as it is a one-watch experience.
I have tried to keep the review as spoiler-free as possible, however, this is a well-made drama that is nowhere near light-hearted as you may think, and whereas a lot of viewers have a problem with it not being overly romantic, I don't think the romance itself was the point here. The soul of this drama is in its people, fleshing them out as they are and how far are they willing to go for themselves or others. There is no chance of excusing a character for who they are and that in its essence is what a lot of dramas have done badly in the end. The friendships and secondary romance couples have enough screentime and are not forgotten, so you do care about all of them throughout the series. The real antagonist is dispersed in little aspects of each of their personalities, as it should be, which makes this drama as realistic as all the everyday situations that happen in an office.
I don't find MDL scores that truthful at all (in fact lately, it feels like opening imdb), so don't overlook this drama because of that, it is much better than plenty of things that are currently airing and have aired just before it.
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The story is original, contains plenty humorous and loving scenes and most importantly doesn't fall into traphole of kdrama cliches which want to make you pull your hair out in each episode. Every wondering question is answered at the beginning of an episode in a flashback of scenes you have not yet seen which also greatly helps both main and support characters with overall development.
When it comes to the cast, I must say I found the entirety of them hilarious and well-matched, especially the main couple dynamic and second male lead's relation towards them that did not in any way infringe on the special kind of bond that the main couple has, which I've found to be a problem whenever there is a love triangle in a drama. Yoo Sang Hyun's character was eccentric to the point that I was glad whenever there was a scene with him because he was such a sarcastic drama queen in any given situation.
This drama does have mostly subtle musical background, but some of the heavier scenes have inappropriate choices of soundtracks that takes away from the supposedly dramatical scene and instead makes it comical, which I'm beginning to suspect was intentional by the producers.
It is, without a question, the warmest drama you could see this year so stray no further; the melo tag is overshadowed by the well-written plot and characters, the romance stands out on its own as the centre point of the story intertwined with grand ideas of connecting everyone into one big family and supporting each other. However, in that aspect it also did tend to go too far into the fairytale concept with some scenes so I did find it naive, but it is not meant to be anything else than a story that will leave you with the best kind of feelings after you're done watching it.
Highly recommended.
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I had to watch this over the span of two months because from the fifth episode on it just wasn't interesting enough; the plot was dragged and all over the place, most of the character actions didn't make any logical sense and the fact that they took a different setting just to force the typical couple dynamic of hot and then cold jerk and understanding and annoyingly forgiving woman just makes all of this feel like you're watching the same old thing all over again.
With these things in mind, I suggest completely letting your logic and reason fall asleep and then settling down to watch this because this isn't a show that can really be taken seriously...otherwise it would get offensive.
The story brings absolutely nothing new to the table except for the appearance of the third male lead. That's it; we have the cool-headed, cold-hearted male psychiatrist who doesn't believe in love and decides to use that in his actual work in an experiment that frankly insults the profession of a psychologist. Enter the main female who has some super powers given to her by the late Austrian queen (not the historical version of course, because that wouldn't be romantic and in the dipshit Korean drama heroine fashion, she needs to be ignorant), and uses them to help people overcome their hurdles in life. There were times when you could glimpse at how smart her character could've been but somewhere around the middle of the show that was all thrown to the wind and consistently dragged out so as to get to the 16 episodes cap.
The supporting characters very quite funny and entertaining to watch, especially the scenes of the other two ships but there was also problematic writing that made some genuinely lovable characters insensitive and dumb. The plot is also intertwined with a few cases that were there to announce that it's a psychology drama but all of that disappeared in the second half where I could see many commenters on Viki asking 'What happened to [insert character name]' because both the story and the writing were quite frustrating and lost at that point.
In regards to acting, I think everyone did a pretty good job. It's only due to reusing the same old K-drama type of characters which made the entire cast unbalanced at times and the script generally had an issue with character development.
The musical background was neat, I don't recall songs being out of sync with the overall feeling of the scenes but neither was there a particularly memorable tune.
I personally won't rewatch this drama, the draggy plot is simply not worth it.
There was a great chemistry between the leads in the kissing scenes (quite hot at that), but it fell short in the other ones; as much as they have tried to carry across this 'sizzling' romance. That is, of course, to be blamed on badly timed scenes coupled with immature ones. Sung Joon did some incredible acting but his character is built on layers upon layers of mistrust, deceit and lies, while on the other side, Go Hye Rim is gullible to the point of stupid which makes for a lot of lovely episodes that will make your blood boil. I also feel that a lot of key points of the plot were rushed or simply passed over as if nothing happened, they crammed a few cliches near the end and some characters who were important were never heard from again.
Truthfully, there is so much wrong with this drama that it would take a long time to summarize and I don't think it's worth it to take it so seriously. This is neither 'Kill me, heal me' nor is it 'It's okay, that's love' and I think it shouldn't be taken that way at all. With a lighthearted approach, this can be watched as a cute albeit cliched drama with a few steamier kissing scenes. Anything other than that is just pulling at the leg.
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This drama is no joke; it shoves the melo right in your face at every moment; there's no breather even though Jung Kyung Ho has made it quite hilarious through his acting. I barely recognized Kim Se Yeon, she's completely different from her role in Prosecutor Princess and though a bit bland in characterization, I really enjoyed her acting. The antagonist was so-so for me, he really doesn't grow on you during the drama because he's just so linear; his scenes felt like a drag to watch which is a very big problem in a drama of this genre. Na Ok Hyun was the best for me in this, there's nothing better than a badass cop that simply gets stuff done regardless of the danger that she is presented in.
I loved the ringtone song which dates back all the way to 94' and is a very gentle and uplifting tune for the scenes it was used in. The ost is okay, the instrumentals were timed well and the overall music mix was done good.
To be fair, I would rewatch this only for Jung Kyung Ho, he is just too funny and makes life of any drama he is given. However, that's in the long run since the melo is very strong here and there's happier stuff on the market.
Summarized, this is a rich and compelling story that won't leave you bored, albeit will make you frustrated with how little complexity was given into the build of the antagonist and how draggy the plot gets at times. There's also the issue with the lack of chemistry between the leads, at least from Kim Se Yeon's character but that's only because of the way she was written. In terms of connection to the title and the plot itself, it's a success!
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When it comes to the story, it was quite the interesting premise with decent amounts of romance, comedy and murder. However, whereas in the first ten episodes it flowed well, in the last few it just got so hasty and rushed that they've accumulated gaping plot holes that just blew my mind with how stupid they are. It's kind of disappointing if you figure out the ending few weeks before the drama is over. Writers, come on. We're not that slow.
The acting was good, I liked Park Yoo Chun in this role, nothing too stellar about it, but his character had a cute personality. Shin Se Kyung did okay, albeit a bit bland but I guess she had to fit into the confining outlines of her very limited character. I liked Yoon Jin Seo's acting and especially her character because she executed her well. But, all of these pale in comparison to the main antagonist because his acting is very chilly and I'm kind of disappointed that they didn't him enough justice, I think he was far more complex than the few scenes they gave him as a form of character exploration. The supporting cast was good, though I mostly didn't get the point of the comedian unit...it just faded off into background at some point and I forgot about it until the end of the show.
Music was okay, nothing was timed too awkwardly and I liked the dangerous undertones of the serial killer scenes, though I think it was a bit showy in the dun dun dun way.
Personally, I would not watch this again, "mystery" has been resolved pretty soon and since that was the main point of this drama I don't see anything I'd like to rewatch here.
There's few commendable things to point out here, from a great villain to a pretty fast and natural romance, quick murder case solving, comedy breaks; it really had a great mixture of things to offer. But, it also has a lot of writing mistakes. They undervalued the antagonist, especially in last few episodes; it felt like they suddenly dumbed him down. The police unit was far too lax about everything and relied on unarmed civilians to complete stuff for them while getting them in danger too. Main couple had little chemistry and was far too cheesy, especially in last two episodes...I kind of caught myself thinking if it's the sama drama or have they changed the script writer because that was really weird to watch.
I was really conflicted while watching the last episode because I found myself thinking that a show that I happily waited for each week suddenly felt like a chore that I had to complete. Bearing all of this in mind, the rating is as it is mostly because of first ten episodes and though they very obviously rushed the ending I generally enjoyed this drama.
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For those who love the original Star Trek series, they will notice a similarity between Mister Spock and the main fella, with all of these quite troublesome feelings you get because Do Min Joon has different lifespan from everyone else and you start watching this show knowing how many people he'll lose down the road. Which is very terrifying to think about and might make it hard to watch in later episodes. That aside, don't worry, he is nothing like Mister Spock because he has executed his own character well, and frankly, he made his extraterrestial background very visible throughout the series. On the other side, Chun Song Yi was hilarious. I think she might be the most fun female lead in any series that I've seen so far, because she's not afraid of expressing herself fully in any given scene. As a couple, they complement each other in every sense, their chemistry is completely functional and the comedy relief scenes are up to the task in most parts.
Jeon Ji Hyeon and Kim Soo Hyun have done very well in their roles, I think that KSH is growing to be a great actor and I'm looking forward to both their new dramas/movies. From the other cast, Lee Jae Kyung was an incredible character up until last few episodes, I hate how small they made him in the end, he had the skills to pull off an entirely different, more impactful, lasting version of himself. I also liked Oh Sang Jin as he reminded me of classy old detectives and he was very cute while doing so.
Music is okay, nothing too memorable but nothing too awful either, the main ost is very heartfelt and nice to listen to, and the overall musical background has been timed well with the scenes.
As for the rewatch value, it's definitely a drama I'd watch again after some time, it has all the needed elements for it. However, I'm not a fan of overly angsty plots so this takes quite the score from the rewatching for me.
I loved this drama. There was an abundance of romance all around, bittersweet chunks that left the tissues wet, hilarious parts where I would rewind just to see them again. I watched the last few episodes slowly just to prolong the experience, which serves to show how enjoyable it was to watch. However, the score is 8.5 because of the immense angst toll from the second part, it completely faded out everything else. I also disliked how DMJ was tasking everyone with protecting CSY! In last two episodes it made me very irritated how jumpy the others were around her, she's a woman of her own, for cat's sake! And Lee Hui Kyung, you'll never move on? It's been twenty years man, come on! But aside from these two things, I liked the ending. I find that it was the most proper way of saying goodbye to this drama.
Recommended.
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If you're gonna watch an episode, keep in mind to have sacrifical food nearby, even if it's a small snack, because the meal consumption scenes will leave you hungry all the time.
So what's the plot? Well, here we have a few characters coping with their solitary lives, who bond through most simple, yet effective way ever - food times! When I was watching this drama, I often read comments about a 'foodie club' and I think that's pretty much the best description because their relationships were built and shaped through eating different and delicious meals (among other situations!). Of course, there's a bit of a murder mystery going on, just to add in a thrilling element to the story. But overall, it could be categorized as comedy, romance, friendship, suspense, mystery and slice of life.
It's been awhile since I've seen a good cast like this. Not only are the main characters very unique and different, but the supporting actors as well. We have a brash, confident, independent woman by the name Lee Soo Kyung, who often seems more of an old aunt being suspicious over everyone and plainly being harsh and unfriendly. But is that really so? It is through other characters that main heroine's role is brought out as it actually is, among everyone elses; both of her neighbours, each with their not so easy lives, her annoying boss and her friend's family, they're all well-expressed individuals with constant growth throughout the course of the drama itself. Among everyone mentioned, Lee Do Yeon made the most impact for me. That's because her character accumulated many social stereotypes that are blatanly shown by people surrounding her, which the writers have, in my opinion, deliberately made that way.
The opening song is fun; in fact, most of the songs were pretty good. There's also some karaoke scenes which enriched the sound section, so it's rather solid.
I suppose the rewatch value is okay, but seeing as the suspense would be gone, there's just the usual plot going on...which is, to be frank, nothing special. It's very interesting but it isn't anything revolutionary, unless you're amping up your hunger meter for some spicy chicken delivery. In that case, it's very recommended to watch it again.
So, taking into account the great acting, constant interest level through most episodes, well-thought-out relationships, shameless food porn scenes and a time well-spent, I rate this drama an 8.5. Reason for it not being a 9 is because the last two episodes were less exciting, there was a lack of romantic scenes and Yoon Soo Hee's character seemed toned down in acting quality when compared to anyone else. Overall, this drama made me realize the importance of enjoying your own food and hunting down local restaurants that serve Korean cuisine.
Recommended!
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