dorabloom
At the beginning, I thought the drama's biggest asset was the budget put into clothes, scenes. In other words, I tend to think that the bigger the budget, the better the story. I can't explain my logic behind that, but enough of that.
This was one of the reasons that I started watching. The plot at the beginning was just a tad slow, but I understood very quickly that the drama needed some time to introduce everything to me properly. I kept watching anyway.
The contrast between the male and female protagonists' characters was exciting and promising, and so because of that contrast, I knew I was in for an adventure full of life lessons. I enjoy watching that.
I wasn't entirely wrong when I said I knew I was in for an adventure full of life lessons. The writers did make sure to overload the drama with life lessons, but ultimately they ended up going too far with that sentiment.
While the writers probably intended for the drama to be realistic, they were not able to balance realism with satisfying the audience. With that being said, I believe all screenplay or drama or anything of this sort should be entertaining enough for the audience to keep watching. But as I advanced through episodes, I realized where the entertainment ends.
The drama started with more than 3 potential couples, where the majority of them were yet to be officially established. Great, the writers supplied us with other couples' stories so that we don't get tired of following the protagonists' storyline all the time. That was a smart tactic. However, without spoiling who loses and who wins, let me tell you - you'll be disappointed by how the couples say goodbye to you. It is especially disappointing because the writers spent so much time on all of them, polishing and defining them, only to discard them in the light of the only relevant pair - the protagonists. In fact, one of these couples was ruthlessly used and then thrown away by the writers to keep the protagonist storyline going. When I say this, it may sound like a normal deal that was only meant to serve as a life lesson in the drama, but let me tell you - there was no follow up after most of these couples' stories ended. As a member of the audience, I feel cheated that the drama took such a turn. All this hype for nothing. Towards the end of the drama, there was a lot of confusion over why some key scenes were not in the drama - by key scenes, I mean those that would only make sense to be included, and yet they were omitted. One episode later, I found out that those key scenes or moments may have happened, but we know nothing of that because there was a time skip that wasn't mentioned at all. Whoever directed this, really did a bad job at not making the plot frustrating, because there were several timeskips that were not mentioned - although I can't explain why it's so bad without spoiling the plot, they ruined my understanding and patience for the drama.
As someone else mentioned in another review, this is a brain-dead drama that is only slightly enjoyable while it lasts, but then you will get disappointed towards the end of the story. Although the writers intended to give us a life lesson, they gave us a 42 episode drama, which when summarized, is just protagonists arguing from the start to finish. Do yourself a favor and watch something else. This is not worth it.
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Even though the drama is over for me, I still want to cry a bit as I remind myself of the things one of the lawyers said to the protagonist prosecutor... Despite being in ugly situations 85% of the time, he held onto his faith for good civilians and never stopped believing that there are other good guys out there. The drama also happened to wrap up around his original statement, where he came to convince people not to vote for a biased referendum, and yet, nobody came to vote. He was the happiest man on earth when that happened, for he realized there are good civilians out there, who were aware that voting in the referendum would result in great losses. If you read this but you're worried that the drama was spoiled for you - don't worry, I didn't spoil anything for you at all. This is merely a minor detail to the story which serves as a message from the writers. The drama's ending that's focused on protagonists and antagonists is much more impactful.
Without rambling on and on, let me move onto the characters.
All characters and cast were fantastic, every single one of them was a bad ass. I love their tempers, however there is something the writers left behind in BG1. While I still liked the protagonists, there was a distinct lack of warmth in their backgrounds, in BG2. We were not really given much to decipher the stories behind our protagonists, other than the fact that they were hurt by BG2's antagonists before the drama started. Sometimes I even get the impression the writers did not want us to get to know the protagonists better, for obvious reasons. Watch the drama for yourself, I don't think I should go into more detail.
The antagonists were actually quite impressive too - the writers did not stick with the good ol' defeat the evil drama. There were good and bad kinds of evil in this drama, which in my opinion was very educative. Some antagonists were blatantly egoistic, but there were also some that still had morals. In fact, there were several times when I was able to sympathize with one of the antagonists because they were better than the other antagonists. It scares me, but at the same time satisfies me.
The plot was a masterpiece. It is far from being the plain old 16 episode drama showing you how the protagonists arrested the antagonist. Despite being shown who the antagonist is in episode 1, you will be surprised at how the drama proceeds with the plot. If you're tired of watching dramas with an obvious ending, this drama is perfect for you, because it does not have an obvious ending.
The ambient touch to the music was perfect for setting the mood. There was also korean hip hop or rap to balance it out, but also to show the strength and masculinity of the protagonists, which I believe was great. Seriously, it was a perfect fit for one of the most exciting things about this drama - the violence. By this, I of course mean the fights. In my personal opinion, I wish there was more fights in BG2, as it looks like there was more in BG1, but I'm not complaining. As the ending hints that there will be yet another BG drama, I really hope that the fights will get better for the upcoming BG3.
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