onceiwaskingofspain
Compelling Journalism/Revenge Thriller Burdened by Endless Coincidences and Cyclical Melodrama
Good Things:
• The enduring themes. For examination of ethics in journalism, the responsibilities of the free press to the citizenry, and personal vs. professional integrity it's top tier. The secondary themes of justice, revenge, and moving forward are equally well executed.
• The high-end production. Thanks to the screenwriter/director/ML's success with IHYV the previous year, it had a big budget and it shows. It looks more modern than most 2014 dramas and there's some memorable cinematic tableaus that highlight peaks in the story.
So-So Things:
• The genius ML. It was a tired trope even in 2014, and it hasn't aged well.
• The romance. Because of two large time skips, you never really see how or why the leads are in love; the story just tells you they are, and expects you to accept it. The adoptive-relatives angle is milked for every last drop of melodrama, which gets draggy and repetitive with manufactured conflict.
Bad Things:
• The glossed-over conclusion. Things are settled a bit too simply in both the plot and the romance, which is grossly unsatisfying after a long build up.
• The pacing. Twenty episodes was either too much or not enough. It starts slow, picks up in the middle, then zig-zags unevenly until so many sudden reveals and tidy resolutions are packed into the final episodes that the plot gets off kilter.
• The serendipitous plot. The entire progression of events from beginning to end is driven by one unlikely coincidence after another, which robs the characters of growth and agency. Events more often just happen rather than as a result of meaningful choices, which leaves the impact of what should be major developments lacking.
It's a 8.5/10 as a nuanced revenge thriller and around a 7 as a melodrama romance, so somewhere in the middle as a whole. Recommended if you enjoy the classic tonal Kdrama mix of comedy/tragedy/plot/romance and don't mind some wonky pacing, running-in-circles melodrama and a narrative progression that's overall too convenient.
• The enduring themes. For examination of ethics in journalism, the responsibilities of the free press to the citizenry, and personal vs. professional integrity it's top tier. The secondary themes of justice, revenge, and moving forward are equally well executed.
• The high-end production. Thanks to the screenwriter/director/ML's success with IHYV the previous year, it had a big budget and it shows. It looks more modern than most 2014 dramas and there's some memorable cinematic tableaus that highlight peaks in the story.
So-So Things:
• The genius ML. It was a tired trope even in 2014, and it hasn't aged well.
• The romance. Because of two large time skips, you never really see how or why the leads are in love; the story just tells you they are, and expects you to accept it. The adoptive-relatives angle is milked for every last drop of melodrama, which gets draggy and repetitive with manufactured conflict.
Bad Things:
• The glossed-over conclusion. Things are settled a bit too simply in both the plot and the romance, which is grossly unsatisfying after a long build up.
• The pacing. Twenty episodes was either too much or not enough. It starts slow, picks up in the middle, then zig-zags unevenly until so many sudden reveals and tidy resolutions are packed into the final episodes that the plot gets off kilter.
• The serendipitous plot. The entire progression of events from beginning to end is driven by one unlikely coincidence after another, which robs the characters of growth and agency. Events more often just happen rather than as a result of meaningful choices, which leaves the impact of what should be major developments lacking.
It's a 8.5/10 as a nuanced revenge thriller and around a 7 as a melodrama romance, so somewhere in the middle as a whole. Recommended if you enjoy the classic tonal Kdrama mix of comedy/tragedy/plot/romance and don't mind some wonky pacing, running-in-circles melodrama and a narrative progression that's overall too convenient.
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