Reviews

A BIG NO!!

I was pretty excited to watch this due to the high ratings, but it didn’t keep my interest. I literally suffered through maybe 5 episodes, but dropped it. Very boring for me, but I can’t put my finger on why… I think because I’m comparing it with the acting and strong plots in other period Dramas I’ve watched. Dramas that I binged watched because they were so good. Dramas like: The Red Sleeve, The Crowned Clown, A Frozen Flower, all the Rurouni Kenshin Dramas, Empress Ki, Mr. Sunshine, Moon Lovers, just to name a few. Shogun just wasn’t good, but I guess it’s because I am comparing it to the ones I listed. I gave it a 4 for the production value. I was happy to drop it, my suffering is over. Maybe I’ll just re-watch Moon Lovers

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must watch

Queen of tears is a family drama based on a married couple who start by lacking romance, lots of misunderstanding and both having high ego. However when the drama unfolds, we can truly see the love they have for each other even though they have lots of misunderstanding between each other and so on, their love does not change. Moving forward, we get to see how the love of one another will make them die to save the other.

Hyunwoo (the male lead):
started off: egoistic, selfish & uncomfortable with current position
ended off as: kind, supportive, die for wife, smart and best husband

Hae in (the female lead):
started off: introverted, has ego, rude, and insecure about herself
ended off as: straightforward with her love, nice, cute & loving wife

OST's are amazing, especially if you're carat since 3 members of svt sing one of the main ost
if you do watch please understand the drama is a FAMILY based one so there will be lots of family time rather than just the couple themselves

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The humour is in the cringe

The overall story is interesting, the mystery behind Nant's disappearance really keeps your attention but outside of that the story is a bit lacking. There's barely any character exposition or growth, I couldn't quite grasp the motivations behind the actions of most of the characters. Once I started to slightly understand the characters, more characters were added who just stole screentime from other characters. My favourite characters are Nont, Zouey, First, Keen, and Peun. And that's only because I felt like their characters were flushed out properly. I understood the conflicted emotions, motivations, etc.

The acting was a hit and miss honestly. The actors who played Nont and Prom really did a great job, they had good chemistry and really did a great job at evoking emotions from me, really enjoyed seeing them on screen, they were the MVPs of the show. This doesn't mean the other actor's were bad, they tried but some scenes just felt too awkward, I struggled to get immersed in their world at some times.

The sound design was boring, barely noticeable, they only really utilised it during the intimate scenes. The choice in sound is supposed to give me an indication of what mood to feel but I constantly found myself staring at the screen confused.

I don't think I'll miss this series at all. I got to a point where I was just sort of hate watching because everything just felt prolonged. It didn't need 14 episodes and a possible 2nd season, everything could have been resolved in this one season. I don't think there's mouch rewatch value but I'll probably watch the 2nd season just so I can have some conclusion to the series.

This review is not meant to discourage anyone from watching the series. If you're looking for great storytelling and production, this is not the series for you but if you're looking for something cringe and funny (unintentionally) then this is the series for you. I spent most of my time just laughing at how cringe things were and oogling Prom. So have fun with it.

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Everyone is broken just trying to find their way in life. Now the question do we forgive them for their actions as it is their individual excuse.
The story answers this question for us as traumatic experiences shape us, who we are now for better or worse. I'm glad it never gave a predictable route to who wad the killer who was wrecking havoc on society.
The media showed us just how easy it is for us to be influenced easily as the truth got distorted many times.

This hopefully gives a message of how dangerous society can be and which sources of media can be trusted

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when love is loaded with life baggage's ..

"what if we we broke up that time ? If we hadn't got married ..we would have cherished the little happy memories we had ..there would've been no need for wounds to fester or scars to form" —Heain .

This drama made me dream about it for 4 weeks ...
the amount of real emotions I received from the two main leads was unbelievable ..

the story is real demonstration of the old saying "'We don't truly appreciate what we have until it's gone" ..
the cold-hearted cheabol daughter Heain who were deprived from affection fell in love with the soft-hearted kind Hyunwoo ..
Hyunwoo with his provider instinct fell in love with a beautiful Heain who seems has no means to survive this world and zero social skills .. (not knowing she is cheabol)

the two got married and were put in a situation were they have absolutely no skills to survive ... a lot of interesting topics were explored in the show of why marriage fails .. bad in-laws pressure , bad communication , emotional partner getting overwhelmed , emotionally-unavailable partner not being able to support , facing trauma individually instead of facing it together , silently resenting each other thinking they are suffering alone ...
there is a lot of subtle details in this show that is very interesting in the perspective of married relationship ..

what makes the show solid is the established relationship concept .. the love here is not the romantic one but the dirty painful one ... its when I respect your mother and tolerate your gossiping siblings .... its when I protect you even when I resent you / or even hate you... its when I forgive you and trust you even after disappointment ...the intimacy here was as simple as holding hands in bad times but it meant a'lot .

my only issue with this show is the plot progression .. the story at some points was progressing very slowly and other times was rushed and too many serious elements was pushed fast ..

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One of the best dramas

I don't normally write reviews. But I felt the need to do so for this one. I don't know where to begin. I'm out of words, all the emotions I felt watching this masterpiece. It left me in tears. It's called 'Queen of tears', after all. From the first episode to the very last, I was crying, laughing, then crying again. I felt angry, sad, and happy. The last time I felt all this from a show was "Crash landing on you." It was my number one. Now I have 2 number one cause I can't choose between them. What I can easily say is that it's one of the best kdramas I've ever watched.

Best performance from all cast I wouldn't change any of them. They cast the best for each role. The chemistry between Kim Ji-Won and Kim Soo-hyun is top-notch. I will miss each and every one of them. My weekends won't be the same.

If you like crash landing on you, you will definitely like this one for sure. I recommend this show 100%

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INCREDIBLE

This drama was just soooooooooo good! So the story is about this group of people that enter a game that turns dangerous because they realise that when people die in the game they go into a come in reality. So it's just about them growing together, building a bond and figuring out what happened, and why it is happening. It SUCH a well played out drama that it's truly exciting. The games were very innovative and different and I absolutely loved watching the growing relationships between each character, whether it be friendship, comradeship or romance, it was just magical. Loved watching this drama soo much and in sure you will too if you like dramas with exciting, clever plots and just as much romance and growing friendships. The storyline was really interesting and each episode was enticing! Watching this brilliantly laid out drama was truly incredible. The actors have done SUCHHH a good job in this drama, like they truly brought their characters to life, I absolutely enjoyed watching their onscreen chemistry with each other. And the music was just perfect! It perfectly suited the vibe of this drama, and it's soo great! Overall, it's an incredible drama that has a clever plot and brilliant storyline with cute characters that are so fun to watch, as fathers-daughters, friends, and something more. 🏚️🎮👩🏻🙂🧑🏻🎮🏚️

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Mai ChengHuan's growth to independence

TLDR: If you've read the discussions on Viki and MDL, you will have seen the overbearing, annoying and toxic mom labels. I won't deny that the mother was portrayed very well by actress He Sai Fei. And many people who are unfamiliar with Asian culture may not understand her portrayal, so they dropped the series because of her, even though she eventually strives to understand her children better, and they reach an understanding. Also, if you're just expecting a RomCom, this series is not for you.

This drama is more about family life and the relationships between the family members. Not many of us will have the economic background as the Mai family, who are living in government housing, and where the parents' big dream is for the government to demolish their building so they can collect the relocation money and move to the suburbs. Mr. and Mrs. Mai have sacrificed enough to be able to send their two children to college, and ChengZao had scholarships while also tutoring while attending school. He's in his early 20s and still sleeps on a cot in their living room. Older sister ChengHuan is 29 and diligently works in the hotel industry. She wants to be independent and to be able to alleviate her parents' difficult life. As her mom increasingly interferes with her life, the fragile balance between filial piety and independence breaks, leading to a public row between her and her mom.

Things I liked:
- the very gradual and realistic change in the relationship between Yao ZhiMing and Mai ChengHuan. They started off on the wrong foot. From my perspective, he fell first but could only support her without her knowing about it.
- Yao ZhiMing and Mai ChengHuan being there for each other, physically present and emotionally available, was the most romantic thing. Viewers define romance differently. Some go for the big ring, flowers, chocolate. Me - someone to hold me when I'm down and someone to listen so I can hear myself think.
- ChengHuan's journey growing up with an overbearing mom to being able to speak up for herself, not second-guessing herself, but being able to stand up for herself was a joy to behold.
- the friendship between siblings ChengHuan and ChengZao. They're the only ones who know their parents and know what the other is going through.
- the friendship between ChengHuan and MaoMao. They have each other's backs.

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The cast & plot make up for the poor editing & transitions

Despite the classic chinese drama style bad scene transitions, this drama roped me in firstly for its plot, and then for its cast. I have new favourites in, especially Bai Shu (yang bawan) & Sun Qian (chun yu) - their reactive acting was exceptional, and the rest of the cast were great too! In the beginning, I found Chun Yu's acting quite expressionless but, in time, that explains itself.

Few scenes (especially in the beginning) were not convincing enough, and repetitive dialogues made me roll my eyes, but again, the plot (what happens next) kept me going.
It's purely the cast and visual fx that pulled the 9 star rating. Even when I got bored in parts, I came back for them. I will definitely rewatch this drama for the cast. Their chemistry was spot on.

All in all, I highly recommend the drama.

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I usually keep my reviews spoiler-free, but to explain the reasons why I found this drama disappointing despite liking it in the beginning I can't help but refer to parts and details of the show. Therefore, if you haven’t watched the drama yet, you may want to skip this long review.

From the very beginning, my interest focused solely on the sentimental dynamics of the two main leads. I wanted to find out when and above all how the love that had evidently led them to marriage had turned into total indifference or even hatred. I found all the rest kind of redundant and started FF very early on.

At first, the most problematic character from a narrative point of view was undoubtedly Baek Hyun Woo. He can no longer stand his wife or her family and so far no one can blame him. However, a normal couple would at least try to discuss it, or quarrel about it, but Hyun Woo's tactic is to turn away and go sob in some corner alone. If, like me, you are hoping for at least one outburst of anger or passionate frustration, it is better to find a corner where we too can go and sob alone, because turning their backs on problems is the recurring pattern, regardless of the characters involved. Bar the volcanic aunt, that is.
When the terminal illness bomb is dropped, Baek Hyun Woo's reaction is: surprise, hug with declaration of love followed closely by relief of being able to escape the marriage without consequences. Am I supposed to find this funny? Only two scenarios are possible: either he has never stopped loving her and his hatred is just the other face of the love coin, or the contempt is real and we are left with a husband actively rejoicing in his wife’s untimely demise.

Hae-In's character is fleshed out a little better. Despite her apparent indifference towards her husband, on several occasions she highlights his intelligence and professional ability, thus proving proud of him. It is easier for the viewer to understand why she chose this man for her husband. It's a shame that instead of continuing along this line, the screenwriter prefers to introduce the usual K-drama banalities: "you're beautiful, you're sexy, I'm jealous of anyone who breathes, don't let anyone look at you, wear a burqa, blah, blah."

Given all these premises, I would have expected a much more passionate sentimental dynamic and not two spouses who obviously shared a bed at some point but whose simplest touch appears now unnatural. For the first four or five episodes, we see Hae-In trying to get closer to him physically and him backing away or denying himself as if he feared contagion. The absurdity is stretched to the point that Hae-In asks her secretary whether it is normal for a wife to be physically attracted to her husband, to which the “wise” secretary decrees this woman must be clinically crazy. What universe are we in?
Suddenly though, we are told that the love between them is the deepest in the cosmos and we have to take that for granted without further questions or explanation.

The pace of the entire narrative is fluctuating. It alternates poignant, almost lyrical moments with others full of completely irrelevant events, apples or pears and over-the-top, frankly irritating characters. The male lead's sister and her gossiping clients, anyone? Not to mention the family who arrives with 4 helicopters at the hunting lodge - not even the royals of England - the bad guy who does whatever he likes without consequences or control, the self-made patriarch who lets himself be fooled by a greedy prune of a woman and this last who goes around with a bevy of bodyguards/minions in tow like the queen of Joseon with her eunuchs.

When all this is said and done, what annoys me the most is the repeated trick of giving us a cliff-hanger of paramount importance at the end of every episode, only to start the next with either a flashback of the past or a conclusion to said cliff-hanger that is deflating my expectations at best or insulting my intelligence at worst. A few examples [very spoilery]

- Ominous press conference with the whole of South Korea gathered, Hae-In shocks everyone not only by revealing her illness, but also exposing the villain’s threats and manipulations to the world, even claiming she has recorded evidence of it. Fantastic! Next episode: the villain is still strolling the Queen’s corridors without a soul questioning him or the press dedicating a line to his involvement. Where did the recorded evidence go?

- Hae-In gets in the car with the what’s-his-name villain thinking he is Hyun Woo. The whole sequence is truly well made, giving the audience small but undeniable hints and a suspenseful car chase until Hae In finally realizes her mistake. End of episode. Here I am all excited at the prospect of a true confrontation, but the next episode Hae In coldly informs her husband she will go along with Villain to visit grandpa and Hyun Woo makes no objection. What? Cliff-hanger over, as well as my sanity.

- Grampa made a panic room built somewhere inside the family mansion, but he didn’t see it fit to tell anyone, which clearly defeats the object of a panic room. I’m still laughing out loud at a friend envisioning a bunch of criminals breaking in and the family dying of panic attacks because they can’t find the panic room. Remember, this is the same distrustful and overly cautious patriarch who made an unrelated woman his tutor without ever checking her true credentials. One wonders how he made all that money… So we have this suspenseful scene in which the family descends into the room via an elevator and Hyun Woo immediately gets the trick. How? You think they are going to tell you the next episode? Guess what: no.

There are other instances of logic defeating situations, but unless you like to be spoilt you have already watched the drama and know exactly what I’m talking about. They have crammed a gazillion open threads to be finally knotted back in the last two episodes, and yet they still find the damn time to introduce new, totally useless, eczema inducing characters, a murder mystery, a trial and a good 10 minutes’ village party with quacks and barks. I promise you, I almost got that eczema.

In conclusion, since the plot has got more holes than Swiss cheese and clichés abound, I watched and completed this drama because of the main leads. Alas, more often than not they disappointed me too: they never felt real as a couple of adults, despite their roles as individual characters being brilliantly acted. There isn’t a mutual alchemy between them, no sparks flying around: they exist as individuals who happen to repeat they love each other ad nauseam. There is no real in-depth conversation between them: why didn’t it work? When did we start to drift apart? Let’s be honest; if you don’t clear up the misunderstandings, they are definitely going to be repeated, no matter how many times you’re shot, driven over by a car, get tumours, surgeries or whatever catastrophe a scriptwriter can come up with.
There’s a beautiful dialogue sometime by the middle in which Hyun Woo comments: “what if we had applied a balm on our wounds every time we hurt each other in the past? How would our marriage be now?” That was such a wonderful cue, the type of conversation I would expect from an adult couple in a crisis. But what does Hae In reply to that? “No, we should have stopped by the ice-cream and put an end to our relationship then and there. We wouldn’t be in this situation now.” What kind of superficial, immature response is that?
Better we were never born, so we wouldn’t be suffering now, sort of clever philosophy.

I decided early on that I would add one point to the drama if they made Hae In and Hyun Woo finally sit down and address the elephant in the room: October 31. As it stands, the drama gets one point less for turning a promising story of healing into a buffoonish makjang.

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Everything-in-one-pan sort of comfort food.

I was trying to work out why this one blew up and got the attention it did. And I don’t think I was the only one, I think the whole company were probably a little surprised too. So what I came up with was that they managed to find the perfect recipe for how to appeal to the maximum number of possible audiences - a producer’s dream. And how, imo, did they do it?

By cherry picking from all the genres and eliminating the potential bitterness before making a judicious blend of sweetness, with a twist of out-of-the-ordinary, that is just sufficient to stimulate almost everyone’s tastebuds. It has the ingredients of a melo without excessive wailing (well it does get a bit wet though, just note the title…); a romcom without cringeworthy comedy (mostly); a makjang without full-blown psychosis (just regular hysteria); a conspiracy without frustrating mystery (but a few too many conveniences), and a slice-of-life romance (plus free homilies) without the plodding reality.

It manages to be a very clever balance of light and dark. Nothing stands out as particularly noteworthy in itself, but put together it becomes great comfort food. Somewhat like all our beloved, over-rated national dishes that tempt the foreigner into disappointment because they expect Michelin stars and it turns out to be your grandma’s cooking.

Overall, it failed to really impress in the creatively inventive/awesome stakes but it delivered a solid script; credible good characters (aside from the ML being ex-special services, puleeeeease…he would have been breakfast); dastardly bad characters and some hearty performances, especially from the leads (and a personal favourite, the shameless rum flip, Grace, played by Kim Ju Ryoung). However it stumbled on the plot front probably because it had too many chickens on the rotisserie. It worked well until about episode eleven, but then the plot began to curdle in certain areas as the focus shifted more to the melo. By the last two episodes, it was shredded and went into makjang meltdown followed by a layer cake of all the genres piled on top.

So, to sum up, if you want the equivalent of a Jamie Oliver everything-in-one-pan sort of meal, you have found it. It’s finger-licking quality with good home grown meat and veggies plus a grating of cheese. Such a thing is hard to achieve so credit to those concerned. It’s the sort of comfort food you’re happy to come home to, but not up there for a gourmet night out or a revelatory culinary experience.

‘Nuff said. There’s already at least 6 pages of “reviews”, posted well before it finished airing!

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