Reviews

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Magnificent, Suspenseful & Romantic Drama

It's a fantasy revenge drama about a woman who witnesses the affair between her best friend and her husband, and is murdered by them, she goes back in time to change her future and seek revenge.

This kdrama is also based on webtoon. (This has became new trend), but as per webtoon readers, makers have done some changes.

You get invested in the drama from 1st scene.

Story progresses with ample twists & turns, though we already know where it is heading.

Casting of Park Min-young as FL and Lee Yi-kyung as main villain is perfect. Specially Lee Yi-kyung is not only good in his villainous acts but he was equally good in comedy scenes. Park Min-young does what she is famous for. Her acting is perfect.

Na In-woo has wooden face but he is ok as lead as his only duty is to support FL. Good enough romantic scenes between leads.

1st female villain, is good in dramatic scenes but she screamed a lot, which was annoying.

In later episodes they bring another female vamp, which is not needed, she just increases the screen time.

It's a soap opera type kdrama, good watch for kdrama lovers.

Supporting cast is good. Drama ends with predictable happy ending. I enjoyed watching it.

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I Feel Empty after Watching

To summarize, The story is about our leads getting together, Job hunting, and initially found a permanent and stable job. However, when something is going very greatly, you would actually question "Why is everything going smoothly?" As if implying that something very wrong is gonna happen in a blink of an eye.

The story started off very fluffy, the couple's meeting was super cute. What surprises me the most is that they got together at the 2nd episode HAHA. You know, if the leads are together in the early episodes, you would know that something will go very wrong.

1st episode to 10th episode, showed the way their relationship developed. The way they learned to be independent, earning their own money, and all, was actually very relatable for my part. As a college student, I will also soon to do these things, like Job hunting, facing disappointments (from failed interviews), and applying to more and more jobs.

From those episodes, everything was going smoothly and they have a very promising future, the leads have a stable job, FL runs a cafe and ML is soon to be promoted as a designer. However, in a glimpse of an eye, everything changed.

Everything changed when ML gets the diagnosis of his illness, the way he reacted to his diagnosis felt so raw and real. I can't blame him from hiding it from his friends, his family, and his lover. To be honest, if I were also in his shoe, I'd probably also keep it as a secret, since I don't want to be a burden, which made it more relatable.

But when he revealed it to them, everything really hurts. Even worse when the grandpa died not knowing his little grandson is not as healthy as he expected him to be before he left them. And the scene where the FL stopped him from attempting to drown himself hurts too much. The emotions were too raw, the emotions were too raw and too real at that part. The FL's plead and the ML's cry was too damn real.

I don't know how to interpret the ending in my point of view but, at the very least, it gave me hope.

To be honest, after finishing the drama, I just stared at an empty wall, feeling so empty. My eyes were too red from crying, that I didn't know how to feel after watching it anymore.

Be warned though: Starting from episode 11 to 24, pls do prepare tissues.

Since I like to torture myself into watching these types of dramas, I'll keep rewatching those memorable but heartaching scenes. This time, my tissues will be fully prepared.

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A tale of love and loss

Korean drama watchers love romance, love which burns as it builds. As the trailer dropped, the drama lovers knew what had been packed for them.

Baek Hyun Woo meets Hong Hae In under complex surroundings. What follows is love, angst, and a profound misunderstanding that engulfs them both with time. The story revolves around the protagonists. Their love meets a rough patch as a tragedy strikes. Caught in a roller coaster of emotions, they find each other drifting away caught in a whirlwind of misunderstanding.

Kim Soo Hyun as Hyun Woo is beautiful. You will love his effervescent slipping into the skin of the sweet little husband. The man who is infamous for sticking with rich heiress has got a beautiful score this time. Ji Won as Hae In shines like a moon in the story. Her dialogue delivery, strides, and hair flipping reminds me of Rachel from The Heirs. The girl surely knows how to build the aura. The chemistry between leads is palpable and smooth. Mixing vulnerability and resilience in equal proportions elevates the whole story to a new level.

The story has been creating buzz for a while. This is because of the way they explore the intricacies of human emotions. Even in his venture, It's Okay to be Not Okay, Soo Hyun talked about depression and multiple perspectives. In this story, the director uses family and complexities to weave a web of emotions as the characters develop. This is life, right?

The cinematographer did a brilliant job... Capturing the poignant dichotomy existing between leads evades through the change of tone. Throughout the series, the ensemble cast gives a stellar performance. Each actor whispers life through the skin of the characters. Glorified sung Hoon is back being icy cold sociopath lover doing extremely good in his job. The arc of characters this man is playing is clearly creating a storm. Alas! He is still not getting the girl again.

With Har In and Hyun Woo palpitating and gallivanting in their gallon, it is difficult to assume how love is going to make it. But the poignant exploration characters are making is surely leaving a never-ending mark.

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This one of a few very interesting story about reincarnation. And they watch over the quality of the story until the end. But still this also need a little bit more explanation too in the end....

This tell story about 2 couple, Korn-Intouch & Dean-Pharm. Korn-Intouch are the preliminary or first couple & Dean-Pharm are the following or second couple. Dean-Pharm are the incarnation of Korn-Intouch.

Korn-Intouch suicide because their relationship wasn't approved by their parents. Korn whose can't take the pressure anymore killed himself first & Intouch following him afterwards cause he just can't live without Korn. And afterwards, their parents tied a red thread in their body, cause legend said it can connect & make them find each other in their next life.

Now Dean & Pharm. Pharm often had sad dreams that wake him with a wet face. When Pharm first saw Dean, he felt sad & had familiar feeling toward him, it's like finding someone he's been waiting for. And turn out Dean himself also has spent his life searching for someone whose face he can not remember. And after met Pharm, Dean also having dream and wake up with a wet face. When the story rolled we get more & more clear view about Dean-Pharm as the incarnation of Korn-Intouch.

How the story evolved? What the tangled things Dean-Pharm need to untangled about Korn-Intouch past life...? How Dean-Pharm relationship progress...? It's all unraveled quite beautifully in this drama. Just leaving me with some questions that they don't quite bothered to explain, or just me being not understand....

What I like:
+ Fluke Natouch Siripongthon is amazing to play Pharm. Especially toward the end when all the crucial memory of Intouch really took over & haunted Pharm.
+ The amazing connection between Korn-Intouch & Dean-Pharm. All the surprise in the end. It just amazing & very interesting...
+ I really like the characteristics of Dean & Pharm. Pharm with his calmness, never really get angry over his friends teasing & Dean with his firmness. They never really get jealous over something stupid. But in my opinion, at the same time this also their shortfall, cause I think sometimes their friend tease too much, but Dean nor Pharm show any irritation / emotion.

Overall this really one good story about the amazing thing about reincarnation or our past lives. For my question I think I'll put in the SPOILER ALERT below.

Below is SPOILER ALERT!!! Read it with ur own risk.












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SPOILER ALERT!!!
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My question:
* What exactly make Intouch so traumatized...? I meman yeah maybe because of their family pressure that make Korn take his own life. But I mean that's just one stupid reason to begin with.
* Why Korn feel the need to apologize to Intouch. Cause he killed himself first and leave Intouch behind...? Nah.... That's also doesn’t make sense.
* One fast flip attitude from Korn's dad. After Korn & Intouch death we can see that their dads really change their attitude completely, like flip 180°. And for me that's not make sense. No one change their attitude that fast, even because of the regrets.

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Thank goodness for Steve

Oh man I was hoping for a classic cheesy rom com, but I don’t even know where to start. I feel like this calls for bullet points:
•What happened to the romance? Everyone got more romance than the leads! The 2FL. The bestie and the playboy. The sus VP. The rando artist guy. Even the last minute office couple. Seriously writers, you trolled.
•FL was so incredibly annoying. She only knows how to clompy run, can’t walk it seems, even just a few paces. Like her shoes are too big the whole drama. She cries ALL the time. She puts up with quite a bit (far too much) verbal abuse, mostly from the ML. For most of the show. Like 99%.
•Extreme lack of chemistry with ALL the relationships.
•So many plot holes, I’m not going there.
•Goes from mega rich to penniless in a matter of a day. Like seriously? You had nothing in the bank, and why does a rich person not own a home or a car?
•Plot was slow and pointless for too long.
•The scheming 2FL was as dry as a brick, the relationship was weird and cringe and went on too long.
•ML acts jelly in the early episodes and then seems to quickly forget he had anything to be jelly about.

Honestly I was hoping for a Cunning Single Lady type show and got something total pants. It’s so forgettable I’ve watched it before and forgot and only realized about half way through, at what point I watched the rest as I couldn’t remember the ending. Likely I’ll have forgotten about it next week.

Steve. We are all on #teamsteve. Thank goodness for Steve. For his weird facial expressions and random english lines that brought humor, laughter and a whole lot of funny comments on Viki. You did it Steve. You saved the show and the bored to death viewers!!!!

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Beautiful but ultimately hollow symbolism

I have finished watching MR SUNSHINE, and there was so much that I loved about this prestige kdrama. The writing of the heroine was SO good in how it discussed and defied some of the worse kdrama-heroine tropes. There was amazingly trenchant and deeply nuanced social criticism, gorgeous cinematography, lots of fascinating history, the warmest and most positive depiction of Christianity I've ever seen in a kdrama, men who drink respect women juice, the beautiful and angsty Gu Dong-Mae, FABULOUS period clothing, and rivals in love learning to put aside their differences in favour of shooting imperialists.

But the show has a major flaw - a flaw that was particularly interesting to me, because it's the precise sort of flaw that I would be most prone to. The screenwriter, who does such brilliant work in so many other ways, is clearly most fascinated by the themes and symbolism she keeps bubbling away in the story's subtext. The problem is that these themes and symbolism - which delightfully clever - are not actually supported by the storytelling, and particularly by the characterisation.

And it's a really fun, rich, resonant bit of symbolism: Ae-Sin is not just a character in the story, she's the living embodiment of Joseon Korea. She's beautiful, desirable, noble, privileged, gradually awakening to a life of hardship and struggle and resistance. Each of the three male leads in the story has a different complicated relationship with her. Eugene has run away from Korea, but returning as an adult cannot help falling in love with the land and the people in defiance of the nobility who mistreated him as a boy. Gu Dong-mae was horribly oppressed by his homeland but cannot help loving it anyway; the Korea which oppressed both men also saved their lives through small acts of kindness. And finally, Hee-Sung, Korea's richest son, is her approved betrothed, but past injustices committed by his family against the people Ae-Sin cares about stand between them. The three men fall in love, not with Ae-Sin, but with their homeland. They express their love for the woman by sacrificing themselves for the homeland; in dedicating themselves to her, they cannot help dedicating themselves to the fight for freedom.

This is why the story had to have a sad ending. None of these men can espouse the whole country; they can only die for her, while Ae-Sin - Korea itself - lives on, alone and victorious, even in exile.

This symbolism is itself delightfully rich, deftly painted, and rewarding to think back upon once you see it. There's only one problem: it doesn't. make. sense.

From the very start of the show, I felt a little impatient with the writing because the relationships between the heroine and her three suitors are so poorly developed. The feelings come out of nowhere. Take Gu Dong-Mae, for instance: he last met this woman when she saved his life as children. Now, it just takes a brush of her dress across his fingers to get him pining madly for her. Hee-Sung, after avoiding her for the best part of a decade, gets one glimpse of Ae-Sin at the washing-line and just like that conceives an undying passion for her. The central relationship, between Ae-Sin and Eugene, doesn't fare much better. The problem is that the story demands each of the male leads to sacrifice himself for Ae-Sin by the end of the show, and I simply couldn't understand why they should. They all have multiple other women pining for them, and Ae-Sin doesn't give two of them the slightest encouragement to hope. I wanted them so badly to find happiness with one of the other women, and they never did.

What MR SUNSHINE needed was not primarily rich and complex symbolism - it was believable characterisation and relationship development. As it was, the lack of substance to the relationships cheapened the grand historical tragedy which was being told. When at the climactic moment the last of the three leads sacrifices himself for the heroine, it felt cheesy and unintentionally funny, rather than tragic.

I loved so much about this story, but the heart of it never clicked for me, and it's a crying shame that with all that budget and talent, it wasn't better written. And that, for me, will be the central tragedy of MR SUNSHINE.

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YESS!!

This drama is top notch! I don't see why it's underrated because it really is a good series.
Fighting for what's right, that is the message you will get from watching this.
I do have some complaints though for example, Kim Do Yeon.

Don't get me wrong, I like him and I was really moved by him in Move To Heaven but he was playing an adult. In Strong Underdog he plays a high school student and I don't think it fits him well because he looks older. I have to say that he did a good job but I just don't think he should play such young roles, he should play an adult as he IS an adult.
I also don't like how the ending didn't show us Min Ah kicking ass. I mean, come on! She was already kinda cool (in my eyes) and then it's revealed that she is a total badass!

Anyway as I said, Strong Underdog is really good and I hope you give it a chance and watch it.

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ONE OF THE BEST HISTORICAL KDRAMAS I'VE EVER WATCHED

For those who keep giving this film negative reviews, sorry to say but you are biased and bitter. Because this drama is so far one of the best kdramas I've watched, this is coming from someone who has watched over 200 kdramas. You're a fan of the actress from the first season and not the storyline if you hate this drama.
I've rewatched this drama over 30 times and what amazes me it's I've never gotten bored of it. Every time I rewatch it feels like a new drama. I don't know why anyone who claim the plot is bad when it's literally just a continuation of the story which was split into two parts. Without part 2 I would never had understood the storyline. I also love the message the writers were conveying "LOVE SOMEONE BASED ON THEIR SOUL NOT APPEARANCE".
In conclusion Awesome and Amazing. Well written and amazing chemistry and cinematography

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Here for the leads everything else is frustrating

The leads romance really drives this drama and holds this drama down, without it it would not be worth it.

Basically a battle of the Yi family and Lu family to see who can on the top as the best estate company. I hated the Yi's grandma so much ! She is the female lead's grandma. The grandma treats the female lead her family horribly. She is willing to sacrifice her granddaughter for the Yi company. She does so much to hurt the female lead. Also the rest of the Yi family are leeches, trying to do all that they can to sabotage the Lu company. They are really horrible and dirty to try to try the Lu family. Watch this made me so made, so much dog blood.

As for the Lu family, the male lead is the adoptive son of the Lu family, The Lu company once went broke and the dad committed suicide, leaving behind the male lead's sister but she was in an accident during youth so she forgot her memory but is now the secretary of the male lead.

Female lead's best male friend is the abandon / real son of the Lu family. Of course the male best friend starts of trying to take revenge but gets melted by the female lead's kindness.

In this drama there is seriously male lead snsyndrome, where whatever evil the Yi family tries to do it doesnt hurt of phase the male lead, lol he always has the upper hand. haha how you like that lol, but except for the last incident...

The female lead is daring and brave and has wits willing to stand up for herself, she aint a dimwit or doormat.

The leads kisses are so steamy had to rewatch a couple times haha! They are seriously what made it through this drama. Too much scheming and plotting throughout , it gets really tiring...

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