Story: About a woman who runs a small restaurant right outside of the school her son used to attend, she feeds the kids and helps them in their personal lives, she meets the school's math teacher Jinwoo and they start becoming friends and eventually fall in love. His son is troubled. Then we have Jinwoo's parents and his brother and sister-in-laws stories which made me feel at times like I was watching 2 different dramas in one lol - I'd get invested in one story and forget the others existed. lol.
Cast: Jung Deok-In was a pretty bad-ass ahjumma - she reminded me a lot of Kim Hee Sun's character in Angry Mom, what with her fighting skills and such and her protective spirit of the school kids. She runs a restaurant and gets harsh treatment from her lousy excuse for a "husband", she's an orphan and only knows her spouses family until Jinwoo comes along and loves her in a beautiful sweet way <3 Jinwoo is the son of a chaebol who doesn't want the family business - he's the youngest and wants to be a teacher, he is also widowed and has 1 son that disses him all the time :'( Jinwoo also suffers from a secret that he has kept that involved his older brother. (He's my favorite character). Then we have Hongran who I absolutely loved! She was a bit stupid, rude, and made me laugh like crazy lol - I loved her wacky character! She also acts the way she does b/c of everything she knows about her "sister-in-law" and even her own husband (who was a real jerk btw). Eunsoo who I nicknamed "the evil sea witch" I hated her guts - such a deceptive, manipulative evil wench >_< I wanted to claw at her so many times! Everyone but Hongran was blind to her real nature - that is until she reveals it little by little. Kyungchul (Deok-In's spouse) was a real loser! The things he said to Deok-In made me furious! He was another character I hated a LOT. *I didn't feel sorry for him in the least* I also loved our younger cast, the school kids, Yoonsuh (who at first you kind of hate b/c of how he acts and treats kids, the ahjumma and even his own dad & then you find out one more thing to dislike about him but eventually you start to care for him and see all that bottled up hurt and anger that he had kept buried) and in the end you just love him <3 Hyunseo & Nurse Park were cute but awkward - I did ship them though ^^ Kyungtae (Ji Il Joo) *remember him as Healer's daddy?* I was happy to see him here! He's SO handsome ^_^ although he was pretty immature in this drama - especially toward his girlfriend who he chases away *stupid boy* lol
Music: I loved 2 songs in-particular: "You Like Me" by Hwayobi, & "Have You Ever Loved" by Han Kyung Soo. Other songs I liked: "Game Set" by DIA, and "The Darkness the Starlight" by Kim Wan Je
I would re-watch this drama (I re-watch most dramas at some point) and I do recommend it - to anyone who likes romance, makjang or melodramas and or family dramas with a bit of action lol
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Pure enjoyment. I marathoned this one. All 40 episodes!
NO THIS IS NOT ABOUT MAKING A WOMAN CRY. - tsk!..ridiculous title considering the drama.
THIS IS WORTH WATCHING. Really.
I passed this one over many times because of the summary.
Please know that the summary really doesn't convey how addicting and well done this drama is. Sure It's you're average FD but only in that it follows all the standards for Family Drama we've all become so familiar with.
YES TO MAKJANG! I happen to love it in my FDs :)
So much goes on in this drama I can't even start. But you won't get lost! ....and okay maybe it does go a little nuts toward the end but it holds up and rounds out so nicely!
ALL THE FEELS AND A HAPPY ENDING Give it a try!
Note: You can find it on Kissasian.com. If it's not on your favored Drama site.
The subs get all Google translatey for a few episodes but then it goes back to normal.
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The 1st 18 episodes were great. A tough ass mom whose son died who does everything to teach the kids at the school lessons their own parents are failing to teach them, and support them to be happy and successful. But all of a sudden the focus started become more about the Family Feud that was portrayed like a Joseon Historical with princesses lying &amp; scheming, vying for the title of Crown Prince. Every episode was just merely a flipflop of the previous one, with SIL #1 on top then SIL #2 on top... and the men acting like ghosts, except for dad who is an island unto himself. They manage about less than 10 minutes cut into 1:30 segments in each episode with the OTP walking SLLLLOOOOWWWWWLLLLLYYYY away from each other or staring at each other or opining on whether they're allowed to love each other and be happy...
Let's just say that more than 2/3rds of this show, the school children are no where to be found, the very thing that made this story great, and the whole time I'm saying to myself, "I don't give a shit about anyone's family. I just want to see her continue to help the boys at the school grow and mature, and teach the parents lessons in humanity... while knocking heads together." After the lead fell in love she was a wuss and shell of her former self... spent her time getting spoken to and treated like dirt without laying a hand on anyone, crying all the time, and walk around like she's in a comatose state. ....it's like they spent so much time on the SILs being nasty they were completely out of any ideas for their lead.
You know, it's being pulled in for 18 episodes then wrecking my mind for 22 more that pisses me off. I feel extremely cheated by these writers who seem hell bent on being sadistic with their unwillingness to give you what you want.
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Okay....
I was absolutely desperate for the female lead to get back to her old job of being a homicide detective because that's the only thing that would make this drama a little tiny bit interesting in the drama's setting. They completely shelved off the female lead in the last 10 episodes and put her on hold, instead they redirect the attention to a weird uninteresting cycle of irrelevant events to the main story. Which resulted in making the last 10 episodes feel like a huge drag.How would a writer escape once they are cornered? Introduce "terminal illness". With it, everything start to change magically. It doesn't matter whatever development/character the drama built up because all of that is irrelevant once the terminal illness is present. LAZY! Don't even get me started on the FL's journey to "forgiveness", absolutely laughable. The dynamic with FL and her in-laws was a big oof moment that was never resolved.
First half was full of students and the FL was doing exactly as described in the synopsis, then in the second half there was non of that and it became melo only. The same thing can be said about some character, for example, Jin Hee who had heavy screen-time just to completely disappear and never to be seen in the second half. The last two episodes were super artificial. Character who never given any attention suddenly got some like Gyeong Ah.
I enjoyed watching Kim Jung Eun & Lee Tae Ran, they are one of my favorite underrated actresses. The drama was fine, I guess. Anyway, serviceable 4.5/10 .
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