Good, but could have been better.
I overall liked Cafe Minamdang, liked the cast, liked the premise, but just found that the series strayed at certain points. Some of the plot twists weren't exactly neccesary and just added length to the series. Sometimes I wish that a series was 18 episodes, but this one was the opposite, and I found myself pausing after certain episodes and taking a break before revisiting.
Main criticisms from my perspective:
- I really liked the premise about the faux-shaman profiler, but I found they could have leaned into it harder. Some episodes were unique and fit the theme, and others seemed to have forgotten it completely and became more of a generic suspense/mystery/cop series.
- Sometimes I found solutions to mysteries were well explained, if subtly or briefly, by Nam Han Joon's skills, but on other occasions, they just kind of handwave it with a scene of him thinking really hard and having flashbacks that, as a viewer, I felt were didn't link the puzzle pieces together.
- One of my biggst peeves with the series is Han Jae Hee. I like Oh Yeon Seo and thought she did well, but the character was written too inconsistently. Sometimes she was "Han the Ghost" who could run down and beat up entire groups of thugs without breaking a sweat, and other times she was a helpless damsel who suddenly couldn't do anything but struggle and cough and cry, when she should reasonably be able to save herself and others. Especially when Nam Han Joon is the one saving her. I assume this was to play up the romance, but they could have done it in better ways that didn't detract from the character.
I like it, I finished it, but I think it had the potentil to be a 9-10 star series where I actually relished the 18 episode runtime.
Main criticisms from my perspective:
- I really liked the premise about the faux-shaman profiler, but I found they could have leaned into it harder. Some episodes were unique and fit the theme, and others seemed to have forgotten it completely and became more of a generic suspense/mystery/cop series.
- Sometimes I found solutions to mysteries were well explained, if subtly or briefly, by Nam Han Joon's skills, but on other occasions, they just kind of handwave it with a scene of him thinking really hard and having flashbacks that, as a viewer, I felt were didn't link the puzzle pieces together.
- One of my biggst peeves with the series is Han Jae Hee. I like Oh Yeon Seo and thought she did well, but the character was written too inconsistently. Sometimes she was "Han the Ghost" who could run down and beat up entire groups of thugs without breaking a sweat, and other times she was a helpless damsel who suddenly couldn't do anything but struggle and cough and cry, when she should reasonably be able to save herself and others. Especially when Nam Han Joon is the one saving her. I assume this was to play up the romance, but they could have done it in better ways that didn't detract from the character.
I like it, I finished it, but I think it had the potentil to be a 9-10 star series where I actually relished the 18 episode runtime.
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