This review may contain spoilers
Could have been a great romance thriller - missed the mark
7/10 is my rating. This is a 2021 South Korean mystery, thriller, romance drama with 16, 70 minute episodes.
Kang Da-jeong (Seo Hyun-jin) grew up with an abusive alcoholic father and her greatest wish as a child was to have a stable family. Because of that early experience with a damaged father figure, she is attracted to men with alcohol problems, those who fail to keep jobs, and others with issues as she attempts to "fix" them. She has a stable job as a concierge manager at a motel and makes a move to a rooftop apartment to make a clean break with her troubled past. Joo Young-do (Kim Dong-wook) moved his psychiatric office to the same building as Da-jeong and has a nearly psychic ability at "reading" people and understanding their psychological issues and motivations. He uses his skill to not only help his patients but everyone around him. Chae Joon/Dr Ian Chase (Yoon Park) took a liking to Da-jeong when they were children growing up in the same neighborhood and looked for her, finally locating Ahn Ga-yeong (Nam Gyu-ri) is Young-do's ex-wife and the relationship ended after discovering that they were together more for Young-do to stablize Ga-yeong's depression and keep her from self harm than out of any romantic love on Young-do's part - they remain friends and he is helping her have confidence to pursue a healthy relationship. All of the individuals are connected by mysterious and tragic incidents from the past. What might fate have in store for them?
I liked this and it mostly kept my interest throughout but it had such a wandering story line that I would not watch it again and it wouldn't be a top recommendation from me. Spoilers** At first I thought that the murders would be a central premise and, there were times, when the focus was on that. But then it would just drift away and focus on aspects of the main couple, or a side couple's relationship and just drop the whole serial murders line all together. There was a major story line around the fact that he had heart issues but it was never fully explained why. You knew that he had went through a lot of medical procedures when he was young when his mother was trying to save his brother but not what his brother had or how that might have resulted in heart damage. So was the heart issue related to that or was the heart issue what had killed his brother? Their romance did not make complete sense either. He pushed her away because he knew, at some point, he might die but then decided to just be with her and there were a lot of things that indicated why he made that decision but it wasn't really spelled out. I expected some kind of dramatic statement like "none of us ever know how long we have" but there was never that. Her friend and her brother had a romance which could have been cute but we never got to see exactly how they got together. Had he always liked her? That would have made more sense. They alluded to the fact that they had slept together and things went from there but they didn't show us them falling in love. Then there were the friends. The boxer girl liked the vet and had a drunken incident where she bit him. I thought they would evolve into a romance but that just fizzled and died because he had a thing for the female lead's best friend. So, I wondered why they even bothered showing the boxer girl and her feelings for the male lead's friend. Da-jeong's mother had talked about some man that was wooing her in the beginning and I thought we would get to see what was going on there but they literally just dropped that story line. The abusive dad, I thought perhaps he was the killer or some interesting twist like that but no, he just stayed away as he promised then died. I thought so much was going to happen around the mother and nothing really did. There were so many things started and never completed that it felt like plot wandered everywhere. The ending was not satisfying because so many things were not wrapped up. And they sort of shook hands - really? That's what you do with someone you are going to spend years with? Just an awkward, facing each other, hand shake? Overall just a very underwhelming story.
Kang Da-jeong (Seo Hyun-jin) grew up with an abusive alcoholic father and her greatest wish as a child was to have a stable family. Because of that early experience with a damaged father figure, she is attracted to men with alcohol problems, those who fail to keep jobs, and others with issues as she attempts to "fix" them. She has a stable job as a concierge manager at a motel and makes a move to a rooftop apartment to make a clean break with her troubled past. Joo Young-do (Kim Dong-wook) moved his psychiatric office to the same building as Da-jeong and has a nearly psychic ability at "reading" people and understanding their psychological issues and motivations. He uses his skill to not only help his patients but everyone around him. Chae Joon/Dr Ian Chase (Yoon Park) took a liking to Da-jeong when they were children growing up in the same neighborhood and looked for her, finally locating Ahn Ga-yeong (Nam Gyu-ri) is Young-do's ex-wife and the relationship ended after discovering that they were together more for Young-do to stablize Ga-yeong's depression and keep her from self harm than out of any romantic love on Young-do's part - they remain friends and he is helping her have confidence to pursue a healthy relationship. All of the individuals are connected by mysterious and tragic incidents from the past. What might fate have in store for them?
I liked this and it mostly kept my interest throughout but it had such a wandering story line that I would not watch it again and it wouldn't be a top recommendation from me. Spoilers** At first I thought that the murders would be a central premise and, there were times, when the focus was on that. But then it would just drift away and focus on aspects of the main couple, or a side couple's relationship and just drop the whole serial murders line all together. There was a major story line around the fact that he had heart issues but it was never fully explained why. You knew that he had went through a lot of medical procedures when he was young when his mother was trying to save his brother but not what his brother had or how that might have resulted in heart damage. So was the heart issue related to that or was the heart issue what had killed his brother? Their romance did not make complete sense either. He pushed her away because he knew, at some point, he might die but then decided to just be with her and there were a lot of things that indicated why he made that decision but it wasn't really spelled out. I expected some kind of dramatic statement like "none of us ever know how long we have" but there was never that. Her friend and her brother had a romance which could have been cute but we never got to see exactly how they got together. Had he always liked her? That would have made more sense. They alluded to the fact that they had slept together and things went from there but they didn't show us them falling in love. Then there were the friends. The boxer girl liked the vet and had a drunken incident where she bit him. I thought they would evolve into a romance but that just fizzled and died because he had a thing for the female lead's best friend. So, I wondered why they even bothered showing the boxer girl and her feelings for the male lead's friend. Da-jeong's mother had talked about some man that was wooing her in the beginning and I thought we would get to see what was going on there but they literally just dropped that story line. The abusive dad, I thought perhaps he was the killer or some interesting twist like that but no, he just stayed away as he promised then died. I thought so much was going to happen around the mother and nothing really did. There were so many things started and never completed that it felt like plot wandered everywhere. The ending was not satisfying because so many things were not wrapped up. And they sort of shook hands - really? That's what you do with someone you are going to spend years with? Just an awkward, facing each other, hand shake? Overall just a very underwhelming story.
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