Zoe
USA
Watch it for the romance and the leads (but basically nothing else)
This is a fairly good drama! The spoiler free specifics are below but here is my verdict on the drama: it's quite good, but suffers from some big issues with the writing of the plot and the secondary characters. However, the acting and romance are the strongest parts, so if you're watching for the leads or the romance aspect, I still think you would like it. But don't expect a super smart story behind that romance. I still made it all the way to the end and that's an endorsement in itself, but I would not recommend it to everyone.
The GOOD:
The acting! All the main cast, especially the 2 leads but also the second ML and FL did a great job. Even when scenes didn't make sense, they still managed to sell the emotions well.
The music: it was nice, it fit the scenes and there were a few good songs that I came to like. I think ballad lovers will appreciate the music more than me.
The romance: the romance is that forbidden love, slow burn type of thing and that was the only thing I enjoyed all the way through about the story. If you are watching for the romance, I don't think you will be dissatisfied. There are also some very nice kiss scenes haha thank you, Joo Ji Hoon.
The FL and ML characters: I saw some people complaining on recaps that the writer made the FL a damsel in distress and so annoying, but thankfully, that was only halfway through her character arc. I think she came out the other end of the story as a strong character even if she was kind of whimpering in the middle parts. I thought she and the ML were easily the best written characters, leagues above the second ML and FL because they were written much more consistently and had much more believable character arcs.
The BAD:
The story: it had a lot of potential and was super addictive for the first half because it felt like the writers were dropping a lot of interesting hints about the underlying story, but then a lot of stuff didn't seem to matter. The story did get wrapped up fairly cleanly, but a lot of it felt pretty weak and the last 4 episodes were pretty disappointing in some ways.
The villain: despite the great performance, the writing of the villain was so dumb... like his motivation for his entire life's revenge was just....... dumb. Plus things at the end pretty much got worked out because he started acting really stupid.
The second FL: I didn't actually hate her ending, I thought it made sense... But it was like the first thing she did that made sense in the entirety of the drama. Her character was so wishy washy, one day she's trying to protect the ML, the next she's a villain... it's like the writers didn't know what they wanted to do with her, so they just tried something new every episode. And again, I'm not trying to fault the actress, because she was really good! But the character was not.
Rewatch value: that's hard for me because I don't rewatch things usually, but I think this one doesn't have a lot of rewatch value even for people who usually do.
The GOOD:
The acting! All the main cast, especially the 2 leads but also the second ML and FL did a great job. Even when scenes didn't make sense, they still managed to sell the emotions well.
The music: it was nice, it fit the scenes and there were a few good songs that I came to like. I think ballad lovers will appreciate the music more than me.
The romance: the romance is that forbidden love, slow burn type of thing and that was the only thing I enjoyed all the way through about the story. If you are watching for the romance, I don't think you will be dissatisfied. There are also some very nice kiss scenes haha thank you, Joo Ji Hoon.
The FL and ML characters: I saw some people complaining on recaps that the writer made the FL a damsel in distress and so annoying, but thankfully, that was only halfway through her character arc. I think she came out the other end of the story as a strong character even if she was kind of whimpering in the middle parts. I thought she and the ML were easily the best written characters, leagues above the second ML and FL because they were written much more consistently and had much more believable character arcs.
The BAD:
The story: it had a lot of potential and was super addictive for the first half because it felt like the writers were dropping a lot of interesting hints about the underlying story, but then a lot of stuff didn't seem to matter. The story did get wrapped up fairly cleanly, but a lot of it felt pretty weak and the last 4 episodes were pretty disappointing in some ways.
The villain: despite the great performance, the writing of the villain was so dumb... like his motivation for his entire life's revenge was just....... dumb. Plus things at the end pretty much got worked out because he started acting really stupid.
The second FL: I didn't actually hate her ending, I thought it made sense... But it was like the first thing she did that made sense in the entirety of the drama. Her character was so wishy washy, one day she's trying to protect the ML, the next she's a villain... it's like the writers didn't know what they wanted to do with her, so they just tried something new every episode. And again, I'm not trying to fault the actress, because she was really good! But the character was not.
Rewatch value: that's hard for me because I don't rewatch things usually, but I think this one doesn't have a lot of rewatch value even for people who usually do.
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