THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS REGARDING THE SERIES AND ENDING SO IF THIS IS A CONCERN, DO NOT READ ON.

I started this series mainly as I am a fan of Ji Sung and enjoy medical dramas. A new drama with two of my favourites, what could go wrong.

I believe that the acting from all concerned was great. I loved what they did, they played their parts very well and I really felt that they gave it the best effort that they possibly could.

I personally felt the drama had a very poorly developed storyline that left me cold. I started watching almost from the beginning and for the first half of the series, I was really loving it and could not wait to watch the next episode. Then something happened, and I am not sure why. Did the writers run out of ideas? Did they have to stretch out the series for some reason? We had Dr John’s serious illness about halfway through, not just his lack of feeling pain - what happened to that storyline? It seemed to go nowhere, or am I missing something. He went abroad and had another major illness. Very little was explained about that. This suggested more that the writers had run out of medical conditions for him to solve and instead sidelined his character. I wasn’t in the writing room so I don’t know. The story then picked back up after 3 years, although he had supposedly been watching over his romantic interest for 1 year. The excuse the writers gave for the time jump and Dr John’s involvement, or lack of, during that time was, I feel, incredibly poor. This seemed to be just another instance of the inability to know what to do next with the characters and story.

The romance between all parties seemed to be mostly developed at the half way mark, then nothing. The series ended with very little progression beyond that point. This was seriously disappointing.

I major thing I look forward to is the music. It can really deepen the emotional aspects of the show, although I believe it can be overused and repetitive if not done properly. However, a week after finishing the show, I could barely remember any of the music. It was obviously very memorable for me.

Perhaps I am expecting too much from a drama that I have devoted 16+ hours to but on my scorecard this could have, and should have, been so much better given the high caliber of acting talent involved.

Read More

Boring and unsatisfying

Whenever I am choosing a drama to watch, since there so many to choose from, I usually wait until the drama has finished and read the reviews. But I really like the two leads so decided to watch it after the first four episodes had aired. I should have really stuck with my tried and true method.

This drama firstly commits one of the worst possible sins a drama can commit, its boring. Yes it is slow. Slow is fine, but boring is not. Dramas can be slow and interesting, but not this one.

Then it commits what I personally consider the worst sin. A very unsatisfying ending. After the 16 hours I have invested in this drama I don’t want to feel like I wasted my time and could have watched something better. Unfortunately that is what I felt here.

I love Song Hye Kyo. I think she is overall a great actress. But she commits two sins here for a romantic drama. Firstly, just like in Encounter, she has zero chemistry here with the ML. It is hard to believe that she even likes the ML, never mind being in love. Then secondly, she is so emotionless. My refrigerator has more heat than this romance seemed to have. Yes I may be exaggerating, but not by much.

When the secondary characters are CONSIDERABLY more interesting than the ML and FL, you know you are in trouble. Even they cannot save this one.

Read More

What happened?

This was a drama I was so excited to see. I added it to my Netflix list as soon as I was able. I love sci-fi. With these actors, what could go wrong?

I love dramas and movies that are either exciting or, if they are slow burn, have sufficient story to justify their length. I enjoy the tension building, anticipating what is going to happen in the scene I am watching, and the excruciating can’t wait for the next episode dramas that make k-dramas so much better than the majority of similar Western shows. Unfortunately, for me, this drama lacked much of that.

I want to say that ALL of the actors bring their A game. This is some of the best acting I have seen. I have also seen comments about how the CGI is not up to the highest standard, but I feel that unless you have a $100M to spend, the CGI was just fine.

But I felt this series had two major faults that are contradictory.

Firstly, when I finished the final episode my though was “is that it? Did I miss something? What happened to the survivors?” I am still wondering what happened to the ending. It seems to be missing. Did the writers not know how to end the drama so they just stopped dead? I still have so many questions and a massively frustrating lack of answers. After all the time I spent watching this, how can the drama leave me hanging? Its as if this drama needed an extra episode to wrap everything up.

But here’s the contradiction with my last statement. The drama is also too long. With a proper ending, this would have made a truly fantastic 4hr movie. There are so many unnecessary scenes that, if they had been cut out, would have made the pace much faster, more exciting and engrossing. There were scenes in the drama that just dragged the whole pace down to a crawl, but lacked the tension to justify them. If they had been important scenes to propel the plot, answer questions or show motivations then I could understand. One character even comments that the others do not know the whole story, and then never explains what that story is. I know how that feels.

Again, the actors are not to blame. Every bit of body language, facial expression or delivery of their lines tells you that these actors are really the greatest and deserving of their status.

I understand I may be in the minority but this is just my personal feelings.

Read More

I have only been watching Korean dramas for about a year, but many of the dramas I have watched recently, have frequently disappointed me in their final episode. I mostly look for romantic comedies or dramas, but with a few laughs. I am not expecting laugh out loud or silly comedy, but a good smile to keep my spirits up. I decided to seek out recommendations for romantic dramas with happy endings, and this was one of those. Despite being an older drama which I rarely watch, I decided to give it a try, and I’m glad I did. This drama was like a close friend or a pair of warm, comfortable slippers. There were no real surprises. I liked that there were no murderous or really nasty villains that we often see. The villains were more comical than evil and their ‘punishments’ were slight.

This ticked almost all the boxes, but I am nitpicking here.

What music there was was okay. If not particularly memorable.

The storyline is your typical workplace, poor girl meets chaebol, romantic comedy. There is nothing new here that we haven’t see many times. Many of the actors are easily recognizable from many other dramas but despite the predictability of the storyline they give it their full effort and make many genuinely funny moments. I do not have even the slightest complaint about any of the actors.

There were two minor letdowns for me. Firstly that the romantic outcomes for ALL the characters by the final episode could have been better developed. Also, the punching and kicking from the lead female was a little repetitive after a while, but I have to stress the word ‘little’ as this did not affect, in any way, my enjoyment of the show or her character.

I wish there were more dramas like this.

Read More

Wow

I recently reached my milestone of having watched over 100 k-dramas and was thinking about what would be in my top 10. This romantic comedy is definitely one of them. I am surprised that this is still considered so underrated.

I prefer comedies that are realistic, yes, that is difficult when you have a drama about a robot that is so human it is unlikely to exist for another 100 years, but I hate shows that step into the territory of being a farce. I think that is very hard to do and is something that Western comedies frequently fail at. Some may argue that it is often too serious to be a comedy. That is partly true once we reach the middle part of this drama, but it does not last too long.

I like to try and think how I would respond if I was in the same position that the characters find themselves in. I know this can be a bit of a stretch and it is unlikely I will ever be rich or meet a lifelike robot, but I really think I would behave the same if I was in their shoes.

The best comedy for me is when the characters try their best to play it straight. The situation may be funny, or even absurd, but the actors are not acting as it being so. Their actions are believable and not exaggerated. This is where such a good script helps the ML and FL really show what great actors they are.

I really have to commend the writer for creating such a flawed ML character who starts of as immature, but likeable, and who matures in a methodical and realistic manner. There are no sudden jumps or changes in character. You must praise an actor who is capable of showing anger but whose actions are understandable and human but shows an emotional growth that is rare in any drama, never mind a romantic comedy. Although the FL character made mistakes, she remains sympathetic and loveable. Again, the right actress with a good script.

I maybe would have liked the ending to go slightly further. I say maybe because I did not want this drama to end, but the ending works without dragging the drama on unnecessarily.

I also love the music on this show. It is not overused, it emphasizes the comedy and hits the right emotional notes when needed without being forced.

Read More

I must say that I liked the storyline and felt that the characters had the appropriate progression in their storylines. I actually looked forward to each episode and some of the episodes were very good, tense and exciting.

The female actresses acted the male actors off the screen. I especially liked the female prime minister and her ending seemed to be fitting. I am not sure what happened with the male characters as they seemed to do very little and had so little emotional depth. I did not really end up caring what happened to them. It really is a flaw when half the characters are just not interesting.

The villain was bland and yawn inducing considering how little we say him, which was often just in the same flashback, and his ending just did not make sense. There was very little backstory to the villain to explain what made him do what he did so it was very difficult to find him interesting.

However, what really disappointed me was what I consider to be a very sad ending for the king and detective. I have already thought of at least half a dozen endings for them that would have been better and I find it hard to believe this was the best ending the writers could think of. Just to make it clear, the ending for most of the characters was suitable, appropriate and/or happy but the ending for the two leads sucked. I am sure others will disagree and say it was a happy ending. I do not think so.

There are better Korean dramas out there where the ending does not make you feel that you just wasted 16+ hours of your life.

Read More