Cute drama with a bad timing

I just finished this cute little drama and I definitely think 7.7 rating doesn't do it justice. While it's by no means a master piece and the story is quite simple, it is a good piece to watch if you need a break from all the overly dramatic stuff. I especially enjoyed the acting and I didn't have a need to skip over any scenes, which is always a good sign for any drama. I even cried a couple of times and that doesn't happen to me often unless animals are involved :-D SO yeah I do recommend this one if you are looking for something that is fun and not overly complicated.

Now I'm going for a rant here and if you did find the drama truly problematic, perhaps don't read this. I'm not writing this to argue with anyone and there is no reason for ou to ruin your day. This is just my opinion :-)

I'm truly glad I've seen someone advice to skip on all the controversy around the drama because I got to enjoy it for what it was. I only read the news afterwards out of sheer curiosity because I wasn't sure what it did so wrong to get such backlash. I mean obviously I was guessing Dal Shik's was one part of it but that couldn't have been all, right? Well turns out it wasn't but the rest didn't feel justified to me. I honestly feel sorry for this drama. I think this is the worst possible time to come out because people are so easily offended by these days. Don't get me wrong if any Jamaican people were indeed offended by Dal Shik's character then I suppose it's a valid point but I bet most of the outrage came from the white people as usual. I for once didn't think of his character racist, I saw him as a person that truly appreciated the culture and was having a blast. It saddens me that you can't do that anymore these days because it will be immediately labelled as culture appropriation. The flies were a bit too much but it never translated to me as portraying people of colour as dirty. I mostly thought it was more of a implication about nerds and artists that are often portrayed as asocial and lacking when it comes to personal hygiene BUT I can see why people with dreadlocks found it offensive and it did feel rather unnecessary.

The rest of the arguing points was a bit ridiculous to me to be honest (and I'll probably receive a lot of backlash for it). The oversexualization seems like a stretch or at least not something that can't be found in most of the dramas or k-pop groups. There were two very frowned upon scenes, one of it was drawing of legs from a painter that was drawing erotica and one of it was literal imagination sequence using a stereotypical movie gangster lair. I get that it is a family drama but don't try to tell me children never seen such thing on TV before. Sexy scenes are everywhere and this was at least done in a comedic way. Same with the underage kiss. Been there done that. If the male lead initiated it then yes, not good. However that was not the case, he didn't expect it and she was a young rebellious girl with a crush. How many romance TV series about high school student and her teacher romance are there? Never seen people boycotting those as they did this drama because of this one scene. And don't even get me started on anime. -_-

If you ask me, not knowing the controversy while watching I genuinely thought people had a problem with how Boon Hee was beating her husband. Sure, he deserved to be yelled at a lot of the times and maybe a kick in the shin would do him good but even with the comedic way it was done it sometimes felt too much. I could see how this could be a problem since domestic violence is a thing and men don't come forward and ask for help more often than women since they are taught to be strong and being beaten by a woman is not something they want to talk about, which is truly sad. Yet unlike the other points no one seemed to be bothered by this because it was comedy. Thankfully, the drama somewhat saved their relationship in the last episodes and I was able to tell myself that it is done for fun and I shouldn't overanalyze it. I feel truly sad now, remembering the how the actors and the crew celebrated their work in the final episode, clearly having fun with it and hoping people would enjoy it. Well I did, so good job guys! :-)

END OF THE RANT...SORRY EVERYONE :-D

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Big Plans, Poor Execution

I have to admit I was a bit disappointed in this one. I watched several romantic dramas prior to this and felt like I needed something new. Romance and murder without it looking too gloomy? Hell yeah, sign me up!

And to be fair the first episodes actually got me hooked up. I was sceptical at first but it seemed to incorporate the two genres very well...until it didn't. I have no idea what happened but somehow along the way the one drama suddenly became two and running in way too many directions. They desperately tried to make you believe the murder mystery and the romance plot line was still connected but it was just not enough. The creators started focusing on the main couple and the murder solving was pushed aside. Almost as if they got bored of it. Sometimes it went so long without any updates I almost forgot where we left off. It was clear the writers simply bitten more than they could chew.

Introducing so many characters probably wasn't a good idea either. Most of them were interesting but when you put twice as many characters into a regular length drama and try to give each of them some kind of back story, it's bound to be messy. Some story lines were just teased but didn't really happen, some were rushed and some even felt entirely pointless in the end. There were also characters that appeared out of nowhere to serve some purpose and then just disappeared without giving them a second thought. I guess they were needed to drive the story forward but it felt a bit awkward.

That all being sad the cast did a great job (I even cried twice) and as romantic healing drama it delivered. They should have probably just stuck with that. Trying to do something different but not really committing to the "different" part of it definitely wasn't a good choice. It just ended up being all over the place. What a shame...

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No tugging at my heartstrings this time

I watched the sequel straight after binge watching the first season and I must say, I'm disappointed. I decided to drop the show somewhere in the middle especially but not exclusively because of the bad acting. I understand that the actors are very young and they did their best but compared to the first season's cast, it was a very poor attempt (although there were definitely some exceptions like Rok-hee and Bae Shin-ae). I gave it a chance but simply couldn't get over it in the end.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for some complex story, I was very well aware of what I'm watching and loved the first season which was very fluffy and made all warm inside while also bringing some darker issues into play. This one did no such thing for me. Perhaps because I couldn't connect to the characters as I did the previous season and so I didn't feel as bad for them? I'm not exactly sure but I found myself playing with my phone more often than not while watching. That being said, I do wish the young actors good luck in the future and perhaps I'll see them in a different drama sometime later. :-)

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