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Slow road to nowhere
As others have written, a very slow pace to this one, but that was not a problem. The plot line with the eldest sister i felt was forced and uninteresting. The brother's storyline was better but I really didn't need it. The problem being, those two storylines took away from the really interesting story of Gu and the youngest sister. They had good chemistry and their scenes kept me engaged even when painfully slow. In the end, I couldn't handle the lack of closure this drama provided. I understand the reason for it, but it left me frustrated and unhappy. A good open ended drama I think gives you a good feel for how things could turn out or lets you know it doesn't really matter. At the end of this, I'm not sure if Gu is dead in a alleyway tomorrow or married with kids in 5 years...Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
Quite unique but seemed incomplete
I am damn sure that i watched all 16 episodes but it seems like i missed out on few episodes, they jump from one scene to the another during the end of each episode and give us a fuller version of it in the next episode but somehow for me , it was confusing , that probably led to this 7.5 . Had they maintained the same quality as the first half this would have been a 9 without a doubt.What i loved about this?
This is not one of those dramas that focuses on only the main couple, i loved how each charactee had their own importance and behind story. I was looking forward to knowing more about each of them and absolutely enjoyed every minute of it.
I loved how they were aware of their situation and dealt with it with dignity, in the end they embraced their insecurities and learnt how to be happy
I fell for Chang Hee, though he is often seen being frustrated and keeps venting out his anger but whatever he spoke , he stated Facts . I loved how he dint hold back when ever he was angry and upset and blurted eveything out loudly and very fast. I bet it would have still been difficult for me to understand his dialogues had i known korean. He became one of my favorite kdrama characters and i also am satisfied with how things ended with him.
The three sibling bond is well written, though we see them fighting and glaring at each other often, i could see through each of them , how they cared for each other and how strong their bond was.
They say it is "liberation notes" definetly i see liberation here but only 40%. Would have been great had they ended Mr Gu's character with more certainity . For me he was a mystery in the beggining and remained a mystery even in the end
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Intriguing but slow and boring
I waited every week eagerly for a new episode of My Liberation Notes and I watched it till very end...The characters were definitely intriguing and unique and were played really well by the actors especially Lee Min Ki and Lee El. Btw Lee Min Ki's character had one of the best character arcs I've seen in kdramas. And that's a win for the writer to create such interesting and realistic characters. Yet overall I found the show to be boring and slow and pretentious at times. MLN has been compared a lot to My Mister, the writer's other show and My Mister was a slower show too, but it was sharper and more engaging. I actually thought some episodes were more similar to Be Melo, in the way the characters talked and random situations occurred. The other common thing with My Mister is that MLN teases the audience when it comes to the romantic relationships. In My Mister there was the age gap issue but here I'm not sure why the director and writer choose to stay away from any romantic scenes. How I think about it is don't show all this tension between the actors if it's not ending up in anything and it also seemed very unnatural and stark for them to have feelings for each other but hardly show any intimacy on screen.The dialogues though random are well written and thoughtful. But the show overall is very dialogue heavy which can be a disadvantage for non-Korean speakers, but I enjoyed that part to some extent. MLN was going for something interesting but the writer doesn’t do as good of a job to tie things together and make it engaging enough. You may like the show if you like deep philosophical conversations and if you're an introvert you may relate to the FL atleast in the first few episodes. But the show leaves with too many loose ends and the reveals or mystery the show builds on and creates anticipation on are not as interesting in the end.
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Wonderful but my boredom when watching it is significant. Chang Hee is my favorite part.
My Liberation Notes is a slice-of-life drama about three siblings and their mysterious neighbors; who are dissatisfied with life in one way or another. They live in the countryside about an hour outside of Seoul. The show is showing the character's journey that was so refreshing and realistic. Liberation is a journey of identifying and persevering to keep working through it. Identifying your struggles and finding the root cause is a hard thing to do. Acceptance and taking action to make things better is even harder.At first, I watch this because it has a similar premise because My Mister also followed the lives of three brothers. In My Mister, they come together to help each other heal along with the FL. Then also its' deep exploration of the character's mental states. But the main difference, at least this is my opinion, is while both shows are character-driven, My Mister has much stronger external plots and twists that make more eye-opening action scenes, much more than My Liberation Notes. In My Liberation Notes, the story progresses by following the daily lives, like the vlogs of these characters. So if you enjoyed My Mister, you may or may not enjoy My Liberation Notes. Don't expect the same exhilaration you get from My Mister here, but surely, both series present the same level of production quality and character arcs. I like My Mister better, but there were many good thought-provoking aspects of My Liberation Notes.
The first pro I want to mention is the comedy. I absolutely love how this series handles funny moments. It comes from a quiet moment, there's no dialogue happening and it's funny due to the previous or next scenes. For example, the part of Mi Jeon demanding Mr. Gu to worship her and the scene of Mr. Gu alone realizing the word worship means and seeing his reaction. My favorite one is when Chang Hee has done something to Mr. Gu's car and Chang He's about to confess but instead of wearing his slippers, he decides to wear his runners instead. It was so funny! Because you could see what the character was thinking without them saying it.
Regarding the plot, I thought the first four episodes were exciting. then it got super slow midway and then the last four episodes were so beautifully done. They give a very satisfying arc to every single character, and even if they didn't end on a completely happy note, I felt hopeful by the end. It is worth mentioning that the dialogue is so heavy all the time, the conversation these characters have is telling me some sort of message across. It's very tiring to pay attention all the time, so this show is not binge-able, but more of one episode a day watch.
Speaking of the characters, I was invested not so much in their character but more in their fantastic acting and their story and growth. Each character is carefully described and redeemed. I love how all the siblings would talk about things that most people I think would be ashamed and sometimes embarrassed to admit. I loved Mi Jung's inner strength and how she takes the initiative to liberate herself. I found her relationship with Mr. Gu is very unique and unconventional. I warm up to Mr. Gu throughout the story, but I am slightly disappointed that his alcoholism is not handled. But the best part for me is Chang Hee. Watching his scenes at first I feel already connected to him. Then I'm so happy that in the last four episodes or so, the story focuses a lot on him. I loved how his monologues came out and how he become more mature, his story was just beautiful. I'm thinking of rewatching the show only for his scenes.
I want to praise the OST and sound effects. There's a heavy focus on a lot of ASMR sounds, like people walking, eating, breathing, and sighing. Because this screenplay focuses so much on a character's introspection and how they're feeling emotionally, it's really really nice to have it paired with silence and ASMR sounds. OST was just so beautiful and peaceful. It fuels me to continue watching when I kinda doze off when watching too much heavy dialogue and mundane scenes.
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2Progressive Message: Quality of life increases with the degree of truthfulness (not scham&pretence)
"My Liberation Notes" is a ray of hope within South Korean series production.In short: The lives of young people in their prime (+/- 30) are at stake here. Considering their groaning under the pressure of the competition in the workplace, the dazzling promises of the modern lifestyle industry, and the claims of society and family traditions, this could all be pretty depressing. But amazingly, it's not. The protagonists manage to give their lives something like dignity - quietly, impressively and with gentle intensity. They walk the way that lies before them, spraying their personal touch, a little bit, but nicely, thus leaving color and warmth on their trail.
The KDrama presents itself as a Netflix co-production and is thus in a certain way 'pimped' for an international audience - you don't see anything of the typical and rather special elements like makjang, slapstick, glitter & glamor of Jaebeol, or traumatic childhood secrets. Just life, every day, like everywhere else. Without spectacular ups and downs. As if someone had blindly reached into a pot full of addresses from a random location on the outskirts of metropolitan Seoul and then simply turned the spotlight and camera on the family living there for a while. In principle, it could be any family living near the terminal stations of the Seoul subway network. This, however, identifies the KDrama as specifically South Korean. Finally, the story is high KDrama quality, when it comes to a carefully, multi-layered narrative with deliberately reduced pace and space for the sensitive moments in between.
----------------- SIDE NOTE: --- Provincial life in the metropolitan area around the capital Seoul ---
So the KDrama simply tells about the normal life of relatively normal people around 30. They don't live in the megacity of Seoul (while almost 10 million people do) or in Incheon (with almost 3 million inhabitants), but in the sprawling province of Gyeonggi-do, which makes up the majority of the metropolitan area around Seoul in terms of space. The provincial population makes up ca half of the population of the more than 25 million inhabitants of the entire agglomeration around the capital Seoul. (And this in fact is about half of the inhabitants of South Korea altogether). An insight into the living environment of those provincial residents thus also offers an insight into a good deal of current South Korean life issues.
The fictional 'Dangmi Station' is actually Line 1's 'Seonghwan Station'. Crucially, most people who work in Seoul (increasingly) cannot afford to live in the city. Every workday they commute about +/- 2 hours to do their job in the city. With the evening company dinners and collegial come-togethers, a day becomes very long. There isn't much time left for a life of your own outside of work. While it is convenient in many respects to remain in the family home until marriage, this further reduces the amount of free time you have at your disposal. Especially if the parents still do a bit of farming and the help of the 'children' is required here and there.
City and country clash, almost every day. Accordingly, different life plans collide, which either fit more into a fast-paced, hip city life or rather into a rural, decelerated provincial life. In reality, however, new hybrid variants are needed that function as a flexible joint between both realities that are equally relevant to everyday life - city and country.
You might want to think about the meaning of life. About goals that you would like to set for yourself. What is life? What does it offer me? What would I actually like to do? Or, wait a minute, is it better not to think at all? It is up to the young people of the recent and the following working generation, to grope, to stumble, to develop new, visionary as well as down to earth attitudes and inspiring blueprints to life in a South Korea from the 2020s onwards...
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"My Liberation Notes" sails in this field of tension. Other than that, tension is not on the agenda. "My Liberation Notes" is processing the wisdom, the questions and the insights that the protagonists come up with over the course of the story - sometimes quietly to themselves, sometimes in conversation with friends.
The focus is on 4 protagonists who practically all live together in the provincial suburb of Seoul. Three of them are siblings and work in Seoul, the fourth is a stranger who helps their father in the carpentry shop and in the fields, eats with the family and lives next door. (A fantastic Son Seok-ko as an inscrutable stranger, as well as Lee Min-ki, Kim Ji-won and Lee-El as very different siblings, are presenting the range of everyday emotional worlds in a wonderfully haunting way.) All four wrestle with life in their very own manner and question, what freedom and quality of life could mean to them under the given circumstances. Promotion? Money? Success? A car? A partner? Marriage? Family? Living in an apartment in Seoul? Where is life? Is this life?
Eventually the aspect of reverence also comes to the fore: To respect and be respected. To be worshipped. To be adored... Yet how to express mutual adoration and respect (in order for your own life to feel maybe a bit more valuable)? ... Maybe just give it more space. That would be great...
The episodes pass as does life itself. The days are the same, and yet each one is new and different from the one before. Happiness is accumulated by the minute. And in the end, life is beautiful after all. Worth living. Distinctive. The quality increases with the degree of truthfulness that they give to their lives. And that's indeed a progressive message (as far as a society like the South Korean with its highly valued tradition of scham and pretence is concerned.)
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Good But Not Without Its Problems
I’ll be honest here. I definitely had mixed feelings before I started writing this review with what to put. I guess that I should probably start with my overall thoughts on the show.Personally I thought that ‘ My Liberation Notes’ was definitely well done from a screenwriting perspective . ( I mean what do you expect from the same writer of ‘ My Mister’?.) There was enough angst to pluck at your heartstrings but also a few opportunities here and there to explore lighthearted respite or focus on building up the characters as the plot went on.
HOWEVER, I have to say that while I honestly adore our main cast ( especially our main heroine played by Kim Ji Won) the show didn’t always possess a necessary spark for me in initial episodes. I’m not entirely what this was down to exactly. Maybe it was the acting slightly. That’s not to say that I thought the acting was bad at all. I was really impressed by the main cast as I said before and I can’t deny that Son Seok Koo really slammed the ball out of the ball pitch with his performance. ( Not a familiar face for me but I’m glad that ‘ My Liberation Notes’ has opened up my knowledge of some impressive actors)
Although while I do have a lot of things to praise by the acting here even I must admit early performances didn’t do a lot to really elevate these characters to life. To be fair I don’t think it was entirely the acting as pacing and writing maybe also played a key.
The first few episodes of the series were really bogged down on character introductions. I don’t think this is always a bad thing but rather than really giving us a lot of insight into the characters being built up, it felt a bit repetitive in this first part of the series before the action kicked off. Did I think this affected later episodes? Slightly. If I’m honest I thought that the second half definitely picked up and took note of these early mistakes but it didn’t always offer leeway to spicing things up. This isn’t to entirely be really negative though. I honestly did like how the plot panned out and the unexpected plot twists which played out here.
I’d say the filming was pretty good here. There were maybe a few moments here and there which felt as though they could’ve had a BIT more attention to detail but alongside the OST, I didn’t think this was entirely bad. Just a little incomplete in parts.
Overall thoughts; You can definitely tell this drama is cut from the same cloth as ‘ My Mister’ and considering it’s the same writer it is no surprise. I had my issues with writing and editing here and there but aside from my complaints, I thought that this was a surprisingly well balanced series with touching moments and intriguing characters. A strong 8.0/10.
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I just can´t let go
I can´t get this series out of my head after finishing it a few days ago!Short version: I started the series for the plot that was given but stayed for seeing the romantic development between Yeom Mi Jung and Mr. Gu.
Longer version: It is not something I am proud of to say but I had no interest in the other characters and relationships that were portrayed. Maybe because I was overwhelmed with the quantity of main roles therefore struggles and I am more interested in "minimalistic" heavy plots? It is something I could have expected after reading the plot summary, still I was surprised about the depressive atmosphere I felt watching the three siblings struggling.
The relationship between Mr. Gu and Yeom Mi Jung was so interesting for me and it was a lot to take in. In the first few episodes I was so confused and could not grasp what was going on between them especially with him. I was scared of him at first! :D
The acting and the charisma of Yeom Mi Jung/Kim Ji Won and Mr. Gu/Yon Suk Ku and the (non-)verbal dialogs were phenomenal. I could relate to Mi Jungs thoughts a lot and felt seen and heard a few times. I would LOVE a series with the two actors again, maybe even with those characters. Definitely gonna watch all upcoming series by the screenwriter Park Hae Youn!
PS: Maybe I need to give the series a second try but for now I state by this rating.
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Happiness?
This drama made me look at happiness in a whole way. I loved each siblings unique perspective on their situation and how they interated with the people around them. Figuring out Mr Gu was quite fun (it helps that he has this mysterious sexiness).It's interesting to think about how much we fake or hide our emotions. We all need to be liberated from something, but we might be to scared to admit it.
The romantic in me is a little dissatisfied with the ending. My wish or interpretation might be completely off. I like a solid or blunt ending.
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Good Enough
Korean Drama " My Liberation Notes " is a slice of life melodrama.My main problem with it is the pace. It felt off and the presentation of the story didn't suit well for me, as it was not cohesive.
Other than that, the story is pretty intense, with tragic characters, meaningful moments, simple, and yet, powerful scenes.
The romance, moreover, was original and didn't overshadow the main point of the drama. Rather, it let the characters shine and live their burdersome lives.
The performances, finally, were all great by everyone in the cast.
So, overall, seven out of ten.
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Boring plot yet charming to watch
What an odd series. It was as mundane as can be. I remember when I was watching the first episode and every scene felt so uneventful I was waiting when is something going to happen? And nothing really did. Yet, I wanted to watch more.It's a story about a family, the parents and three adult siblings living together in the countryside and a new, kinda mysterous drunk neighbor. All of them feel like they are stuck in their life in a way, stuck in a routine or in an addiction or being a very shallow person. And all of them want some sort of change, but honestly? They feel just about the same at the end like the beginning, maybe taking a tiny half step forward throughout the whole time.
I suppose what I liked about it, is the relatability? Trying to fight the mundane everydays, trying to maintain a relationship, survive in a bad workplace, living in a toxic family, etc. Things that so many of average watchers can get behind, yet again, nothing seems to change really by the end. Is that sad? I don't know, it just feels I guess average, realistic. Bittersweet in a way, like what were we really expecting?
What I didn't like though that there was no one trying to stop the alcoholic guy from drinking... pff they actually bought alcohol for him as gifts and such. Like tf? It's something that can actually kill you, no kidding, even if you don't preach against it at least there is no need to support a bad behaviour.
Anyway, even though this whole series sounds kinda boring, it has such a unique charm to it that drew me in, it's interesting. I'd definitely recommend it to young adults.
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High quality, heavy load
Has this drama high quality? Absolutely yes.Was acting good? Perfectly. I can give 100 out of 10 to everyone (idk why but maybe except Lee Min Ki)
Was the story interesting and unusual? YES!
Were the dialogues meaningful and thought-provoking? Definitely.
Did I enjoy watching this drama? No. A big no.
Did I finish it no matter what? Yes.
It was a heavy load on my shoulders which I am still feeling. Wasnt enjoyable for me at all except few scenes. Why? Cuz it was so relatable for me. Relatable much as giving pain to me. Some fears mentioned were my own fears that I am afraid to mention. Some frustrations were my own frustrations that I can't find any way out. Some weariness was my own weariness that I am struggling with for many years. This drama didn't do any good to me. At the beginning of the drama, we were all sad. All characters and me. And at the end, at least some of them are happy compared to the beginning, I am still sad. Nor their sadness neither their happiness made me happy.
I can see that why many people like this drama that much. It is in a different league compared to most of the dramas. But I prefer dramas with lower quality and higher pleasing level.
According to me who can enjoy this drama most? Adults who are satisfied with their lifes. They might have problems in their past, but now they should be happy about their life in general. I think for younger people like teenagers, it can be a boring drama with 'pessimistic adults', it can be seen as "unrealistically plaintive" even if it is totally real. And I think for the adults like me, adults who have big problems, who have big disappointments, who have to deal with things that they've never thought they are gonna deal with before, this drama is heavy load. I am happy to finish this drama finally. I would never start it at the beginning if i've known it is something like this.
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Life is tiring and this drama empathizes with it
My Liberation Notes (MLN) is the story of three siblings with a strict hard-working father who seldom speaks, and a mother who does most of the talking in order to avoid arguments at the dining table, and then a stranger living as a neighbour.The drama is relatable on various levels, especially the mood at the workplace of the three siblings, the camaraderie between the co-workers, the after-work gossip, and the random ranting sessions.
Regardless of which side of the human spectrum you find yourself on and which character’s journey you relate to the most, My Liberation Notes hits many correct points, if not all, and makes the viewers feel relatable about the reality of life. MLN was a good drama, a slow burn with good character development, although gets very slow with pacing at times.
My Rating : 7/10
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