Original and daring
Original, thought-provoking, and daring. A masterpiece as far as the Korean series go. The actors all did a fantastic job and the variety of characters, their quirks, and sheer reality of their depictions leave one glued to the screen.It is sad that this series gets such a bad rep on various social media outlets. People who like a typical sugar-coated, far-fetched, conservative Korean drama might not actually like this series. For the rest of us, it is a breath of fresh air.
The bulk of negative comments online surround the male lead character and his "poisonous" personality. Also, the relationship between the male and female leads is frequently described as toxic. If you watch this and your negatives only pertain to the male lead - you have missed a lot.
The male lead does not want a relationship - the female lead does not want love. She is raised by a mother so frequently in and out of love that she is determined not to go down the same route. He does not think one needs to settle. Their physical attraction and their inexperienced selves think they can handle a detached and aloof relationship - that was their common starting point. Yet they fall for each other without even knowing it- and they spend a good amount of time denying it.
This is a story about love if there ever was one. A story that is much more rooted in modern reality than 90% of shows out there. It is original, heartfelt, and exudes love and emotions. A coming of age and growing-up story, too.
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A piece of art yet to be understood
It is crazy how such charismatic people and relaxing vibes (music, scenery…) can make you watch a whole series like this which is actually pretty empty in a way.But in a way the whole series sounds like a poem or a piece of art because it is beautiful but the meaning is unclear and not everyone can understand it (if there is anything to understand). Yet our eyes like what they see.
I have very little to say about the rest of the drama. How can you comment on performances if you don’t understand what they are trying to play or convey.
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Rough but Addictive
So I started this for Song Kang, I've been on a binge for this actor. Let me just say I had heard bits about this drama before and I started this knowing there was lots of controversy and that he was a player. 4 eps in and This Incredibly Beautiful Man is Wrecking me!! He is a walking RED Flag, all the signs are there! I'm still hypnotized by his ridiculously good looks and those bedroom eyes! I'm just as captivated as poor Na-Bi. There's no doubt he is the definition of a F*Boy... I'm trying to remember why that's a problem! My heart be dammed! This actor does such a phenomenal job in all the rolls I've seen him in. He is so versatile and it never fails to shock me how he can go from innocent/sweet/nerd to Sex on a stick in point 2 seconds!... Now that I've completed it I can say that was rough! The beginning was so hard to watch, anyone who has every been uncertain in a relationship will definitely feel the hits that drama just continues to deliver. It gives you anxiety and the unbearable heartache it brings out for all those who have gone through something similar. Jae-eon (Kang) is the guy that every girl has a crush on, the one everyone secretly steals glances at and loves to gossip about once he's gone. He's ridiculously attractive, he always knows just what to say to make your heart flutter. You KNOW, YOU KNOW he's a BAD idea, but you don't care. He a gets around, he's mysterious and seductive. He's dealing with his own issues and his release comes in the form of playing the game with his "Butterflies". Na-Bi went through a horrible toxic relationship with her ex-boyfriend, she was venerable and she definitely fell prey to him. I think Jae-eon was unprepared for Na-bi tho, You can see the struggles he goes though to draw the line, you know he's into her, but fights to admit it or to open up and communicate with her. He also fails to clear up any misunderstandings, which drives me absolutely batshit! He's doing way more than just friends w/benefits. Na-Bi grows a lot from the person she was in the first ep. That was very satisfying, after she decided to succumb to her desire for Him and worry about the consequences later, she really comes out of her shell. She still has hope, that whatever it is they are it will be something, that he won't hurt her. And once SeolA comes in the picture to throw a kink into everything, you get to see Na-bi make a stand and let her feelings/anger known. It was thrilling to see Jae-eon get a taste of his own medicine when Do-Hyeok comes into the picture. Do-Hyeok was such a wholesome character, you fall for him immediately, he's the sweet and adorable. You know he's sincere with his feelings and he's obviously the safe choice. And while Na-bi enjoys spending time with him, he doesn't make her heart-pound, there's no rush, that Spark isn't there. Jae-eon was a very passionate person, (just my opinion) but for someone who doesn't know love, I think he craves it, not necessarily love. Because I don't think he knows what love is till Na-bi but his idea of love or being loved. I think their connection started out very much sensual and intoxicating and soon became all consuming for him. Here he was trying to seduce this Beautiful sweet, shy, innocent girl and soon I think he was the one lost in his own game. She made him feel, and he fought it, she was very confused and I was addicted! I also enjoyed the other couples, seeing them go through and experience their own love and struggles. I actually really enjoyed this show. I gave it an Eight out of Ten because I feel like that last episode was rushed, they definitely could have given us another 2 eps to give us a better ending. There was still a lot left open with the characters. I'm happy but wanted something more,Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
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A genuine slice of life as a young adult
Right off the bat I am going to say that I am old enough to be your grandmother or even your great grandmother….so my review comes with having lived this myself. Both as the ML and the FL.When a child never has had any love bestowed upon them to speak of, they carry that burden with them perhaps their whole life. The kind of love that is needed in a committed relationship needs to be taught to a child throughout the time they live at home…or they enter the outside world with no real knowledge of what it means to love. The ML suffers from that to some extent. He finds it hard to take the next step….to reach out….for fear of being abandoned. It is seen, quite often that children like this, becoming adults, will often use sex to get close to someone….it is their version of love and it holds less danger to them emotionally. I know this to be true for that was me, well into my 30’s.
However, we see that the ML is gentle and kind to the FL…..he is always honest with her…he doesn’t make promises he cannot keep. But through lack of training as a child….he doesn’t know how to take the next step from sex to expressing love on a wider spectrum. He tells her right from the start what he would like the relationship to be….he asks her many times if what they are doing is okay with her. When he is with her…..he gives her his full attention. He is a gentle lover in bed. At some point early on he falls for her but he doesn’t know what to do next and he founders.
The FL is mentally and emotionally deranged. She is what we call a basket case. She really shouldn’t be in a relationship. She has too much baggage. She doesn’t love or trust herself and therefore she doesn’t know how to love or trust someone else. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen in my long time friends that the type of behavior shown by the FL, in real life, has damaged young men so traumatically from the push pull, emotionally blackmailing, demanding type of behavior that they never quite recover and carry a mistrust of women their whole life.
She is really unkind to him. And he just stands there and takes it. He doesn’t make nasty comments back to her. She continually tells him to leave her alone….then has a snit when he does. She does this in so many ways…I relate to this on a very deep level…..I was that woman for a very long time myself and I destroyed several relationships with my mistrusting suspicious behavior.
Then instead of taking some time to heal from leaving him, she instead jumps into another relationship….she says to herself at one point “Am I cheating”. Yes, you are. You know this other man is in love with you but you don’t care, you just string him along and make rationalizations to yourself. I’ve done that too. So you hurt the SML in the same way that you accused the ML of.
I know its a movie….but I kept thinking to myself….it is clear to anyone that the ML is head over heels in love with her…he is always sincere with her…and he never lies to her. How can she not see it? The truth is that she feels unworthy of love…here is this handsome, sweet man, and she feels unworthy and she projects that insecurity constantly.
I want to say something about the situation where she thought he was having an affair. In a relationship…you need to trust the other person. If they say “no” then trust them. Don’t spend hours, days or weeks throwing it back up to them. If you feel you can’t trust what they say then the only option is to leave the relationship. If someone is a quiet person like he is, respect that. He wasn’t a coward….he just didn’t see the need for hour long discussions. See, the main problem here was she was trying to remake him into what she wanted him to be….and didn’t care about who he really was. Did she ever take the time to actually get to know him? No. It was all about her. In every scene, even at the end, it was still all about her. She is living a self-fulfilling prophecy. If her main thought is this won’t work, I’ll be unhappy then she has already programmed the relationship to fail.
And lastly, they were young adults. I don’t see any thing wrong with his behavior that he was dating and bedding as many women as he wanted to. He was always nice and considerate to all of them. And after doing so for a long time, he finally found someone that he was ready to commit to. Is that wrong? I don’t think so.
Please….do not keep throwing up “old baggage” to the other person in a relationship. It will destroy the relationship.
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centering the female gaze and POV... with a disappointing ending
DISCLAIMER: this is a review written with retrospect, after watching each episode on an week-by-week basis in 2021 on netflix (last year). so, details may be fuzzy.- first half was amazing, well-paced, and eerily realistic. honestly, i still sometimes think about the cinematography and aesthetics of this drama even a year later. i also listen to the OSTs often--either when i'm feeling sad, heartbroken, or need to feel more grounded after being dramatic lol (i lowkey picture nabi needing to calm down, basically).
- second half with the love triangle and with family backgrounds not being explored with enough detail, it definitely felt redundant and draggy in terms of the leads back-and-forth with one another. stakes just stopped feeling high and exciting; everything became more predictable. after episode 5, it's just disappointing, if i'm being honest.
- could have ended this story as a cautionary tale of choosing one's self, dreams, and ambitions over a charming, yet mysterious f*ckboy, but oh well. i can't say i'm 100% mad at the ending either, though, because of the leads' chemistry (and i like them as individual actors as well LOL).
- overall, i had to give this drama an 8.5/10 because you can definitely see how this was directed by women, with a young female audience in mind going through similar life experiences. centering the female gaze, overall, is something i can distinctly register and appreciate, because it validates in a way, these exact experiences we may go through (and i say this, biased as a young woman, after attempting to watch so hee's soundtrack drama which seems to largely focus on the male lead's POV of cringey, disillusioned unrequited love lol).
RECOMMENDED FOR:
- girls and women in their mid-teens and twenties, who have had experience dating charismatic jerks like song kang's character
- for people looking for dramas with young people in university (and not just high school for a change!)
- people who like watching pretty people with great chemistry act like they're in love <3
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ai bial não vale a pena...
comentado por todos seja pelo bem ou pelo mal temos ele, nevertheless... vi por recomendação enquanto ainda estava lançando(acho q foi o motivo de eu não ter dropado) e assim... entendo toda a beleza do conceito do crescimento da intimidade entre um casal que não é muito abordado em kdramas e tals, porém assim... não poderiam ter feito personagens mais carismáticos? yu na bi e jaeyeon inimigos do riso... nem vou entrar muito em detalhe daquele relacionamento conturbado deles pq nem vale a pena. Os casais secundários carregaram, juro que era bem mais emocionante a yoon sol segurando a mão da bit na do que a pegação daqueles dois... mas enfim, achei uma representatividade pra todas as manas que amam um chernoboy! e mais uma coisa, que final * hein?Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
Hugely irritating characters
I quite enjoyed the first couple of episodes, which piqued my interest. Sadly I quickly found myself greatly disliking many of the characters.Indecisive, selfish, wet, self absorbed, delusional and contradictory.
I was only bothered about 2; Do-hyeok and Gyu-hyun.
Jae-eon was like his butterflies and Na-bi.... well, what can I say.
I also found their art class unreal. The piece Na-bi worked on, for the entire series, hardly changed and yet could be reproduced virtually overnight.
Made a change to have a lesbian couple feature though, rather than a gay one, although Oh-bitna drove me nuts.
Not one I'd watch again.
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Do yourself a favor....
Just from reading the synopsis it turned out to be as rancid as it sounds exactly! This feels it was made for a college group project while trying to be edgy and trendy. The standards keep getting lower nowadays.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
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Disappointed
I have never written a review before so sorry for the mistakes that I'm going to make..fundamentally they are just s*x buddies. well for me it was disgusting.. I wanted to see true lovers but they were together just for benefits.. it's disgusting... well some of you may find this interesting. I honestly wanted to see the fl ends with 2nd ml.. he was a nice guy and I think he truly liked her...but no!! she wanted a partner with that kind of advantages.. I just finished watching this because it had only a few episodes.. anyways the ost was amazing !! very beautiful and fascinating!
Thank you
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I regret watching this.
This will go down as the most hyped-up and biggest letdown of 2021 for me. I can honestly say I hate this show with a passion and this is the only drama I've ever felt this way about. It had so much potential when it started to air but in the end they actually chose to make it a trainwreck. The leads did not evolve, change or grow whatsoever and continued to make dumb unhealthy choices. ML and FL were both stiff with what felt like forced chemistry. Even watching them together offscreen they didn't look like they even really liked each other, in fact I caught a snippet of SK almost acting irritated with HSH for a second. Not a good look and you can just sense that carried over into the drama because there's nothing really there. As if that wasn't enough, ML's character is creepy and disturbing. He's literally someone obsessed with butterflies who marks his girls with butterfly tattoos and is constantly trying to bed them. He hints at perverted things to her like talking about getting erections in class, I'm not kidding. He's not just a f*ckboy, he's probably a psychopath. FL likes this attention and we're supposed to believe it only makes her swoon more because he's such a mysterious bad boy. Yeah ok. The whole thing is toxic, actually so toxic I would never let my daughter watch this.I'm not a fan of HSH almost entirely because of this drama. She was emotionless and stone faced the entire time. Her one facial expression is staring with her mouth hanging open like a dead fish. In her new show My Name her performance was a little bit better, but it still seemed she had to try really hard to make a facial expression and some of her expressions still felt forced like it just doesn't come natural to her.
The cinematography was beautiful and it was one of the biggest things that kept me watching. The other was my disbelief that they couldn't possibly, ACTUALLY make the show end how it appears to be ending, could they? But they did.
Don't waste your time. There are so many better (and healthier) dramas to spend 16 hours of your life on.
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A must watch with a different touch to the usual romantic k-dramas
Well this is the first time I am writing a review in this page and the only reason for this is all these negative comments loitering about this drama which I totally disagree with !!I am in total awe of this drama bcz of its unique storyline.. I have completed this drama in a day and a half and I am glad that I chose to watch it despite the negative comments..
I don't understand why ppl are saying shit about Jae-eon.. since the start he clearly liked and cared about Na-bi.. in the 2nd epi when they all were in a bar and that fat pathetic nature guy was speaking ill about Na-bi and jae-eon protected and defended her.. bcz he understands how these things can hurt and ruin the reputation of others .. I don't think he was ever messing with Nabi .. since the beginning he was drawn to her and he likes and cares about her.. it's just that he wasn't knowing that feeling and the way to express it .. and he was drawing a thin line with the other girls.. if you notice in the 5th episode Yun-ji said she dumped jae-eon bcz of his character but that was a BIG FAT LIE !! Clearly she was lingering around him but then he finally chose to stay away from her and hence she thought of running his image(which was anyhow not good).. and as he is said to be very handsome in this series this scene makes me think a lot of other girls might have also given false narrative about him .. it's a person's choice if he/she doesn't want to date.. he never said Nabi he wants to date her.. and she too never clearly expressed her feelings.. so why all these hate towards Jae-eon ?
And I feel Jae-eon was more in love with Na-bi as he was atleast trying to be with her.. but she was being a bit self-centered .. I felt bad when she didn't wish him on his bday..
I agree Do-hyeok was a nice guy .. but he was clearly not the one for Na-bi.. lov is all about the feeling and connection between too ppl which was in Jae-eon and Na-bi.. Park Jae-eon definitely has flaws and so does Yu Na-bi.. so I am glad the ending was Jae-eon and Na-bi and he deserves all the happiness.. but it would have been better if they could have showed a bit more of them being together ☺️
From acting perspective I think Song Kang was truly phenomenal !! Romantic genre does suit him ❤️ I loved him the most in the last episode when he bid farewell to Na-bi .. I cried a ton in that scene .. All the other actors were good too..
I truly loved this drama ❤️
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you should watch
many people don't like this kdrama but i personally love it a lot! he is very realistic and people don't like it just because she didn't end up with the kind guy everyone is used to seeing in clichéd kdramas. it can be drying at first (although it wasn't for me) but it's so worth watching!! and not only by the main couple but also by secondary couples, especially lesbians ?? one of my favorite kdramas ❤️?❤️? even more so because there's song kang and han sohee who are my favorite actors!!Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
