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A Phenomenal Drama that will leave Mesmerized
I still can’t grasp the reality, is this show really over? Where is my “Hae-Young & Ji-Uk” happy hours?I’m mostly annoyed by the fact that tvN had the audacity to end this phenomenal show at 12 episodes (why so stingy?). Frankly, I could sit down and watch Hae Young’s hijinks for another 12 episodes as she drives her deterrents up the wall, falls in love with her fake husband again and protects her foster sisters fearlessly. Shin Min Ah is an exemplary actress, so I had no doubts that she would add meaning to this role. The surprise package was however Kim Young Dae, his subtle yet empathetic portrayal of Kim Ji-UK was so fantastic, I’m in tears. I kept comparing his past performances to Ji-Uk and realised one thing- it is the patented Shin Min Ah magic. When you have a co-star like her, naturally your performance gets enhanced. Despite the visible age gap, they led this drama fearlessly and got me hooked. Apart from them, I was also mesmerized by the second lead couple, Lee Sang Yi & Han Ji Hyun. Mostly secondary couples get sidetracked, but this show did them justice and both actors were truthful to their characters. Honestly, this drama is a potboiler of emotions with hilarity mixed in equal proportions!
Read the complete article here-
https://kcdramamusings.wordpress.com/2024/10/02/no-gain-no-love-series-review/
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Good starting, but...
I'm not a fan of rom-com and since ‘Yumi cells’, I hadn't found anything very innovative. I found the first episodes of ‘no gain...’ lively and amusing, surprisingly good! And then towards the middle of the series, everything became quite boring with the usual rom-com kdrama clichés, with almost predictable events and situations and a few fillers. What a pity. And then ML's acting worsened throughout the episodes and frankly, it's hard to believe in his deep love for FL or his sadness at his adoptive mother's death. All in all, a fairly average drama. ..Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
Funny at first but ultimately fell flat
The first few episodes seemed promising and hilarious. However, the progression of events seemed too slow but too fast at the same time. Plotlines were unresolved for too long and I lost interest. The leads lack chemistry despite their amazing acting abilities. I really tried to sit through this for as long as I could because this show was so hyped up by other reviewers. But at the end of the day there were many overused tropes that were executed poorly and in a plain fashion. Nothing felt exciting and the set looked like it was straight out of Whoville.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
A Promising Start, But Fizzles Midway: Mixed Feelings About the Film
I found the film quite enjoyable, and I really liked the actors individually. The beginning was great—dynamic, funny, full of energy! But towards the middle, I feel like the chemistry was lost a bit, things became colder, and the main couple's storyline kind of fell flat. However, the ending managed to save things a bit, which was nice.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
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My opinion only
I love Shin Min Ah, as well as Kim Young Dae, so I was very excited for this one. I was so disappointed. There were too many storylines going on for 12 episodes, but I'm glad there weren't 16 episodes because it was all I could do to finish this.What I liked:
The second couple. They were so cute together, as well as in the scenes that they had separately.
Kim Young Dae's character, even with the bad haircuts.
What I didn't care for:
-Hae Yeong (Shin Min Ah's character). I was totally getting narcissist vibes from the character at the beginning, which didn't lessen as the show progressed. She was not nice to the ML throughout. I know some had said that she had a right, because of her mother, but I'm not buying that. Sometimes a character redeems herself. This one didn't, as far as I'm concerned.
-Bad kisses by the leads.
-3FL multiple sexual partners, one of whom wasn't exclusive to her either. The latest catchphrase seems to be polyamorous, but a different word comes to mind. Accidental pregnancy, not knowing who the father is. This whole storyline could have been left out and made the show more cohesive.
-Multiple storylines that went nowhere. What happened to 2ML's mom and dad? They had such a big story at the beginning, and it just fell off. What was the point of the 2ML's secretary? He was just irritating throughout.
-All of the sex chatter by the FL which demonstrates that she's had multiple partners. Personally, that really decreases my enjoyment of a "romance".
-The sex talk, the profanity, the sexual innuendos - for me, this was all very off-putting. I have been watching K-dramas to get away from all this stuff.
Again, this is just my personal preference, but considering that I love to binge-watch shows, I could only manage one episode a day and was reluctant to continue thereafter. I just found too much unlikeable about it.
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High Hopes, But Disappointing
I wanted to like this show and gave it my all. I love Shin Min Ah, I like Lee Sang Yi, I love contract relationship stories, but the story and execution of this show isn't good. This show, like a lot of bad k-dramas, goes crazy with slow-motion, slapstick, randomly devious characters, irresponsible uses of serious subject matter, wacky sound effects, and production decisions that amplify the goofiness of its characters and create a schizophrenic tone to the show. If you've watched a lot of k-drama, you know what I mean--it's the "try too hard to be interesting and funny" style of k-drama. I think with better creative minds at the helm of the structure and script, it would've been much better; the cast is pretty strong, but the executive choices are all the wrong ones.No Gain, No Love follows Shin Min Ah's character who, very believably, is pissed about shilling out so much money over the years to passing acquaintances who were getting married. Her workplace discriminates against single women and so she decides she needs to get married in order to advance her career. She picks Kim Young Dae's character as her groom, who's a convenience store worker; they start out pseudo-enemies but he eventually agrees. A bit later, through some pretty contrived means, he starts working at her company and they have to manage the "realness" of their relationship. The B romance is a crazy mix of comical and serious, focusing on FL's foster sibling/adult fiction writer and FL's company CEO (Lee Sang Yi) who she sues for harassing her online (for one of the most ridiculous reasons I've ever seen).
I haven't seen anything else with Kim Young Dae, but I didn't care for his character here at all. I don't think he's given that much to work with; he's basically cast as "handsome guy ideal." All of the mystery and conflict of the story comes from him, but I didn't find him compelling at all. His character is responsible for all the slow-mo, fan-service, etc. that I find tacky in k-drama. It's not the actor's fault, but I can't help but think he's been typecast and this is the result. I also hate when a show always tells me a character is handsome; it makes me start thinking, "Is this guy really that hot? If he really was, why do they have to say it so much?" To give an example of what this show is working with, it goes full "glasses-make-you-ugly" followed by what he looks like without them, ending with an "oh no, he's hot!" I didn't like how it developed his character, even though I liked Shin Min Ah's career-oriented pragmatist character. They have decent chemistry (but definitely not as much as her and the guy from Hometown Cha-Cha), but what they do have, the last act pretty much kills.
Overall, just about every decision the show makes doesn't work for me. I can take and even enjoy a little bit of the classic k-drama silliness, but in this show, it's a crutch, as if it uses all the goofy editing and production tricks to pad time, which the show could've definitely used to flesh out what actually matter, i.e. the story itself. No show - not even an action romp - needs 10 instances of slow-mo an episode like this show. I also didn't find any of the extra stuff to be funny (besides maybe Lee Sang Yi's character). Not even Shin Min Ah can make up for all the weaknesses and lazy plotting temptations this drama gives in to. Disappointing.
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No Watch, Not too much Loss (2024)
Whenever I see a bad ending I tend to bitch and moan about it, so let's get that out of the way. I feel that that the writer has not even tried to prepare to write a 12 episode long miniseries. She just went through the motions almost exactly the same way as if it were a 16 epi long drama & then in e12 just quickly tried to wrap it all up, but -3 minute long happy ending aside- the finale is the worst episode of the show. It's just really messy & quite a bit stupid.The Good
⌲ Most characters on the show are rather entertaining on their own.
⌲ The Kim Young Dae + Shin Min Ah pairing worked better than I thought possible! (not amazing, but good)
⌲ Frenemies to lovers done very well in the first 9? episodes. (lots of fun bickering)
⌲ The show is very entertaining until the messy stuff in the final episodes. (until secret identities are found out)
⌲ The cat
⌲ The sismance
⌲ The comedy early on
The Average:
⌲ FL's seconary love interest (cartoon tier plot with a divorce offer, but he had so little impact that this does not qualify to trigger my hate for love triangles)
⌲ This is probably Min Ah's worst acting performance I have seen thus far & I'm a fan btw.. (still good, but disappointing compared to her usual self)
⌲ The murderer
⌲ The sex toys
The Bad:
⌲ I'm fairly open minded about consenting adults doing whatever, but this polyamorous plot was increasingly bad all the way to the end. (what bothered me has very little to do with the free hippy love part, more with marriage etc etc)
⌲ For a kdrama romcom there is barely any fluff in the show, sorry but this is not enough sugar for me!
⌲ The stupid 6 month separation in the final episode
⌲ The ridiculous career choices in the final episode (Jeez!)
⌲ The chaebol dad (though the time pressure on the writer made some very predictable plot developments disappear, so this could have been worse)
⌲ Tobacco
⌲ Why just WHY did FL's mom have to die just one second before the finale?
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Grande potencial, mas que infelizmente foi desperdiçado
O enredo inicial de No Gain no Love é cativante, assim como a introdução dos personagens principais. A protagonista, determinada e competitiva, se destaca por sua aversão à derrota, enquanto o outro é um trabalhador de loja de conveniência extremamente bondoso e inteligente. Nos primeiros episódios, o drama proporciona momentos divertidos e envolventes, mas a história começa a se perder quando é revelado que o protagonista é, na verdade, o filho bastardo do dono de uma grande empresa. A partir desse ponto, diversos sub-enredos se acumulam e, infelizmente, muitos acabam mal resolvidos ou simplesmente deixados em aberto.A forma como o CEO manipula os protagonistas a mando de sua mãe é particularmente frustrante, especialmente porque ele não demonstra qualquer arrependimento, nem mesmo no final. Ele não pede desculpas ao meio-irmão e tampouco restabelece a posição da protagonista na empresa, além de dar os créditos de sua ideia a outro funcionário – que, coincidentemente, é o ex-namorado dela. Esse funcionário, por sua vez, sai ileso, recebendo os méritos que não lhe pertencem e mantendo o casamento intacto, mesmo após ter enganado a esposa e perseguido outra mulher. Além disso, há outros pontos problemáticos, como o comportamento da irmã da protagonista, que, apesar das ações prejudiciais de seu interesse amoroso - o CEO - contra sua irmã e "cunhado", segue com o romance sem demonstrar preocupação.
A decisão de limitar a série a apenas 12 episódios foi claramente um equívoco, considerando a quantidade de enredos e conflitos que No Gain no Love tenta abordar. Isso se torna ainda mais evidente no episódio final, que é apressado e deixa várias pontas soltas, dedicando pouco tempo ao casal principal. As cenas finais são marcadas por um término abrupto e sem sentido, que poderia ter sido resolvido de forma mais coerente, seguido por uma rápida reconciliação que transmite a sensação de um desfecho feito às pressas. Enfim, um drama com grande potencial, mas que infelizmente foi desperdiçado.
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low rating is more personal than this show being objectively bad
i think this show was just an unfortunate case of me not liking the choice of cliches and/or the execution of them. usually i love lots of cliches but this one wasnt to my taste. not to say it was an absolutely terrible show, because i definitely have some good things to say about it. the biggest one being that the fl was an absolute delight lol i love a fun silly woman who can also stand up for herself! just didn't really feel any chemi between the leads but yea i just didn't really care for this show tbh it's unfortunately cuz to me it was surprisingly getting good ratings so clearly this is very much a me thing.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
Big disappointment, it had everything and they decided to give it a meh ending
Shin Minha carried this drama, her acting never disappoints, ifeel that the ml doesn't act well and does not transmit chemistry on his partIt had the potential to be THE romcom of the year but they ended it terribly
The comedy was great, the jokes were on point and any problems were easily resolved. It wasn't the most innovative story but it was going well, why did they have to ruin it?
I liked the secondary couple more and it seems that the director did too, they were given more prominence than the main couple....
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TRASH
As the title says, this is the trash of the year. A complete waste of time and waste of good actors like Shi Min Ah who is well-known in the kdrama industry. Wasted everything in the mediocre writing and poor acting skills of some of the cast. Chemistry is a joke. FL and ML felt more like a mother and child here at worst.There is nothing new here. The same old cliche trope. It is too cringey. The worst is that they failed so miserably at becoming original. Chaebol freaking ML, Cheater EX, Arrange Marriage Shit, Polygamy shit, No character development. Oh! Let's pull some last minute break-up and reunion too. One word: BORING. Even dramas who have used similar cliche and cringe tropes has done a far better job compared to this total garbage.
I can't believe I wasted time on this piece of shitty writing. Even writers from asianfanfics could pull a better storyline than this. Don't be coaxed by the people who says this is the best romcom of the year. Believe me, you will regret wasting time on this. Even if you turn off your brain watching this, you will be left dumbfounded with the childish plot. It's nothing but a bunch of cliched nothing burgers.
Business Proposal and True Beauty is far better than this garbage. The ending is the worst too. The writer tried so hard but all they could pull was a lazy ass writing. The amount of unnecessary trope and useless characters here. It's a total mess. This is by far the worst ROMCOM drama I have ever watched.
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When a ROMCOM romcoms the right way.....
No gain no love was my biggest surprise this year..having walked into it with little to no expectations Iam actually suprised by how much it grew on me....with every episode...it's actually rare but I had this excitement for it from the beginning to nearly the end..like that's how addicted I was to the series.No gain no love was the perfect blend of comedy and romance..it had this light hearted tone to it that was maintained till the end..even with serious topics discussed and with the Deep dialogue at times..the drama still maintained it light tone...
The story was told in a way where even cliches felt fresh..there were plenty of my favourite troupes like we had the fake marriage troupe that actually felt different in its execution, we got the enemies to lovers from the second couple, we got the office romance and more..all of these are something I've definitely seen before but no gain no love managed to make them fresh and actually entertaining for me to watch and enjoy wholeheartedly.
The characters in the show were written to be interesting and unique each in their own way..we had a female lead who was calculating considering her nature of suffering no losses, she was realistic, bold and ambitious and also spoke her mind..to some she might have been annoying but her character felt rather amazing to me....she stood out because of these qualities that gave her a personality.
The male lead was written to be calm quiet and unintentionally funny...and I must her was good at it.
The other characters like the second fl and second ml and more were also entertaining and added a charm to he series and i must say I appreciate how all had amazing comedic timing which fitted the overall vibe of the series.
The acting was good... depending on how the characters were written..I know many people have complaints about Kim youngdae but I enjoyed his subtle yet impactful acting especially when he expressed himself through his eyes....it's something I noticed maybe because I paid extra attention to him since I was being cautious and he did a great job on his own and besides his co stars Shin min Ah.
The chemistry between the couple was amazing too..these have to be the rare tendecies Where I actually enjoyed both couples on the show..and just couldn't choose who I loved more than the other..the main couple was cute and lovely and their interactions were heart warming and made me all giddy... despite the age gap that seemed to worry many these two managed to generate a comfortable vibe around them with their natural chemistry and interactions.
The second couple was amazing too just a bit under developed..but still entertaining...and I can't wait for their spin off drama series.
The other soul of this drama, something I really loved was the comedy direction...this drama was actually funny..I had a smile on my face the entire time I was watching it..as I said above Iam happy they maintained the light tone of the series regardless of how deep the plot got especially when they were discussing some serious topics...even with the serious topics you can see that they were handled in a way that was delicate and sensitive without breaking the light tone of the series.
The pacing was amazing.. perfect for the 12 EPISODES of the series.
Overall this drama is definitely added to me list of classic and beautifully written kdrama ROMCOMs
Do I recommend it?
Absolutely if you looking for something light engaging and entertaining.
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