Chsh263
USA
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Mixing genres did not work for this drama.
This could have been so much better if they didn't try so hard to be funny.The comedy elements of the show don't work 80% of the time. I think this show would have been much better if they just focused on the serious elements. I found myself about halfway through skipping through the 'funny' parts. I just wanted to get to the action and the scenes that drove the story forward because these were so well done. Chang-young is not funny at all. Like not at all. Not even a little bit. The jokey torture scenes by the tenants don't work, the funny intelligence agent obsessed with Vincenzo doesn't work because it makes him come off as incompetent. And whenever they went for a blockbuster finish with slow motion and over-the-top music it came off as way too cheesy.
My favorite scene is the first time Myung hee gets threatened in the laundromat it's so real and so effective. Great directing, acting, and great momentum is built. Whenever they switched to the jokes they lost momentum built in these serious powerful scenes so I would be at the edge of my seat one moment and rolling my eyes hitting fast forward the next which made for unbalanced viewing. This drama had such high potential but it was ruined by an attempt to also be a comedy, it should have just been a drama about the gangster life of different members of society.
Song Joong-ki/ Vincenzo is the only reason I watched until the end. He is the only lead whose acting feels natural but he is backed into a corner by the terrible writing and story progression. Han Seo and Seung-hyuk were the only other believable characters in this mess.
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Ambitious plot, ambitious characters, poor execution.
The second half is bad and ruins the whole show. The last 3 episodes things get all mixed up together the characters are full of themselves and things get too unbelievable for me to suspend reality. The first 4 episodes were interesting. Yes, Sang-pil was fighting 20 people alone and winning but this was the only over-the-top thing happening.The end felt rushed, characters were waiting to do things for the sake of the script. e.g Ahn Oh Jo, screaming he is going to kill himself then it looks like Sang-Pil stops him then doesn't actually take his gun away so he shoots himself anyway after their conversation. This is very bad writing and it happens multiple times in the second half. Also, the scene after Jae Yi gets kidnapped by Ahn O Jo and Sang-Pil goes to rescue doesn't make sense. Why give Jae Yi the gun? Why did O Joo try to kill Sang-Pil then suddenly not kill him and decide to fight him? If he had kidnapped Jae yi to force Sang Pil to do something why did he never make the demand, why keep Jae yi alive if he wanted to kill Sang-pil? Kill Sang-pil he is left alone with the kidnapped leverage (Jae yi)....This just makes no sense.
The acting wasn't very good either. The characters were all one-dimensional.
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Lofty intention but the story writing was not strong enough to truly deliver anything memorable.
It's too serious and preachy to be enjoyable. There is no one to root for. No favs. No OST to make me cry. No love story to make me smile. No jokes. Moral of the story: humans are greedy, people are willing to do a lot of bad things to get what they want when they are pushed into a corner. There is a lot of luck involved in our life outcomes. Gi hun going back? Doesn't even make sense. He barely scraped through the games. lolThe ending is like when you get a meal you have been anticipating then the meal is just average. It's Meh...
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Good but could have been done better
I had to read a bunch of other peoples reviews to contextualize my thoughts. I agree with the this doesn’t work as romance take.They should have the romance be a side story. Because if romance is main story we almost always expect a lot of heartwarming ooooooo moments of which there were very few if not non-existent.It’s a horrible love story.Love can be complicated and not have a happy ending. But one should feel like wow they really loved each other but life happened.( I got this feeling in Mr sunshine) here the FL feminist concerns are not dealt with appropriately because she never admits she is in love. Multiple things can be true at the same time. This drama did not know how to handle that. They can have been truly in love and shown it and still have shown all the tragedy and reluctance to conform.
The point at which the FL decides her love mattered over her concerns is treated pettily when it should have been the cornerstone of the show. The point in life where one decides what matter most. But they didn’t give the FL agency to portray this because they had it happen via her getting dragged back to the palace instead of making the choice herself. The asking and being rejected over and over makes the story seem immature. When they got married she seemed sad allllllllll the time. So it adds to the forced to do it narrative.
I don’t know how historical interactions between king and concubine were but if the King waited for years for this concubine instead of forcing them to marry him when he could have. I think it is safe to assume this was a very mature relationship with mutual respect. I expected the post marriage interactions between the King and concubine to be more meaty and less slave and master like. We needed more dialogue. We needed to see the FL retain her fire within the marriage and see her wrestle with her desires, duties and constrains. Instead she just became a wilted flower after marriage. The traits they had us believe made him fall in love with her at the beginning completely disappeared post marriage. So their love becomes unbelievable the story falls apart at the end.
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Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo
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Lovely story about falling in love and overcoming life challenges. Fresh writing well executed!
I love this Kdrama. The script and directing are executed much better than the typical Kdrama. My typical pet peeve of misunderstandings that get dragged on and on was well managed. This feels like it almost fits the slice of life genre with a bit more drama which is why some reviewers feel the show was pointless. This show is an exploration of everyday life problems and how these people navigate them.Execution by actors nicely done. Unlike other people, this was my first time seeing the Female lead so her previous work did not make it hard for me to believe the dorky image. The leads had chemistry and I loved seeing the characters grow on screen. Why they fell in love is totally believable and actually pretty realistic. Most things make sense.
The 0.5 marks come off from sometimes making the weightlifters too cartoonish. I didn't think that was necessary for us to get the point that they are dorky not typically associated with beauty. There were also some unexplained loose ends. How did Sun-Ok manage to come back to school? I didn't really understand what happened to Jun-Hyuk's career in his last two years of college.
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The writers bit off more than they could chew
The Good:The acting was good. The cast delivered performances really well
The story, although poorly executed, was initially enticing
The Not So Good:
I knew the writers were going to land themselves in trouble super early on when they conveniently stopped clarifying who is in charge of the body at different times. Majority of the time we could clearly tell it was Bong Hwan but, sometimes I think they made Bong Hwan So Young-esque under the guise of Bong Hwan having So Young's memory. But they never show us So Young's point of view for us to truly understand how much of what was happening was her vs Bong Hwan and if she was changing to be more like Bong Hwan because when she got her body back she continued acting Bong Hwan-esque.
The body-swap was not done well because they did not think through how the whole switch-co-habitat-switch-back would cohesively work.
The Other BIG BIG BIG Problem is the Characters lack substantial motivation for why they do what they do. The story plot is being moved forward on toothpick legs. The greatest motivator in this whole world of Mr Queen is unrequited love. The only other plot mover was the Dowager and Mother-in-Law and the Dowager's brother's thirst for power. Everyone else was doing this because the person they loved or who they loved was not loving them. We get it, love is important but this is a bit much.
First half of the show I could forgive a lot of these problems but by the last 3-4 episodes I was not even concentrating completely, I just wanted to the end.
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Good. Almost great.
Nice watch. The drama started really well but after a while it became a little to preachy. Most characters didn't grow and were one dimensional. This skewed the show to become a little unrealistic and the I could no longer suspend reality and fall into the story. Main error being the classic black and white characters trope. The good people were too good, the bad people to bad and the dumb people too dumb.This could have been better as 24 episodes a it would have condensed the points the writers were trying to make without the drama becoming annoying as variation of the same issues repeat over and over again. A lot of Cdramas still struggle a lot with this. After lead gets used and backstabbed 2/3 times we get the point you are trying to make. No need to repeat it 10 times. This repetition slows down the pace of the story. Some storyline seemed forced and didn't add to the narrative like the virus thing.
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