An ending I anticipated but also didn't

¡¡Disclaimer!!
This review is based on my personal opinion/experience while watching. You're free to agree/disagree with it. Please note that this will be a really long review so if you're not into that go ahead and skip reading it.



First of all, let me start this by saying that this series is actually 6.7/10 for me personally, HOWEVER, the last 4-5 episodes carried this entire drama single handedly and I'll get to why in a minute, so because the last few episodes were what really saved this series (besides the stellar performance of cast and the production value) this became a 8.7/10 for me.


Plot/storyline:
If y'all don't already know, this series was promoted as a drama/romance with a bit of action on the side, so if you're going in expecting some legendary lovestory, please toss your expectations outta the window as this is the farthest thing from being a romance. This drama is a political/espionage/dark type of dramas, so if you're looking for something light and less gruesome, I advice you to pack your bags and leave as this is not the drama for you.
We begin our story with Eun Young ro, a naive goody-two-shoes college student who is currently living in the Husu dormitory for young ladies. She meets this guy, Lim Soo ho., through a blind date(?) and she crushes on him hard, however, said guy suddenly breaks into her room one night hurt and bleeding as the ANSP enters the dorm to look for a fugitive spy from the north. She along with her roommates (not gonna call them her friends cuz they've proven to be otherwise) decide to hide him and tend to his wounds until he's well enough to leave. After a chain of events he manages to leave only to come back later on as the spy with a couple of his comrades, and proceed to hold everyone in the dorm hostage along with a few ANSP agents. Another chain of unfortunate events occurs (it was mostly illogical writing on the writer's part here really) and somehow the northern spies and the hostage ANSP agents end up working together to escape and save themselves and everyone in the dorm, action and scheming ensues with a bunch of explosions here and there until eventually the hostages, the agents, some employees and one spy make it out alive, and the credits roll.
This is pretty much the plot in a nutshell, I didn't want to spoil the whole thing as to not ruin the fun of watching it, and now with that outta the way, I'd like to drop my two cents about this plot into the pile. The first 2-3 episodes started off strong with some minor issues here and there, but it was nothing too serious, HOWEVER, starting from episode 5, the plot plummets downhill reeaally quickly because what follows is one of the draggiest plots you'll ever see, and the repetitive agenda of "we thought out a plan! Oh really? Let me ruin it for ya!" Goes on until finally, FINALLY, the plot picks up again by episode 11 or so, so by then you're just really drained emotionally and too frustrated to actually feel anything regarding any changes that happen.
When I tell you that I was praying every night for this to end in tragedy, I literally mean praying on hands and knees people. Many of us, me included, expected them to throw in a classic Disney solution/ending or a Romeo&Joliet type of endings just and call it a day, but no, they actually gave us tragedy, and I've never been happier to be proven wrong. This sort of story was doomed to end up in agony and sadness from the very beginning, so to actually see the writer end it on a heartbreaking note was probably the only right decision they have made throughout this rollercoaster ride, so good job writer, you actually managed to restore my faith in you a little bit, very well done.


Characters/cast:
I'd like to mention this here before I go deeper into the cast and their roles, this drama is very much character driven, with that being said, the only reason I actually pushed through with this series, despite not wanting to continue it, is because of how absolutely astounding the cast, and I'd like to add that the chemistry between Hae in and Jisoo was pretty much nonexistent through 80% of the episodes, so the team decided to release the bts footage of the two actors to make up for the lack of chemistry between them, and it somehow managed to make the viewers fall in love with their sweet dynamic off screen and completely forget about the actual romance, or lack thereof, between the characters, but despite it being a pretty smart thing for them to do, they couldn't cover up all the issues the plot has caused with this plan. And now that this is out there, let's move on to the characters:

Lim Soo ho/ Lee Tae san/Taedong river 1: A+
First and foremost, let me get this out before it causes any confusion, Soo ho is very much the only main character here, don't try to tell me otherwise because no, Young ro sadly can't be considered a main character in here, a main character needs to play a role in moving the plot, and Young ro unfortunately didn't contribute much to the plot after episode 5.
Jung Hae in is an absolutely amazing actor, this man's ability to draw you in with his eyes and talent is on another level and I'm very much in love with him. After watching Soo ho and observing him throughout the course of the drama, I can see why Hae in said that the percentage of resemblance between him and Soo ho is only 50%.
Soo ho's character was the driving force of the story, and his role in the situation was the most vital out of everyone else's. In regards of his relationship with Young ro, I was one of the few that hoped for it to perish and be forgotten, because pointing a gun at her head, threatening to kill her multiple times, holding her hostage, causing her to suffer, indirectly killing her brother and finally using her as his ticket out, doesn't really seem all that romantic yk? And him being on the opposite side of the riverbank didn't help their case either, so their relationship was bound to end on a tragic note. On a brighter side, Hae in is a gorgeous man y'all, I couldn't help but pause the screen and admire him for a couple of seconds before continuing any further, boi is built like a greek god and I'm soo here for it, also, his smiles sent me into uwu mode way too many times lol.


Eun Young ro: A-
I absolutely love Jisoo and I think she's a wonderful singer, but honestly, her acting is just sub par. While she managed to pull off some scenes exceptionally well, her acting fell flat on many occasions, and I mostly blame it on how horribly her character is written. This character was definitely an afterthought and her role literally ended after episode 7 or so, and she became a plot device to make Soo ho shine through. Her character suffered from the most horrendous transition from being a FL to being a background character added in there for the sole purpose of pleasing the fans. I don't actually have much to say about her BECAUSE we barely saw anything from her as opposed to everyone else, I will say tho, Jisoo is quite the convincing crier ngl, even if it took her 14 episodes to get her emotions right and into the characters.


Kang Moo: A-
What was wrong with this guy's character? His personality was out here doing acrobats every god damn episode until it eventually settled on the kicked distrustful puppy button for the majority of the plot. Also, what happened to "I wanna kill Lee Soo ho for killing my buddy" agenda? They literally forgot about this and decided to develop his bromance with Soo ho instead. And don't get me started on his relationship with Ha na because that one was just.......yeah. the actor (I'm unfamiliar with him) did great in portraying him tho, his conflicted eyes were probably my favorite thing about him.


Kang Cheong ya/Moran hill: A+
One question, why isn't she Soo ho's LI? There was soooo much potential for their relationship you cannot fathom how sad I am they didn't actually go with this idea. Yoo In a is an amazing actress, her portrayal of Moran hill was just fascinating, and it made me respect the actress even more. A lot of thought seemed to be put into her character and it shows, she had the strongest writing among the female characters and I'm actually satisfied with the writing for her, even if she did suffer from the internalized misogyny that effected the writing for the other female characters. Cheong ya was my favorite character beside Soo ho, so I'm really curious as to what actually happens to her later on.


Boon ok: A
This woman was seriously amazing. Ik that so many viewers hate her but honestly, it's because of this fact that I actually like her. When an actor makes you hate a character, you know damn well they portrayed that character amazingly. She was a perfect example of how a person is the product of their environment, that is until they decided to ruin it by having her intervene with every plan for no apparent reason than to drag on the situation. Her redemption arc wasn't long enough and it made everything she did seem so empty, I wished they could've shown her mulling over her position in this situation more then slowly try to fix her mistakes instead of just suddenly deciding to be on Soo ho's side, OR they could've left her as a bitter horrible person and had her have a somewhat befitting ending for all her actions, but alas, it is what it is. Kim Hye yoon is a spectacular actress, she honestly stole the show in terms of acting so kudos to her for being this amazing, absolutely loved her.


I won't go any further into the characters because of how really lengthy this review already is, I will say that the cast was just mind blowing so hat's off to the actors, even if they lacked character growth or development, I blame it on the plot really and the fact that it's a one setting type of situations with one arc taking the majority of the plot.


Soundtrack/music:
The music was really really good, I loved all the songs that were used and I have them all added to my playlist, despite the unbefitting tracks used in a couple of scenes, it was still very nice so the soundtrack is a solid 9/10 for me.


Production:
The production was really good on this one, they used their budget nicely and the fighting and action scenes were really well choreographed. The way they used the lighting in certain scenes really contributed to how well a scene was filmed too so props to the production team for a job very well done.


And finally, after this really long rant, I'd like to finish this review by saying that I went in expecting something and I was presented something totally different, so don't be fooled by the tags. I had to shut my brain off for the majority of the episodes because of how nonsensical and illogical the plot was, and the controversy surrounding this drama played a huge role in my earlier thoughts on it, so I advice any new viewers to go in with an open mind and to set your standards somewhere in the middle so as to not be disappointed if it doesn't turn out how you expected it to be.

Edit: I realize that my review didn't turn out as satisfying or as thorough as I wanted it to be, mainly because I was fighting sleep while writing it so I'd like to elaborate on a few points here:

- My initial thoughts on the plot where very different, I was very skeptical about the script as it somehow started off very cliche but delved into a darker/unrelated direction, I don't think that they were going to go with this specific route and it shows through the messily written script. This feels more like the drafts version rather than the final proofread product, I truly believe that because of the controversy and as to not cause any more damage to the team and cast, they decided to change many things in a rush, hence the illogical writing.

- This type of plots is usually either put into a movie or shortened to be one of the many arcs in a drama, however, they decided to stretch it out to take up the entirety of the drama, so it feeling draggy could've been easily avoided. I am unsure of their reasons behind such decision, but I guess not much can be done anymore.

- Many people complained that most of the characters felt very underdeveloped and lacked any growth or prominence, while I agree with this sentiment, I should point out that this drama was portraying a very short period of time with the first time skip in the first episode being 6 months, the dorm arc barely reaching the 2 weeks mark, and finally the ending being a time skip to the summer of the year that followed. You need a certain trigger or incident to change someone's nature/views in life, the hostage situation would've been the perfect trigger to show us how it effected each character and how they all turned out moving forward, but because of the previous point that I talked about, they couldn't go through what I would call "the searching/discovery phase" so now we're left with one dimensional characters who can't go through that phase and can't be developed because they didn't have enough space/time to do so.

- The plot twist they tried to include were very predictable. I could see the betrayals and the lies from a mile away. The old man was very obviously a spy, Gyeok chan and Eung chul were clearly going to die, it became very apparent later on that Soo ho's adoptive father will abandon him, his biological mother and the fact that he actually dies (I actually hoped for it to happen, but given the fact that it's a kdrama, I didn't count on it) were pretty much the only twists that I didn't actually see coming, so I guess it's nice to be surprised sometimes.

- The last few episodes proved that the writer can actually make some logical and intelligible decisions, the way things spiraled downhill soo quickly and how they portrayed the change of loyalties and emotions was very reasonable, and it's most likely the only reasonable thing they've done, but it just goes to show how rushing an ending, even if it was in a very logical way, when your entire world was built on a slow paced story makes everything you've done up till now very muddled and unbalanced.

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