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Soulful & Healing
This drama is probably not for everyone. It's more than just a kdrama that's why it doesn't apply to a global audience. But it gives heart to those who can relate to having had mental health issues, to those having someone close to them suffering from it or those who're interested in the subject from a scientific point of view. More than just stories about the patients, we also get to see the healing process; even simple anger management exercises feels like they could be easily implemented by anyone else. Those scenes are rather long at times and that's why I suspect they are there for that purpose, for that second purpose which might not be applied to everyone but could possibly help someone in need.It's a beautiful series.
There has been a few dramas that broach the topic but compared to some extraordinary or rare diseases I feel like the way this drama is approaching the subject is hitting closer to home. Anxiety, delusion, anger issues, depression, eating disorders; fighting to stay clear minded despite facing challenges in a society that expects us to always be ready and on their feet is a common issue that isn't talked about enough. Compared to other dramas where mental health issue is either the main focus on the story or is a background feature of a character, something that the character can make use of or hide, here we see ordinary, working people that can't hide away from it because it shows in their daily life. We get to see how they struggle to overcome, frankly, themselves, and how hard it is to do so when society doesn't take you or your mental health seriously.
If that didn't convince you to give this drama a chance... let me ask you this then. Have you ever felt burdened by the things happening in your life? Have you ever felt it was unfair how many bad things kept happening around you? Well, this drama not only answers from the perspective of those that are lost and deeply wounded by this but also from those that keep fighting through it. And unlike the usual kdrama trope where the main leads are suffering from painful memories and keep on a straight face, here we see main characters that are suffering, who are not okay, but they keep searching for that light with all their might.
"Whatever your illness may be, don't struggle alone. If you can overcome it on your own, it's not an illness."
This drama is giving me so many emotions. I love how Han Woo Joo can see right through the ML. She just 'gets' him. It's an entertaining dynamic. They're a pair of dorks, and at their best, they just work together. It's interesting to watch them because we're not only being told that they like each other, but ultimately we can see it and judge for ourselves. They are two wounded souls, and sometimes it can be rather scary to see their vulnerable sides so out in the open but ultimately they're people that need each other and are able to help each other heal. As long as one doesn't give up, we can continue to move forward. An additional bonus is that this drama skipped on a lot (if not all) the usual, annoying, repetitive kdrama cliches regarding romance while staying true to the main storyline and keept us entertained with continuous character development.
Jung So Min is an extraordinary actress. The variety of emotions she portrays is incredible. It's both feels-inducing and also fascinating to watch, seeing how one actress can play so many raw emotions on screen. And Shin Ha Kyun...how can he be so pure and adorable? He's precious. Sophisticated but also a real dork at heart.
Before anyone says our male lead is too old let me redirect you to Ji Sung's profile page. Ji Sung might look like a baby duckling but he's still a mature man in his forties. Also our couple has 14 years gap, but that's not a new thing in a kdrama world now, is it? Furthermore...female lead being 31, she's a mature woman herself.
Other issues? There are a few. I know of a patient-doctor contraversary issue, dubious psychiatric methods used in the series...but that's just not it, not what this drama ever was supposed to be about.
What this drama truly teaches and the message it is trying to portray throughout the various stories and lessons is that - You Can Heal. And that each person is unique on their own so the healing method is also something unique for you. It might even be something only those deeply invested in you or you yourself can truly find. But that's okay. Because each of us has that answer in our hearts. We only need the will to move forward.
I can't praise this drama enough. It's a true gem. It truly met all (and more) of my expectations. It's a soul healing drama.
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Subtle yet deep romance with a thrilling plot
This drama has something very subtle yet beautiful about it. There has been a few dramas like that that I can think of. For example, Doctor John, Goblin, Nine: Nine Times Time Travel - that underlaying melancholy and pain of the characters, the steadily growing plot and the subtle but deep connection between the two leads.The story started out in a rather subtle way. We got hints of the plot elements there and there but the context wasn't fully there. With time, the drama goes deeper and deeper and all the connections between people hold so much more weight. The leads' romance was a slow burn but they're adorable together. Life is really tough for them, somehow there are a lot of enemies surrounding them, but their connection is genuine and beautiful. It is equal amounts of cute, fluffy and mature, deep. Thinking about our reserved yet polite and kind male lead, Jeong Hoon, and his sweet, tender smiles that just lights up the whole screen, makes me giggle and roll in the sheets. I love him. He deserves all the best things and more.
It's a SLOW BURN, okay, but oh how delightful it is to be the witness of that. If you're into that.
It surprised me how much...mystery/thriller elements this drama has, but somehow it has a perfect balance with the surrounding smaller plotlines and the main romance. Also, despite hating a great amount of characters, we also get to love even a greater amount. What's even better is that the characters are not one-dimensional, they actually have complex sides to them. We actually get to KNOW a variety of characters. Basically there are little to no characters that are thrown just for the sake of filling up space.
Doesn't mean this drama has no flaws at all, though. More than flaws, it's the use of kdrama cliches. It doesn't make the drama bad, we love kdramas despite seeing a repetition of things over and over again, it's just a bit frustrating to see this otherwise fascinating drama take on a kdrama cliche approach. It felt original in its strong execution, cast and plot but sadly it still got stuck in some of the 'kdrama rules' that this wonderful story could have lived without.
Has this drama used its full potential? Well, no. Does it have some superb, never seen before ending? No again. But at the end of the day I don't regret the time spent watching it and am still helplessly in love with its characters.
I guess my advice for the future viewers would be to watch it for the tone (melancholy, slow burn, melodrama) and cute romance while enjoying the surrounding thrilling mystery, but not get too deep into thinking everything has to makes sense in the drama. Best way to dive into this is by toning down your expectations a liiiittle bit to not be disappointed.
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Morally I just don't understand it...
This is a confusing mess... starting from plotline ending with the characters itself.The story depends a lot on fate and fateful relationships, something which we, as viewers, don't exactly feel from the get go. More times than not, the leads seem to be 'prisoners' to the feelings induced by fate rather than their own choices in the matter. The plot rushes the natural development of chemistry, forcing us to believe there's a strong connection there because of 'fate'. That irked me at the beginning of the drama, but thankfully later on the relationships does progress more naturally.
The female lead is something else...besides being idealistic, she's also fearless (in a naive, too trusting way) and misleading. Her 'feelings' and 'actions' doesn't seem to match. I can't see where her 'attachment' to certain people comes from. The more story progresses the less I can relate to her. Although the male leads have their own problems, the maddest one seems to be the female protagonist.
There's a lot of black and white and somewhat forced search for the grey area in between.
Since we're dealing with a 'crime plotline' the drama doesn't shy away from being equal amounts of creepy and confusing. But we're not only dealing with a creepy plotline but also with a bunch of creepy characters. The morality in this drama is 'somewhere in between'. There are times when the characters or the 'atmosphere' of the scene assumingly tries to guide into feeling sympathetic towards the characters but I can't help finding the whole situation creepy and rather a bit distasteful. I went into this drama expecting a lot but I feel like i fell into a black hole.
So if you're going for the adorable romance, this is definitely NOT IT. Frankly, Lee Soo Hyuk's character is the only reason I held on. The ending was...I guess it was something to be expected, judging by the way the drama was going. Compared to the overall drama, the ending was even something one would expect out of a kdrama. It doesn't make it good or bad necessarily since the build up to it was...questionable and confusing. It just is.
Advice: try watching episode 1-2, if you don't particularly like it or 'hope' for things to get better - they don't. So, if you feel something's off, know that's it's gonna be off and more from now on so move on to somewhere else.
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A devastatingly beautiful story of two soulmates that happened to be MLs
This story...either purposefully or accidently, ended up being a completely different story than it orignally appears to be. What I thought would be a supernatural romance turned out to be a heartbreaking supernatural bromance. Brotherhood. Soulmates. Whatever you call it, the two male leads' bond surpassed all others intended for this story.But let's start with why the average rating...
If this was a visual arts competition, it would surely win first place. The visuals of this series are GORGEOUS. I don't think I have seen a single cringe visual effect. I thought I've seen gorgeous (Love Between Fairy and Devil) but this story took the crown by FAR.
The music in the series also really grew on me and I now have several OST in my playlist. It has some very powerful tracks for fighting scenes and also hauntingly beautiful BGM for sad scenes.
The cast was beautiful. Each character (and even each character's different counterpart) had a very specific and gorgeously styled outfit, hairdo and makeup. The costume team really outdid themselves here.
But as far as acting goes, I feel like more times than not, the aestethics helped them look a certain way rather than their own range of acting skills. Not saying their acting is lacking, but with how much artificial help they got to enchance a certain "mood" I can't properly distinguish between the effects and their acting skills.
For example, in what seems every episode, the characters would cry that one beautiful bead of crystal tear that rolls down their cheek in a close-up camera work. When done in moderation, that thing is beautiful, but when it's overdone (and in this story every character basically) it really starts to lose its impact. They looked gorgeous in their miserable state though...
Overall, from the cast Neo Hou, Tian Jia Rui, Yan An and (coming out as a surprise) Lester Lin were the best part. Their characters had the most impact, diversity and growth (in my personal opinion). It's very hard to judge Chen Du Ling's performance in this because there was something very lacking with her character that seemed too one-dimensional and a damsel in distress.
The plot....it's drowning in misery. The storyline, the idea of it, initially, was very good and rather compelling. There are demons, gods and humans. There are sacred artifacts and rules for their worlds. The visuals of the supernatural powers are vast and gorgeous, so at first glance the story seemed to have a lot of potential. But the execution of it was much to be desired... Starting from the beginning, the scenes were all over the place - people would cry, laugh, be comedic and serious all in a span of few minutes and it'd keep going. I couldn't tell what "mood" the story wanted to set. Somewhere mid-way the impending doom for one character or another seemed to be not only the main but the ONLY driving story point. Death and self-sacrifice, when used right, can be a powerful way of telling a story, but here it was passed around like a dodge ball, losing its intended impact.
The romance. Or lack of. Unfortunately til the end I found it hard to root for the main couple. It felt like we were TOLD that they love each other through certain plot aspects, but there was not much substance. Zhao Yuan Zhou (the ML)'s character is lonely and craves closeness, so if anything, the romance with FL feelt like a dream for normalicy rather than true bond. His other bonds (mostly brotherhood) run that much deeper. The ML had incredibly more chemistry with the SML, not to mention their storyline had SO MUCH MORE substance. It had growth, natural banter, warmth and heartbreak. THEIR STORY is the one that brought me to tears. Ultimately, they were the power couple of the series.
Part of me would have loved to see FL be a young kid that the two ML's unoficially adopted. I feel like her presence in the series wouldn't have changed much, and the ML's protectiveness would come out more naturally.
Overall, this story has aspects of it that are worth watching. The stunning visuals, music and the heartbreaking connection between the two MLs. But I would not recommend it for FL x ML romance. And not if you're not into a slow-paced melancholy mood storyline.
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Firstly, the great parts:
Acting wise this drama is a gem. The happiness of the characters would make you giddy yourself and the sad parts would make you feel their pain. Also, the choices of how some scenes were supposed to be acted out were done very well. The visuals and the costumes of the cast were also very nice to look at.
For a relatively short beginning (considering the length of this drama), we got to experience very sweet, fluffy, somewhat cliche and with a hint of thrilling story. To be fair, I loved everything about it. The story felt real and made you want to be there with the characters yourself. It was a prelude for the main story and I was okay with it being cut short.
The trouble lies later on.
Where you'd expect to be some relief or strong positive emotions to counter the sad ones, they just weren't up to par. From the moment the fluffy beginning ended, throughout the rest of the drama the main feeling that I felt was - helplessness, raw, agonizing helplessness. I always rooted for the heroine and she never felt annoying to me, her choices or behavior never annoyed me either. It's just...her life sucked, I guess? Perhaps that's what we were supposed to get from all that. And the male lead.. well, he could have been a lot more. He had all the requirements to be something more but his storyline just didin't allow him to.
Basically, for a long long time the story was stuck in one place and it was impossible to see any movement. Like picking on a raw wound over and over again without letting it really heal.
Rewatch value: I'd love to rewatch the beginning but no way in hell would I rewatch the later parts.
Either way, if you decide to watch this after all, you have to prepare your heart. It's a very hard watch.
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NEVERTHELESS, as soon as we're done with the (a bit) dragged introduction, the story really starts to pick up pace. The progress is a bit slow and tends to confuse you to no ends but when you start learning stuff and it starts to make you think, you find yourself unable to stop, craving for more.
I've watched a few tw and cn dramas and they usually tend to have very engaging beginning, somewhat horrifying middle and then semi-okay ending. That wasn't the case here. It might have started slow but it continued to grow and kept you on the edge of your seat til the end.
The very ending MIGHT could have been a bit different to make it more powerful but it was still okay. The story had a complete resolution and it was epic. Screenwriters - I applaud you for creating a heartwarming, smart and thrilling story.
Should you watch it? Yes, definitely yes.
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Initial confusion aside, this drama tends to go from a wtf lows to a "deabak" highs in a short period of time. I don't think one could call this drama boring. It has too many elements to be called such. There is fight for justice, badass characters, loyalty, conspiracy, politics, romance etc. It has practicallly everything and on a high note too.
The conspiracy and politics are real in this one. I don't think I've ever seen it on such a scale. But it's to be expected. It's on a worldscale after all.
Romance is a true Romeo and Juliet. Both intense and heartbreaking. Half of the time, the leads confuse you so much that you want to smack them, another half you root for them to just be happy.
But this drama is lonely. Very lonely. To be fair, I don't advice watching this while you're in low spirits. It might just bring you down more. It's not a common kdrama angst. It's a bit more scarier, and a bit more complicated. There are so many plotlines that get you invested in, and each one puts a heavy weight on you.
So, watch it when you're in need of something a bit different, if you like conspiracy or intense highs. Watch it if you enjoy strong female leads. Like badass strong. But make sure to watch it for the right reasons. Don't come watching this to cheer you up.
My rating is 8.5 because...it's lonely. It's heavy. And I watched it when I wasn't in the highest spirits. I felt a weight of it for the length of it. But it's definitelly a drama that stands out from the others. And despite what it did to me along the way, it was worth watching it.
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