Xylune
Germany
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I did indeed enjoy the first episodes. An interesting partnership, individual stories with a lose connection and there were very sad episodes/ stories behind the incidents that touched me. However, to me it was like they suddenly decided to end it, made up some weird storyline at the end and didn't bother to tie lose strings such as the character's background story. Instead they decided to randomly kill off people and turned the second mainlead into a complete jerk without any rationality left. I think during the last episode I didn't believe what I was even watching there. It simply made no sense to me. Which is a bit sad I guess, the story was interesting until that point and I was interested to know more about them. Therefore I was greatly disappointed that it ended like that. What I loved though was the music and especially the theme song. Maybe it would've been fine if they added another season, but even then the last episode would've creeped me out I guess. It's unfortunate. The rest was worth it though.
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Fluff, love and kitties
When I started watching this I liked it immediately. It was sort of funny, light, the female lead isn't as dumb and useless as tons of fl characters I watched throughout the past months in Chinese dramas, the secondary couple is lovely as well (though I'm usually not much into the secondary characters) and there were quite a bunch of cute scenes as well. Still I felt like the drama lost its spice towards the end and the relationship got stuck at some point. The kisses felt a bit stiff to me as well unfortunately, therefore I agree with others that they could have certainly invested more time into the main couple and their romance.I enjoyed the fact that we made it without a damn annoying female character on the side and that the relationship displayed was rather stable. Furthermore there was no weird family. A great plus for this. Something lots of dramas lack unfortunately. As a result there were no extremely unreasonable drama scenes either. Still I felt a bit disappointed that they found no good alternative. Instead they focused on business struggles, that's fine, but it wasn't as exciting in the first place. A different solution would've been great in my opinion.
To sum it up: If you're tired of slaps in the face, money-wielding mothers and sudden 3-year-separation-issues: watch this. It has its funny, entertaining and cute parts, but it might get a bit boring as well sometimes. Still, I didn't regret watching this and I hope we'll get dramas with a similar base in the future. Just with a tiny bit more... relationship development?!
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It's Okay to Not Be Okay
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When you're not sure whether you should smile or cry
I felt like this is a great drama and often I wasn't sure myself how to react to scenes. Some were particularly sad, but still the next second I felt like smiling. Tragedy and humour are not far away from each other, I guess this is clearly here.Furthermore I felt like the conflicts were often reasonable, it was interesting to watch and though I'm not an expert to judge people acting I still felt impressed. Especially regarding Moon/Mun Sang-tae.
The characters moreover changed significantly over the show and character development is certainly portrait well - and I felt like it's a good decision not to make up with everyone or run away for no reason. During the last episodes when Kang-tae consulted Oh Ji-wang I started thinking "drama characters should more often consult others to avoid ridiculous impulsive acts". Certainly I didn't agree on everything, but all over it was rather reasonable and the characters actually learned how to react to the things they had to face.
Therefore it's a story about how to love yourself, how to rely on others and how to become independent. That's rather clear. In addition it's about family. What's family? How can you become family? ... And it's fine to not be an adult in all kind of aspects.
Still I was rather surprised that you can become a caretaker without proper education, but well, it wasn't clearly mentioned either (but I mean they were on the run since Kang-tae turned 12...).
What disturbs me slightly is again the villain (similar to "My love from another star"). Certainly because this a drama about mental issues one could argue "she's nuts anyway", but what's her point for murder? It was pretty weak in my opinion. Furthermore I don't think she had much of a reason to disappear either after her husband got hospitalized. I mean, she had the chance to monitor Moon-young even better if she didn't pretend to be dead. Therefore I'm not that convinced about these.
The romance was rather persistent and certainly cute to watch. They even switched roles regarding "hunter" and "prey" in the end - but well, even an unlikely romance can be the perfect match in the end.
They way they arranged the scenes were a showoff, especially at the beginning, later on I didn't notice it as much anymore, but I liked how they linked different scenes at the beginning.
Last but not least I think it's a good thing to address the topic itself in a drama. I can imagine it's not a likely topic in South Korea or East Asia in general, furthermore disabled people don't show up as much in dramas, at least not to this extend. So it's good to watch these two brothers finding their way - and how difficult it often must've been for them to continue. At the same time I like it that they mentioned child abuse - KDramas often made me feel like it's normal for parents to hit their children for all sort of reasons though I find that horrible. This behaviour wasn't justified here though, but instead the talked about the consequences.
All in all "Saikojiman gwaechanha" is worth watching. It worth watching all of these rather different characters struggling and finding their way in the long run.
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Somewhere between nostalgia and annoyance
I've worked about 4 months on this drama to translate it into my native language. Generally, I like "Republic" dramas, and I enjoyed Fall in Love for example. Still, this drama wasn't very popular among us,The music was great and one reason why I started this project, but even the great songs can't save the stories and the mostly unlikable protagonists. Whom did I actually like? Maybe Qi-furen.
However, I expected more from the lead characters when the drama started. Lin Hangjing is generally an independent woman, and that's a good thing. Still, she jumps to stupid conclusions and reacts extremely annoying most times. So she somewhat turned out to be rather hateful than independent. Still, Xiao Beichens reactions weren't much better. He's too stubborn for his own good, doesn't talk, and reacts violently in his jealousy. Certainly this is a historic drama, but at some point I didn't know what to think of this anymore.
Most women are pretty hateful, no matter Fengqi or Shuyi. It could've been interesting if they really grew as a couple, but except for the last few episodes, the relationship is a mess. The ending as a whole isn't very positive, but I think there were some great scenes, and I even felt a bit sorry for Mu Zhizheng. He was indeed annoying, but somehow more interesting and probably tragic than some of the other characters.
I don't really regret watching this, and now that it's over it feels even slightly bitter. Still, the endless misunderstanding destroyed it for me and some characters felt a bit too one-dimensional... like Fengqi for example.
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For the sake of... action?!
I guess when I started watching this I wanted to see some action and I guess in terms of action it's a good drama. On the other hand it's not as thrilling as some other dramas with political topics involved (e.g. Mad Dog). The most interesting for me were the relationships between the different protagonists. E.g. between Je-ha and Yoo-jin. It's a rather weird and hard-to-describe relationship and there were even times I kind of felt sorry for them. I suppose it's a good thing if the characters are rather grey than black or white and I sometimes had to remind myself why a certain character should be rather disliked (or not).On the other hand Anna disappointed me to some extend. You can't deny that she's a poor girl, but that's mainly all there is. She's poor and rather dumb/naive all the time which is pretty annoying (to me at least). At the same time she "soothed" Je-ha's character to some extend. Thanks to her he could find what he probably lost over time. Still the love story is a rather weak one, but it's sweet and serves for the sake of motivation.
I found myself comparing Je-ha to Kenshin. Thinking about the thoughts you have if you have the result but completely different reasons to do something. One was rather heroic, another felt more like a coincidence to either make a character more loveable or to enhance possible plot twists.
I have to confess that I liked the OST. On one hand it was weird to have that kind of "epic" soundtrack for this drama, on the other hand it reminded me of playing a video game. Certainly, this could've been a video game I guess. Je-ha would've been a proper protagonist for that I suppose.
Kind of funny was the way some wounds appeared and vanished (while others remained for a long time to suddenly vanish). Then they should rather use a plaster I think. Still I didn't regret watching this by any means and it was worth watching. What's the moral of it? I wonder about that even after finishing it...
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Old topics, modern setting
Before I watched Well-intended love from the same directors and I think it's interesting to watch how the man's and woman's role change over these dramas to the current one. Though it has certain "Secretary Kim" vibes and she's his secretary it feels like in the end it's a rather up-to-date family presented in the drama including working women or even a stay-at-home-husband. Furthermore the intimate scenes are lovely and the kisses are worth watching as well. CDrama certainly changes over time and that's a good thing in my opinion. Though conservative ideas remain of course, but well, let's be honest - we love watching them at least. Whether I'd want them for myself or not (rather not).It's impossible to deny that the drama shows overused topics such as amnesia or the female lead's denial at the beginning, but later on I felt that it improved (though the OST didn't) and I especially liked the fact that the antagonists are not unneccessarily "evil" (or remain like that) and that they spend a lot of time on lovey-dovey stuff. In fact I'm tired of these 10-minute-endings I've watched over time and here they spent a lot of time on the end. Furthermore we don't have to cope much with annoying rich parents or other similar chlichés I'm rather tired of too.
Certainly it's not a deep story, the illness makes not much sense and the story about revealing company secrets was rather obvious. But it's a cute romance worth watching for the sake of romance and even the overbearing CEO we prolly all heard of doesn't seem as bad anymore in the end. Therefore I'm glad that I watched it.
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De Koning: Eeuwige Monarch
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Too much to tell
While watching this drama I felt that the love story isn't that important and that the drama strifes to tell a lot which isn't possible in the given amount of episodes. Like a proper love story for example or more background about some of the characters. Regarding the antagonist's goals I wondered why he invested so much time into useless stuff. First it felt like he wanted to become the king, which was impossible anyway - but why all the chaos just to get a flute? I guess that could've been solved sooner.Further the storytelling tended to be confusing from time to time regarding all the time jumps. Not actual time jumps, but what happened in a previous episodes sometimes only continues at the end of the next episode, so I tended to wonder "what time is it now?". Time was a huge factor in the whole drama and I think it's one of the reasons why the love story seems to be "rushed". I guess the time that actually passed was different from what we watched, so certainly I tended to ask myself as well "Why do you love him now?" or "Why the heck are you crying if you'll just meet again?". Similar in regard of Mrs. Koo who for some unknown reason killed her doppelganger. Seriously. What for? Lots of decisions seems to be just ruthless without putting much thought into them.
Still I liked the structure, I liked the efforts to put some science into it, I liked the music (which isn't always the case, I dislike most korean drama "songs" since they all tend to sound the same) and some of the twists.
On the other hand they showed the darker side as well in my opinion. Just like when the fl is kidnapped and goes on some sort of killing spree or when Lee Gon just slaughters everyone and turns his continuous joke about beheading someone into reality. There were funny moments though and after Mad Dog it was nice to see Woo Do-Hwan again.
I certainly don't regret watching this, but I just felt there could've been more to tell, more reasons to develop (the antagonist kinda reminds me of the guy from "My Love from the stars" - he seemed to have no good reason for anything either, I prefer something more reasonable). I feel like I watched some fairytale now - an entertaining fairytale certainly.
Some mentioned the product placement and I noticed it as well. I mean, I'm used to all Koreans eating at Subway by now, driving Kia and all Chinese using Apple phones. It's just like that. Here it felt indeed a bit ridiculous to hear real advertisement phrases from the characters. So I agree, they overdid it.
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