7 First Kisses

7 First Kisses

5.5/10

7 First Kisses

Genre:                                  Episodes: 8                          Year: 2017

Romance

Comedy

Synopsis:

On her 25th birthday, Min Soo Jin is visited by an Angel. Having never had a boyfriend, or even a kiss, the Angel grants Soo Jin 7 fantasies with 7 men. Soo Jin can only choose one fantasy to become reality, and can pick only one of the men she has met.

Cast:

Lee Cho Hee (Min Soo Jin)

Lee Joon Ki (Lee Joon Ki)

Park Hae Jin (Park Hae Jin)

Ji Chang Wook (Ji Chang Wook)

Kai (Kai)

Ok Taecyeon (Ok Taecyeon)

Lee Jong Suk (Lee Jong Suk)

Lee Min Ho (Lee Min Ho)

General Thoughts:

It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, as I only went in knowing the title and the cast. Usually I complain because dramas are just far too long, but in this case I was kinda left feeling like ‘where’s the rest of it?’.

Handsome men, handsome men- everybody loves handsome men

I mean, it was cute and it was a little funny at times, but each episode was over before you really got into it. I guess that’s the downside of having so many high profile actors- they’re either too busy, or you just can’t afford them for a whole hour.

It's basically just a whole series made for fangirling

But on the bright side, you can smash out this drama in less than an evening. Each episode sits at less than 10 minutes, and most of the episode is just Soo Jin being confused about what was going on. Most of Lee Joon Ki’s episode was Soo Jin freaking out, and sadly that did lessen the cuteness of it. The short episodes also mean that the sweetness is spread pretty thin- there’s no depth to anything and no room for the boys to grow as characters. On the other hand, it was cute how each boy was given a different fantasy- neighbourhood oppa, boss, secret agent, student, chaebol, actor. It was fun in an unsubstantial way. We only came for the boys, and the writers know that, so really its just showing off how cool/cute these guys are. The layout was a little weird for me- and maybe that’s just because of where I watched it, but it took me a little while to figure out how to get from one episode to the next as all the different endings were mixed in, so I started out going from the end of Lee Joon Ki’s episode to the Angel telling Soo Jin to pick one of the guys and was highly confused. But then I figured it out and it was all good. While the idea of the different endings is pretty fun, I do think I prefer the more traditional start-to-finish layout in my dramas. 

It's 'Healer'!

What Was Great:

Flower Parade:

The whole selling point of this drama is the boys, and they do deliver. Each boy is decked out in handsomeness and gets a pretty cool (or at least funny) scenario. The boys were all brilliant as all they really had to do was stand there and be attractive. Which isn’t hard for them. 

I would be fine with any of these situations, thank you

What Wasn’t:

What a Tease:

Yeah, so -spoiler alert- there are no kisses. The title is a big fat lie. Also Lee Min Ho’s ‘bonus episode’ was a bit of a joke- there’s not really even a hint of romance in it.

The kiss is a lie

It should really be called ‘6 Almost Kisses and Blink and You’ll Miss Lee Min Ho’. At the end of the day it’s not a huge deal, but when your sole selling point is that this one girl gets to snog seven amazing men, and then take out the snogging, you’re not left with very much. Once I realised what was going on it was easy to see the humour in the situations, but at first I was super confused. When the ending finished I thought that there’d been some mistake and that only half of it had been aired, but no. This girl doesn’t kiss anyone at all. Like, sure she gets to live in her fantasy world with the man of her choice and there’ll be kissing later for her- but not for us. We have to live in the crappy real world where the Ji Chang Wook’s and Lee Jong Suk’s don’t give a monkey’s ass about us. Boo the real world.

Re-watch?

Nah, fluffy as it was it was very disjointed. The episodes don’t flow together (as they’re all different fantasy/scenarios), and let’s be real- the romance is pretty light.

You can't really go wrong

Choco Bank

Choco Bank

3/10

Choco Bank

Genre:                              Episodes: 6                          Year: 2016

Romance

Synopsis:

Kim Eun Haeng is struggling to find employment in the financial field despite being smart and determined. Eun Hang meets Ha Choco, a young woman who has started her own chocolate business. Choco enlists Eun Haeng’s help as her financial advisor because her business is struggling.

Cast:

Kai (Kim Eun Haeng)

Park Eun Bin (Ha Choco)

Yeon Joon Suk (Bae Dal Soo)

Lee Chae Won (Hong Chae Ri)

General Thoughts:

Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh…so that wasn’t good. Even for a tiny web-series it wasn’t good. This series has absolutely no idea what it is doing. None. It kinds knows what it wants to do, but really skipped a lot of material in its attempts to reach its conclusion. 

Where's our plot? Where's our characters?

Sure, you can argue that 6 episodes isn’t enough to generate a well-rounded story- but that excuse is a cop-out. Because you totally can. Case in point- ‘Splash Splash Love’ did it in just two. The writers just plain didn’t know how to utilise their time, which resulted in a drama full of inconsistencies, unexplained points, and just plain bad plot. 

What Was Great:

Way to go, Kai

The Acting, I Guess:

While nothing close to phenomenal, the acting wasn’t outright bad. Which makes it a bit of a stand out point when it comes to this series. Kai was believable in his character, which is great for him as it’s his first real experience acting in anything. Hooray for Kai. Park Eun Bin also does a satisfactory job playing her less than adequately constructed character. And then they just throw in Lee Il Hwa who totally sells the adorable, yet way too involved mother. Does she ever not?

What Wasn’t:

Everything Else:

Zero character construction. Zero plot momentum. Zero Development. Yikes. So basically the story does nothing and goes nowhere, which gives our characters very little room to manoeuvre, and well, do anything. 

I highly doubt it.

For starters, I really don't believe that free financial advice is what would make a chocolate shop successful. If it were a financial business giving out free chocolate…maybe. 

Hold up- who's the dude in the middle?

It’s all just a bit of a clusterf*ck. We aren’t given enough information about our characters to really know who they are or what they want. Stuff just happens and it’s a bit like ‘oh, okay. I guess that might happen in that situation’. The love-line isn’t sold believably- the whole series hardly had any cute in it at all. What even. You’re a web-drama set in a chocolate shop- you’re supposed to be nothing BUT cute.And all the other characters just fall by the wayside. Which is unsurprising as they only get about 5 minutes of screen time apiece. It’s just…it’s not good.

Re-watch?

No. I got far less chocolate and far less cute than I was expecting. And deserved.

This is so unbelievable.