Top 5 Over-Hyped K-Dramas

Top 5 

Over-Hyped K-Dramas

We all know those movies or shows that seem to have an amazing cast, great premise and solid team working on them. In the months leading up to their release there’s a steady build of excitement as we’re given more and more promotional material leading up to the release date. Then the fabulous day finally arrives and we can at last watch what we have been waiting months for! Only then you find out that the cast underperform, or the story is a mess, or the directing has ruined everything. Or all of the above. K-Dramas love building hype before their release- we have the synopsis released, actors announcing that they are accepting roles, posters published, and teasers to tease us. And then once we finally watch the drama, it’s not uncommon for it to be completely underwhelming and not nearly as epic as the promos promised. These are my top 5 picks of K-Dramas that were buried under all their hype.

5: Legend of the Blue Sea

While I can understand why some people were drawn to this show, for me this drama was just never as good as it (and a lot of people who had watched it) promised it would be. There were so many things behind this drama that were reasons why it should have been good. The director was Jin Hyeok (of ‘City Hunter’ fame), the writer was Park Ji Eun (who also penned ‘The Producers’ and ‘My Love from the Stars’), and then of course we had the leads- Lee Min Ho (who I honestly find ridiculously overhyped as is) and Jeon Ji Hyun. Plus it was a fantasy, and everyone loves fantasy. While this drama did give us pretty solid performances from both the leads, unfortunately the story was pretty lacklustre, and didn’t come close to giving us the dramatic, tragic, magical love story it promised.

4: Hwarang

While I personally enjoyed this one, it’s safe to say that most of its viewers were left feeling pretty disappointed. In the lead up to the drama’s release, viewers were promised a dramatic power struggle with a solid bromance at its core. And everybody loves a good bromance. Everybody. Where ‘Hwarang’ largely failed is that it didn’t deliver on the power struggle or the bromance. Sure, there were scenes of the Hwarang boys all getting along fairly well, but it’s the addictive, heartbreaking bromance the fans were wanting- so they were pretty salty when it didn’t come about. The story was fairly light-hearted and had a sweet romance at its core- but as that’s not exactly how the show was presenting itself during its promos, people were left feeling a tad bitter about the whole thing.

3: Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo

Oh, if ever a K-Drama crashed and burned it was ‘Scarlet Heart’. The sad thing about this show is that it did so many things right. But then it did so, so, many things wrong. Granted the writer wasn’t too well known, and the director was known for being only pretty okay- but the cast. The cast was dazzling. IU was the leading lady and the boys that surrounded her were Lee Joon Ki, Kang Ha Neul, Nam Joo Hyuk, Ji Soo and Baekhyun. All these big names got people pretty excited to watch this show and see how all their favourite actors would come together as royal brothers. We were promised bromance, we were promised romance, we were promised tragedy! The only real tragedy we got was how tragically poorly this drama was written. 

2: Ruler- Master of the Mask

‘Ruler’ is similar to ‘Moon Lovers’ in that the writer and PD were fairly green, but the cast just seemed too extraordinary to sign onto a script that sucked. Plot twist- this script sucked. Still, at least from episode 1 you knew what you were in for- unlike, 'Moon Lovers' this drama sucked from start to finish rather than suddenly sucking midway through. Despite acting powerhouses Yoo Seung Ho and Kim So Hyun leading this show, the writing failed to let them do much with their characters. Kim So Hyun’s leading lady was all but written out of the drama as the show decided to focus on the male leads. I’ve never really had a problem with idol-actors before, but this is quite possibly L’s worst performance to date, and I suddenly realised that people weren’t wrong when they said he was a poor actor. This show hyped us all up with the promise of a dynamic story of a Crown Prince with a hidden identity and his love story that he would risk his throne for. And then it crashed when we all realised that the writers had no idea what they were doing and had bit off more than they could chew, and what should have been an epic saga became nothing more than the senseless whining of immature children.

1: The Heirs

Kim Eun Sook is well known for her romantic scripts and addictive chemistry between her main leads. She’s penned great hits such as ‘Lovers in Paris’, ‘Secret Garden’ and ‘A Gentleman’s Dignity’. People eagerly await her dramas, excited to chow down on the next huge romance she will deliver, and let’s just say ‘Heirs’ was a bit of a fail. In addition to a famously well loved writer, this drama had a great cast- Lee Min Ho (who I still maintain is overhyped) and Park Shin Hye (our Candy Queen) were our leads and they were backed up by names such as Kim Woo Bin, Choi Jin Hyuk and Kang Ha Neul. By all rights this should have been a dazzling show, so I think we were all left feeling mighty disappointed when it…wasn’t.

What are the most over-hyped K-Dramas you've seen?

Player

Player

6/10

Player

Genre:                                                   Episodes: 14                                  Year: 2018

Action

Mystery

Synopsis:

The Crime Proceeds Redemption team consists of Kang Ha Ri, a con man, Im Byung Min, a hacker, Do Jin Woong, an ex-fighter, and Cha Ah Ryong, a getaway driver. The team works together to bring rich and powerful criminals to justice, while stealing all their illegally gained funds along the way.

Cast:

Song Seung Heon (Kang Ha Ri)

Lee Shi Un (Im Byung Min)

Tae Won Seok (Do Jin Woong)

Krystal (Cha Ah Ryong)

Kim Won Hae (Jang In Gyu)

Yoo Ye Bin (Choo Yeon Hee)

General Thoughts:

OCN is back with another rag-tag, home-made family of vigilantes. I feel like OCN gave birth to this genre back with 'Bad Guys', and that 'Player' is a much more light hearted, modern version. Not that I’m complaining- I love groups of criminals that band together to take down bigger criminals while finding loving, meaningful relationships as they go.

Nothing says besties quite like stealing millions of laundered dollars 

While not as dark or detailed as other vigilante dramas, ‘Player’ was still a fun and interesting watch. Most of the time I had basically no idea what was going on in the plot, why the bad guys were bad, or how our team was going to come out on top, but the main group of characters were just so funny, and their relationships were so enjoyable to watch that it didn’t really phase me.

I have no idea what's going on, but it's fun so whatever

The writing wasn’t exactly fabulous (I’m pretty sure this was his first drama), but it wasn’t downright awful. I could see where the writer wanted to take his story, and it was clear that there were certain scenarios that had been really well thought through. But unfortunately one good idea does not a good drama make. This show didn’t really do very well at connecting all its good ideas. When we got to one of those scenarios that had been well planned out, it was easy to watch and enjoy, but the lead up to the group’s missions often left me feeling confused. The PD was also pretty green, and while it didn’t show all that often, I will say that the fight scenes were hard to watch. For starters, it seemed like they were trying to make the fight scenes too cool and too badass. There were a lot of camera movements and rapid switching of angles, and while that occasionally added a sense of urgency and dramatic tension to a scene, most of the time it just made it hard to see what was going on. Which is a total shame, because the fight scenes seemed really cool and well choreographed.

I could never tell who was winning the fights- I just assumed it was the Player Team

And while it made sense for Jin Woong to be able to take on so many bad guys at once, and even kinda believable for Ha Ri, I often found myself having to suspend my disbelief when Ah Ryong was able to take down so many gangsters at once. Or worse- when Byung Min (the group’s computer nerd) got into fights and won. It made our good guys seem way to overpowered, and the bad guys way to bad at fighting.

Confidence is the best accessory

Like, this is literally their job. They are paid to fight people- there’s no way they’d be that bad at it. That being said, one of the show’s bright points is that it was so good at balancing humour with its more serious notes. The rapper between the characters rapport always pretty jovial, so it didn’t feel awkward or forced when that lighthearted attitude carried over into more serious scenarios. I also really enjoyed the soundtrack. I thought it was the perfect mix of songs, and never found that they were overused. An emotional scene can become less emotional if it’s paired with a track that we’ve heard 500 other times throughout the drama, but I think ‘Player’ did a really great job at matching its music to its scenes. The acting was great all round, particularly from our leading man. Song Seung Heon gave Ha Ri the perfect mix of arrogant confidence and veiled compassion. It can be hard to make a character with unclear motives likeable, but Song Seung Heon did an excellent job at keeping Ha Ri loveable by showing how much he cared for his teammates, but also managed to keep the mystery surrounding his identity and his personal involvement in their cases.

I didn't care what this team was doing as long as they were doing it together

Krystal isn’t the type of access who can get me excited about a drama just by seeing she’s in it, but she has a knack for choosing roles that compliment her strengths. She played Ah Ryong nicely, and had great chemistry with her co stars. Lee Shi Un has a looooong list of credits as a side character, and while he does have a flair for comedy, it was nice to see him take on some more serious scenes here.

The price of breaking out from your comedic side-kick roles

While Byugn Min was used for comedy quite a lot, his character arc did get quite dark towards the end, and it was satisfying to see that Lee Shi Un is able to bring in the heavy emotions when he needs to. Tae Won Seok might have been type cast for this role (I mean, K-Drama doesn’t exactly have a large number of super beefy actors at its disposal), but I thought he did a great job at bringing out Jin Woong’s softer side. Any man of his size would have been just as able to look scary and throw punches, so it was enjoyable to see how Jin Woong became such a marshmallow outside of physical confrontation. Tae Won Seok was so good at being a giant softy that I kind of wish the show had shown a little bit more of that side of his character. I always say that I enjoy Kim Won Hae being serious rather than comical, so it was nice to see him in another serious role. While his character could somehow be frustratingly slow (why would you not get suspicious when you’ve been called out of the blue to the the building your sunbae was murdered in? Why?), but he was an enjoyable character all the same.

Wait, you're telling me there are high level prosecutors in K-Drama that aren't corrupt? 

Vigilante dramas so often have the criminals fighting the worse criminals, that it was nice addition to have a regular, law abiding prosecutor brought into the mix. While In Kyu did bend the rules a bit by turning a blind eye to what Ha Ri and his team were doing (and even actively helping them on occasion), it was still nice to have a prosecutor in a K-Drama that wasn’t evil or corrupt. 

What Was Great:

Players:

By far the best part of this show was our rag-tag team of heroes. It was fun seeing Ha Ri pull them all together, and it was even more fun watching them work together on their plans.

The camaraderie was fabulous

The bickering between the members was always fun, and it was lovely to see how they all pulled together to form their own family, particularly around Ah Ryong. As a getaway driver wasn’t something the group particularly needed all that much, it was nice to give Ah Ryong a role outside of that. While the three boys were all good friends and worked together well as a team, they never quite hit that ‘family’ dynamic until Ah Ryong was brought into the mix. Unlike the boys, Ah Ryong was more a victim of circumstance with becoming a petty criminal, and all the boys were extremely protective over her. As fun as all the group’s schenennigins were, the best parts of this drama were definitely when they were banding together to look after their beloved dongsaeng, Ah Ryong. While the plot was pretty messy, it was insanely fun to come on this adventure with this particular group of characters, and their fun family dynamic made this show an easy, enjoyable watch. I’m glad that the writer kept romance out of our main four too.

Three examples of the 'Don't Touch My Donsaeng' look

It almost looked like the show was hinting at a romantic relationship between Ha Ri and Ah Ryong, or even between Ah Ryong and Byung Min. While I probably wouldn’t have minded if they had paired Ah Ryong up with any of the three boys in the team, I kind of preferred that we kept everything neutral, and that both Ah Ryong and the boys were delighted at having them simply be oppas.

What Wasn’t:

Bad Plot:

For the most part I’m not quite sure why anything happened in this drama. I had a basic idea of what was going on, but the details flew way over my head. I knew enough to know who it was our team was fighting against, but did I know why? Nope.

This window of doom is as confusing as it is suspicious

And as fun as the team’s heists and plans were, I found them a little tricky to follow at times. Quite possibly because they always seemed to go wrong. Once or twice would have been okay, but it seemed like our team messed up their plans far more often than they got them right.

This was Ha Ri's masterplan? Because it's terrible.

Which made them feel more lucky than talented. I also think the final confrontation was a bit of a disappointment. The crew had done some pretty crafty cons in this show, so to have them take down their biggest nemesis by a simple hidden camera felt super lame. Super duper lame. I failed to see what made the hidden camera so dangerous and risky and hard to do that it would take Ha Ri years and years of planning. For all the show’s talk of ‘That Person’ being the best manipulator and greatest criminal influence, he sure went down pretty easy. I never really clicked on to how all the smaller puzzle pieces fit together to create the big picture, or why Ha Ri had to bring down all theses other corrupt men to get to ‘That Person’ either. I kind of knew that somehow everyone was related and it all made sense, but it was never super clear and there was never that ‘ah ha!’ moment where it all came together to form one big cohesive story.

Recommend?

No, not really. While the characters and their family dynamic were cute and fun, there are other ragtag vigilante dramas that have an actual understandable plot driving the team.

Fun but forgettable

Where Stars Land

Where Stars Land

6/10

Where Stars Land

Genre:                                                  Episodes: 16                                     Year: 2018

Romance

Melodrama

Synopsis:

Han Yeo Reum works at Incheon Airport where her desire to be praised by her superiors often leads to her making mistakes. After working for a year, Yeo Reum is transferred to a new team, where her new mentor is Lee Soo Yeon, a KAIST graduate who has only worked at the airport for four months. Unlike Yeo Reum, Soo Yeon wants to live an ordinary life and has no desire to stand out.

Cast:

Lee Je Hoon (Lee Soo Yeon)

Chae Soo Bin (Han Yeo Reum)

Kim Kyung Nam (Oh Dae Ki)

Lee Soo Kyung (Na Young Joo)

Lee Dong Gun (Seo In Woo)

Kim Ji Soo (Yang Seo Koon)

Ro Woon (Ko Eun Seob)

Ahn Sang Woo (Gong Seung Chul)

Lee Sung Wook (Choi Moo Ja)

Jang Hyun Sung (Kwon Hee Sung)

General Thoughts:

This drama is the epitome of what-could-have-been. It had all the resources and materials to make an excellent show, but it never quite got there. Or it did for a while, but then it messed it up at the end.

You were so close 

I heard some rumours that this was supposed to be a 20 episode show and that it suffered an unfortunate episode cut due to scheduling conflicts (which may be why the ending ended up being rushed, and quite frankly cr*p), but I can’t seem to find any evidence that supports this idea. Perhaps it was just the desperate wish of viewers trying to find some reason why this drama that was going along so nicely suddenly fell apart.

I'm not sure this show would have been as good with different leads

The absolute worst thing about dramas that are travelling along so nicely only to fall apart (seemingly randomly) at the end, is that it kinda undoes all the good things they did along the way. ‘Where Stars Land’ was a thoughtful, charming show for most of its run, but by falling at the final hurdle it just messed up all these great things it had going for it. What I can say was fabulous from start to finish was the acting. Despite the shaky start this drama had with its casting, I think it all turned out for the best. Before Lee Je Hoon and Chae Soo Bin accepted, the leading roles were out to Hyun Bin and Park Shin Hye (who are currently starring together in ‘Memories of the Alhambra’), and Park Bo Gum and Suzy. While either of those combos probably would have worked out in the end, I’m endlessly glad that we were treated to the Lee Je Hoon and Chae Soo Bin combo instead. They’re not exactly a pairing I would have thought up myself (he’s so action, she’s so adorable), but their chemistry here was really fabulous. Both of them have proven that they’re excellent emotional actors previously, so I was never worried that they would be unbelievable, but I did fear that the pairing would be a bit…random. Good news for all of us, it wasn’t. It was delightful.

Even if the plot did get a bit wonky, the show was always visually gorgeous

What made both of their performances so spectacular in ‘Where Stars Land’ is that they weren’t exactly playing sensible, logical characters, but they were both still able to draw the audience into an understanding of the characters. While I might not have always believed that Soo Yeon was making the right calls in regards to his health and his relationship with Yeo Reum,

We all felt a bit this way about Yeo Reum at the start

Je Hoon’s perfect depiction of Soo Yeon’s fear and insecurities made me understand why Soo Yeon was making the decisions he was making. Chae Soo Bin had a bit of a harder task as Yeo Reum was a little awkwardly written. At the beginning of the series, Yeo Reum wasn’t exactly a character that was all that likeable. She was loud and abrasive with apparently no skills to back up all her talk. However as the story went on, Chae Soo Bin was able to inject a bit more of a bubbly, nonjudgemental energy into Yeo Reum, and she became instantly easier to root for. Kim Kyung Nam has come out of nowhere and totally grabbed my attention this year. From the dorky younger brother in ‘Smart Prison Living’ to the damaged older brother in ‘Come Here and Hug Me’, to here. These three roles were totally different and just go to show that he’s a wonderfully diverse actor. With the addition of his role as Dae Ki, we can now be certain that he can do funny, emotional and adorable. I’ve got my fingers crossed that he’s on the way to Male Lead Territory, because his performance here as the gruff but squishy security sunbae has made me keen to see what he would do with a leading role.

These two characters were an adorable side plot I couldn't do without

Lee Soo Kyung hasn’t got a whole lot of credits under her belt, but I really enjoyed what she brought to this show. It can be hard to play an aloof character without coming across as arrogant (and b*tchy in the case of girls), but Lee Soo Kyung added a wonderful sense of vulnerability to her character that cancelled out her rough exterior. Despite the story never actually going too far into the character of Young Joo, the way Lee Soo Kyung played her had me believing that there was a justifiable reason behind Young Joo’s knee jerk reactions to Dae Ki that went beyond her simply being cold.

Do I care about In Woo or his involvement in the story? No. No I do not.

Lee Soo Kyung made me believe that Young Joo had been faced with discrimination in the workforce for being a female, or that she'd had a previous uncomfortable dynamic with a male superior that caused her to be so cautious around Dae Ki and interpret his behaviours as something more than what he meant. I was honestly surprised that the drama never delved more into Young Joo’s character, but it actually left me feeling that much more impressed with how Lee Soo Kyung played her, as I got a very concrete sense of who Young Joo was without it ever being spelled out on screen. I thought Lee Dong Gun was kind of wasted here. To be fair I’ve only seen him in ‘7 Day Queen’ in which he was fabulous, but I have heard he’s a pretty consistently powerful actor. Here he didn’t really do much. His character wasn’t exactly written well, and while Lee Dong Gun didn’t do a bad job, he definitely wasn’t used to his full potential. The angsty brother storyline kind of didn’t make a lot of sense, nor did it have a proper resolution, so while Lee Dong Gun was convincing as both a vindictive, uncaring brother and a desperate, loving brother, these two personas coming to exist as the same character wasn’t exactly smooth.

I'm not sure anyone who leaves their bother in this state deserves a redemption arc...

In Woo’s redemption was hinted at very slightly early on, but the actual redemption came on so quickly that it did feel a touch random, and very much like the writer was throwing the plot out the window in order to force a happy ending for everyone. 'Older' actresses (as in over about 35) tend to get delegated to mother and grandmother roles, so it was nice to have Kim Ji Soo play a character that wasn’t simply someone’s family member.

Seo Koon is the unsung hero of this drama

Seo Koon was a strong and determined character, and Kim Ji Soo played her with a lot of backbone. She was the boss that we all wish we had, and was a refreshing character to have in K-Dramaland- a place that is so often filled with over demanding superiors.

What Was Great:

Romance:

Unarguably the best thing in this drama was the romances. Yes, plural. Every love-line in this show was fab. Our main couple were obviously wonderful, what with their adorable chemistry and actual (gasp) discussions about their feelings.

I will never get tired of the way Soo Yeon looked at Yeo Reum

While it can be nice to watch a couple bicker as they fall in love, it was a different kind of treat to watch a romance that was based on communication, understanding and learning to come to terms with each others’ disagreements. They weren’t a perfect couple by far, but what made them so easy to root for is that you really believed they were trying to make their relationship work. Yes, they liked each other on a fundamental level (which does tend to increase the chances of a relationship working), but there was no great ‘destiny’ or ‘fate’ spin on their romance. Soo Yeon and Yeo Reum were together simply because they wanted to be. Granted, they did have their moment at the end of the show where they completely stopped communicating with each other and were lying because they ‘didn’t want to hurt the other’, but for most of the show’s run they were honest with each other, which is definitely a breath of fresh air in K-Dramaland. Our second love-line was more like the typical K-Drama love-lines, and it was done oh so well. The bickering that Soo Yeon ad Yeo Reum didn’t have, Dae Ki and Young Joo most certainly did.

I don't even know which one was my favourite love-line

It was unbelievably cute watching these two figure out that they liked each other, and then flounder around completely out of their depth and confused as to what to do about it. Their small moments of showing that they cared for each other were a fun, lighthearted break from the more dramatic goings on in the Soo Yeon-Yeo Reum line. Not that Dae Ki and Young Joo didn’t have their ups and downs (because they definitely did),

You can legit see his brain breaking down

it was just far less heavy than one of them being crippled with their awesome prosthetics accidentally killing them. I mean, it’s hard to get much heavier than that. Perhaps one of the most enjoyable things about these two simultaneous love lines is that they were so different from each other. While Soo Yeon and Yeo Reum were both so open about their feelings and unembarrassed about their affections for one another, Dae Ki and Young Joo certainly weren’t. So we got the joy of watching a couple actually communicate and build a trusting relationship as well as a couple that were awkward and embarrassed, tripping over themselves to show that they cared but not that they cared too much. I even liked Eun Seob’s one sided crush on Yeo Reum. Yeo Reum never came across as a poor friend, as she always made it very clear that she thought of Eun Seob as nothing more than a friend. Even when he made his feelings a little more noticeable, Yeo Reum drew a clear line, so there was never any doubt where the two stood. No one could ever accuse her of leading him on, because just as she was open an honest with Soo Yeon about how much she liked him, she was also open and honest with Eun Seob about how she only saw him as a friend and that she was interested in Soo Yeon.

What a fab friend

You could also never accuse her of being pushy or demanding, because while she politely turned Eun Seob down, she never told him that he wasn’t allowed to like her. Yeo Reum made it very clear that Eun Seob could do whatever he liked with his feelings (either deal with them and be just friends, or act on them and risk the friendship), but she also made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t going to let him live in a neutral zone where he wasn’t quite a friend and wasn’t quite a lover. And I think we all adored the way that Eun Seob didn’t take the classic jilted lover road of stirring things up for the main couple. By giving Soo Yeon and Yeo Reum fair and honest advice on their relationship, Eun Seob gave them the best possible shot at making their relationship work.

I would not have said no to more double dates either

Sure, he was ready to be a shoulder for Yeo Reum to cry on should it all fall apart, but it was clear that he liked her far too much to sacrifice her own happiness for a shot at his own. It was selfless and sweet, and made him that much more of an endearing character. Sure, the plot may have kinda fallen apart towards the end, but at least we had all these great love-lines to keep us going. Heck, I even liked the separated-but-not-yet-divorced-line of Seo Koon and Moo Ja.

Subtlety:

This drama sure didn’t get up in your face about the themes it wanted to present. Subtlety isn’t something that comes along in your everyday K-Drama, so it was an interesting and welcome change to have a show that mentioned a lot of issues in passing without having to rub our faces in it. Things like sexual harassment, discrimination in the workplace and power dynamics in relationships were touched upon without the drama feeling like it needed to dedicate a whole episode or a whole plot line to each issue.

It doesn't have to be in your face for the point to get across

It helped the drama flow smoothly, as our story was never interrupted by a random side plot, but rather the issues raised their heads in ordinary situations every now and then. Personally I find this a more interesting and realistic take on these sorts of issues. Although it can be interesting and emotional to watch our heroine fight against harassment at work, it’s far more likely that this is a subject that she will try and deal with quietly and discreetly, and not bring to the attention of all her coworkers. Yeo Reum’s short, quiet self defence was easily looked over, and rather than spending a lot of time and effort to try and right was was done wrong, Yeo Reum sadly accepted that it was something that had happened and tried to move on with her life and work. It can be interesting to have a romance between coworkers, but it’s not unlikely that things will skew in the male’s favour should the relationship work out. It wasn’t even something I really considered all that much, and obviously wasn’t something that Soo Yeon considered until Yeo Reum brought it up, and we saw the truth in her fears when a rumour spread that they were dating, and people accused Yeo Reum of seducing Soo Yeon- a man who others considered out of her league.

This show made me rather grateful for my teeny tiny office workplace

Rather than making a huge issue out of these situations, the drama instead chose to show these moments in passing, or expressed them through character interactions without needing to spell it out. Often, I found that this made these issues hit harder to home and feel more heartbreaking, as it made you realise that these situations aren’t something that happens every now and then and becomes a big deal, but is actually something that happens on a day to day basis, but people keep quiet or overlook it because they don’t want to risk their reputation, relationships or career. 

What Wasn’t:

Lost It’s Way:

What can I say, this drama f*cked up its ending big time. It’s not just that I didn’t like the way the ending panned out, but that it also seemed to go against what the drama had previously set up. In Woo was always a problem character, and his rushed redemption didn’t do much to endear him in anyone’s eyes.

Man, do I wish you'd been written better

Quite frankly I wish that the show had gone to either extreme with his character. I either wanted him to be so obviously selfish and unrepentant that we all hated his guts and were rewarded with a solid downfall. Or I wanted him to be so obviously and heartbreakingly misunderstood by Soo Yeon as he did everything in his power to protect him without his knowledge. Instead the show chose to keep his character somewhere in the middle where we didn’t like him because he was selfish, but we also couldn’t outright hate him because in his own convoluted way he kinda was trying to look out for Soo Yeon. The problem here is that the drama contradicted itself a little. At the beginning, In Woo seemed honestly shocked (and super displeased) that Soo Yeon was alive and (seemingly) well. He should have at least known that Soo Yeon was alive, as at the end of the drama we’re shown a flashback where In Woo (post injury) gives Soo Yeon’s Mum a watch to give to Soo Yeon. Which he wouldn’t have done if he didn’t know for sure and certain that Soo Yeon was alive. I also argue that a quicker, less harmful way to get Soo Yeon out of the airport and away from the gangsters would have been to just tell him the truth rather than literally threaten him with the prosthetics that were helping him live a normal life.

There are like a million ways In Woo could have handled this better

It just seemed unnecessarily cruel for In Woo to use the disability that was (indirectly or not) caused by him to try and make Soo Yeon quit his job. Honestly, the gangsters as a whole just confused the hell out of me. I was expecting In Woo’s involvement with them to get spelled out in a bit more detail, but nope. And as quickly and randomly as they were introduced to the story, they were gone. After Soo Yeon heroically rescues In Woo from drowning (which wouldn’t have bothered me that much anyway)

Gangsters are such a tacky way to add conflict IMO

the gangsters are mysteriously gone, never to interfere in the brothers’ lives again. Sorry, but I’m not buying that a huge criminal organisation who has invested years, and probably millions, in some nefarious airport takeover scheme would just give it all up cuz a dude with a robo-arm beat some guys up and picked up a car. Especially when said robo-arm is taken off only days later. I understand that having Soo Yeon’s prosthetics cause him harm was necessary to add some conflict into the show, but I really didn’t like how it played out between our leads. These two people who have been very open and honest all drama long are suddenly lying and hiding things from each other. I can sort of give Soo Yeon a pass because it’s his body and his choice what he wants to do with it, but I have no idea why Yeo Reum wouldn’t tell him that she knew he was seriously sick so they could sit down and have an in depth discussion about what their options were. I would much rather have seen Soo Yeon and Yeo Reum be honest about what was happening and argue and disagree openly while trying to understand each other than watch Soo Yeon try and hide his sickness and Yeo Reum try and hide that she knew. Like, why? What did she even get from it?

Can we all just stop pretending everything is fine and actually talk about the issue here?

He was still wearing his prosthetics, so he was still getting sicker, so her decision to lie was totally random and unnecessary. Perhaps the worst part of this drama’s ridiculous rainbows and ponies and fairy-dust finale is that we actually ended up skipping right over the issue of the prosthetics hurting Soo Yeon anyway. The last quarter of this drama was essentially Soo Yeon and Yeo Reum disagreeing on whether Soo Yeon should wear his prosthetics and die, or live as a disabled man in a wheelchair.

I get why you don't wanna live without them, but I don't get why
you won't explain it to your girlfriend

It’s a sh*t choice to be fair. Both sides had reasonable arguments. Yeo Reum sees Soo Yeon as a wonderful, respectable, loveable man whether he is on his own two feet or in a wheelchair, so she doesn’t understand Soo Yeon’s willingness to let his prosthetics kill him. On the other hand, Soo Yeon hates his disability and knows how hard it would make life for Yeo Reum and himself if they were to live that way, while Yeo Reum is perhaps not as aware of exactly how difficult that life would be. At the end of the day, while I do understand that Yeo Reum thinks a life in a wheelchair is better than no life at all, it’s still Soo Yeon’s decision to make- it’s his life after all. So, all in all, a great discussion and an endlessly fascinating conflict. It seemed for a while that the drama was going to take the route of killing off Soo Yeon, which would have been sad, but not terrible. The idea that he was just someone that was passing through for Yeo Reum was heartbreaking, but made sense and could have been a very bittersweet ending to the show. Then it chose to save Soo Yeon, which I must say I was happy about. The problem is that it felt like Soo Yeon changed his mind very quickly, and was almost blackmailed into choosing to live.

As aesthetically pleasing as this scene may be, I kinda wanted Soo Yeon to inject it himself

I would have preferred if the show had spent more time on Soo Yeon’s choice, and showing how he learned that a life in a wheelchair is still a life worth living, rather than focusing on some convoluted, confusing gang plot that was going to get dropped anyway. And then we skip the part where Soo Yeon is in a wheelchair. And he’s not even with Yeo Reum during that time. He disappears off to America (the land of magical medical cures apparently) and comes back with shiny new limbs, whole and hearty and ready to be human again.

'This is the real me.' ...Is it though?...

Which f*cking blows. To me, the whole point of this drama was for Soo Yeon to come to terms with his disability and live his life regardless of what his body could or couldn’t do. The show went out if its way to criticise the way we focus on perfection and normality, and then basically smacked us in the face by telling us that Soo Yeon couldn’t be happy with Yeo Reum without his prosthetics. Needless to say, that wasn’t the message I was wanting out of this show. I mean, for all their talk of being true and honest with each other, Yeo Reum never saw Soo Yeon in his wheelchair once. Sure, he showed her his prosthetics, but that’s not who he is. I truly wanted this drama to show at least a a glimpse of Soo Yeon and Yeo Rim living a difficult, but still enjoyable life together without Soo Yeon’s prosthetics. Yes, it would have been a nice happy bonus for the prosthetic issue to be fixed so that Soo Yeon could have more independence and whatnot, but not before we see Soo Yeon and Yeo Reum continuing to love and care for each other as they lived with Soo Yeon’s disability.

Also it was just fr*ggin' weird that they didn't show Lee Je Hoon's face in the final scene. Like, is that even him?

To be honest, I didn’t even need the overly happy ending with the prosthetics being fixed, as long as Soo Yeon and Yeo Reum were together and figuring things out. So on that front, the show f*cked up royally. At the same time that the show’s subtlety was one of its great strengths, it was also one of its greatest flaws. While it did a great job of not being super, painfullly obvious about some issues it was addressing, it also kinda dropped a lot of its storylines that it had going and hoped no one would notice. While occasionally bringing out a small reveal about the characters’ lives worked nicely (like realising that Moo Ja was the husband Seo Koon was currently separated from),

Let's just try to remember the cute and forget the rest

it was a total fail when it did this to points that were actually necessary for the story. We would have been so much more sympathetic and understanding of Soo Yeon’s hatred of his disability and his belief that he couldn’t be loved because of it had we known earlier that his Mum skipped out on him after the accident. His reckless overuse of his prosthetics and unwillingness to live without them also would have been much more understandable had we known that he’d only had them for a year. With Yeo Reum’s Dad saving Soo Yeon from driving down those stairs right after he’d had the accident, I’d (incorrectly) assumed that Soo Yeon had got the prosthetics not long after that. These points were crucial in shaping Soo Yeon’s identity, and I desperately wish the show had given them to us earlier, rather than throwing them at us in the final episode like bonus pieces of information. I also coldem the show for not having Dae Ki and Young Joo get together in the ENTIRE YEAR that was skimmed over. Before the time skip they’d pretty much revealed that they liked each other, so why the hell were they still in the EXACT SAME STAGE a whole year later? Why, show, why?

Someone needs to go to Korea and hold a writer convention to spell out that time skips are generally a bad idea

And there were countless other stories that we just never heard the end to- what happened to In Woo, where did the gangsters go, what was the deal with Yeo Reum’s Dad and the doctor who made Soo Yeon’s prosthetics, what was the deal with Yeo Reum being adopted, what stopped Yeo Reum and her Dad from meeting each other then he was still alive (presuming he’s even dead, because while it was heavily hinted at it was never explicitly stated), how did Seo Koon meet Soo Yeon, why is Eun Seob suddenly being shipped off overseas? Long story short, the end of this drama is a complete and total fail.

Recommend?

I’d like to say yes, but I wouldn’t really. There were great parts to this show, but overall it was pretty disappointing.

If only, if only, if only...