Was It Love

 Was It Love

4.5/10

Was It Love

Genre:                                            Episodes: 16                       Year: 2020

Romance

Comedy

Synopsis:

Noh Ae Jung is a single mother working as a movie producer at a small company on the edge of bankruptcy. The company has one last chance to make a successful movie, and the production of the movie brings four men into Ae Jung’s life.

Cast:

Song Ji Hyo (Noh Ae Jung)

Son Ho Joon (Oh Dae Oh)

Song Jong Ho (Ryu Jin)

Koo Ja Sung (Oh Yeon Woo)

Kim Min Joon (Koo Pa Do)

Dasom (Joo Ah Rin)

Uhm Chae Young (Noh Ha Nee)

Yoon Sung Woo (Koo Dong Chan)

General Thoughts:

Who…who wrote this? Okay so, it’s a totally newbie writer from what I can see which I guess makes it a little better- room to grow I suppose. But man…this wasn’t exactly a fun ride. I was so exasperated (mainly from the two leads) that the ending for this drama just could not come quick enough.

This drama was pain

The beginning however was actually quite fun. For the first four/fiveish episodes I was really on board and was having a fun time with the show. I mean come on, four suitors for a single mum- it just sounds ripe for all kind of hilarity and shenanigans. Honestly, I think where the show fell apart was not capitalising on all the quirky fun aspects it had. It took itself too seriously and actually ended up ignoring a lot of the parts that set itself apart form other K-Dramas.

I just don't caaaare about your past fling

I have seen nearly a million K-Dramas (only a slight exaggeration) which are about long lost lovers reuniting and falling in love again. Yawn. Boring. I’ve had this dish before, how about something new people! Reunited lovers can be emotional and sweet, but ‘Was It Love’ instead made it tedious and meandering. I can’t see the point of us getting four fun, different suitors for the leading lady, when it is so insanely obvious who the end game is from episode one. Did anyone actually think that any other character but Dae Oh had a chance to end up with Ae Jung? I sure didn’t. I mean I hoped someone else would, but in my heart I already knew how the ending would go. Dae Oh would be the father (because I never thought that this drama would be brave enough to make the baby-daddy someone other than who the ending romance would be), and he would get back together with Ae Jung despite their relationship being absolutely bloody terrible. I guess a plus of not wanting Dae Oh to be the one that ended up with Ae Jung is that I was free to bounce around whatever ship I so desired. Each episode I was rooting for a different guy- with the exception of Dae Oh of course. Depending on what had happened in the episode (such as Yeon Woo taking good care of Ha Nee, or Jin admitting that he sabotaged Ae Jung’s last contact with Dae Oh) I would flit my support from one character to the other, happily not tied to anyone in particular and free to root for whoever I wanted.

Woo hoo- so many choices!

A lot of the time I found myself cheering for Pa Do because he was just the least likely, and also because he was the most normal and reasonable of them all. Yes, the ex mafia who is protecting his dead love’s kid while hiding from a gang boss is the most reasonable. Kinda says a bit about the other boys, don’t it. Jin was sweet and nice, but he was also kinda entitled and spineless- he thought liking Ae Jung first gave him some kinda of right to her affections, yet never really stood up for Ae Jung OR Ha Nee, despite always saying he was going to ‘take responsibility’.

I do love a noona romance

His heart was in the right place, but he never really ended up doing anything important ever. Yeon Woo was enthusiastic, but he often came across as quite pushy- I get that his fear of losing Ae Jung unexpectedly again made him want to give it his all, but it more often came across as demanding and a little controlling. I’m glad that in the end Yeon Woo was given a scene where he could just tell Ae Jung that he had always been happy during the times he liked her and spent with her and that he was moving on, because he was a really endearing character, and I’m glad the show didn’t do him dirty at the end by making him a stage five clinger. Yeon Woo was always gentle, understanding and supportive of Ha Nee, so I cheered for him a lot purely because I think he would have been the best father figure for Ha Nee moving forwards. I’m a little disappointed that the show went the route of ‘who’s the daddy?’ for a few reasons. 1- we all already know who it is, let’s all stop pretending it’s a mystery. 2- if you’re going to commit to a play like this, at least commit all the way. The drama made a big song and dance about Ha Nee searching for which of the men her father was, but they were not given equal amounts of screen time, which made it really obvious who the dad was, and also just made the show feel a bit exasperating whenever it acted like the viewers wouldn’t know.

Yeon Woo and Ha Nee were just too cute together

Yeon Woo and Jin got a bit of time with Ha Nee early on, but once Dae Oh came about, you would be hard pressed to find Jin, Yeon Woo or even Pa Do sharing screen time with Ha Nee. It’s like the writer knew that Dae Oh paled so much in comparison to these other guys (okay maybe Jin is only slightly better), that they knew they literally couldn’t have Ha Nee shown with any of the other contenders because it would show just how crummy he really was.

Yes, chase the young girl- there's no way that'll end badly

I mean come on, Dae Oh’s first interaction with Ha Nee is chasing her down a dark street at night trying to talk to her while she runs away and almost gets in an accident. And I’m supposed to swoon at Dae Oh for saving her? Mate, if you hadn’t chased this underage girl in the dark, she wouldn’t have needed saving. Alas I digress- my main point here is that there was a wealth of humour and heart to be mined from Ha Nee’s relationship with each of the four men, but rather than exploring each of those potentially brilliant emotional lines, the plot instead opted to hyper focus on the romance. Similarly to how all Ha Nee’s screen time ended up being shared with Dae Oh, majority of Ae Jung’s screen time was also with Dae Oh. Which does make sense as he is the lead, bu it also kind of doesn’t make sense because Ae Jung disliked Dae Oh rather intensely- so why were they spending so much time together? Any time Ae Jung was having a nice moment with one of the other suitors, Dae Oh swooped in to disrupt the moment. It wasn’t cute and it didn’t make their relationship seem like fate. It made Dae Oh seem like a stalker and Ae Jung like a woman who couldn’t move on with her life. Ae Jung as a character was just…not that great. She was bland and didn’t have much to her character that went beyond that she was a single mother. It’s like they tried to spin it that she was a great producer who is still trying to chase her dreams despite her setbacks, but like…we never really actually saw her do any producing.

If being great at her job was an important part of this character, maybe she should...be better at her job...

She had only just been made a producer at her company when it went bankrupt, and then all series long Dae Oh or one of the other men were solving all the problems that cropped up in the film. Even getting the film off the ground wasn’t thanks so Ae Jung- if she hadn’t known Dae Oh and Jin from university, there would have been no way to satisfy the investor's conditions and the drama would have been over before it had begun. I really, really, really wish that the show had made Ae Jung way more of a competent professional- as it was every time Ae Jung told someone to trust her to make a great film I couldn’t help but sit there and think ‘why would they- you have literally never made a movie, never mind a successful one’. I don’t know how I felt about Song Ji Hyo in this role either. I find her to be a good emotional actor, and the scenes here that were more on the serious side she acted well.

I thought we'd passed the era where wrist grabbing was viewed as romantic

But as this is a rom-com, there were a lot of scenes that required her to act silly and cute, and I just don’t think she can pull that off very well. It always felt kind of strained and awkward and was more cringey than enjoyable to watch. I didn’t much like the character of Ae Jung, and Song Ji Hyo just wasn’t able to give her that burst of happy-go-lucky energy that draws you in and warms you to there character. It was a similar thing for Son Ho Joon. I have LOVED Son Ho Joon in his roles in the past, most recently when he was the lead in ‘Go Back Spouses’, which was also coincidently about lovers rediscovering each other (sort of) and rekindling their love.

There are few male leads I have disliked this much

 But he just wasn’t able to shine here. I know that Son Ho Joon can do cute and comedy, but Dae Oh was written so badly as a character that I didn’t even like seeing Son Ho Joon on screen. I swear he got to smile like…three times in this whole show. He was just so mopey and depressed and self-centred that there was no way I could connect and sympathise with the character, even with Son Ho Joon acting him out. The rest of the acting was pretty good all round- Koo Ja Sung delivered a cute puppy younger character that didn’t have too many difficult emotions to portray, and Song Jong Ho was solid and consistent. No one really blew me away, but I thought Dasom did a really great job. I haven’t seen her in any roles since ‘Virtual Bride’ which was one of her first projects, and I think she’s really improved since then. I personally think it’s a great idea for idols gone actors to take on a ‘celebrity’ role, as I’m sure there’s a lot of personal experiences that they’d be able to draw on to assist their acting as they are starting out. Dasom felt really comfortable in her role here, and gave a nice a natural performance, even in the scenes that required a bit more emotion from her.

I don't love that they tried to tie her character up with Jin though

The plot in this drama was excruciatingly slow. I was so excited when our characters got kidnapped towards the end because something was finally happening! The momentum dropped right after our characters were introduced and had their first lot of interactions with each other, and was never able to recover. There weren’t that many mysteries in the drama, and the show didn’t want to give any away until we got to like…episode 12 (or there about). There were so many episodes where nothing was happening- no events and no relationship development.

But Pa Do developed a relationship with his son, and that's all I really cared about

It’s almost as if the writer wanted to hold onto Ae Jung and Dae Oh getting together until the end of the show, but to do that they had to sort out the misunderstanding behind why Ae Jung left all those years ago. Which was the show’s main mystery- so we couldn’t be told that too early on apparently. Unfortunately this meant that there was very little development between Ae Jung and Dae Oh, despite each episode being about trying to force them together- it made for an extremely frustrating watch. 

What Was Great:

Kiddies:

Ha Nee and Dong Chan were by far the best parts of this show. Ha Nee was so delightful in her endeavours to find her biological father, and her relationship with Dong Chan was really sweet.

10/10 this is fab

Ha nee was by far more mature than either of her parents, and always had sincere and thoughtful responses to her situations. She was hurt by both Ae Jung and Dae Oh (seriously- who doesn’t talk to their child about their absent father when they know she is looking into it), but never lost the capacity to try and understand their situations and why they acted the way they did. She was able to look past her feelings and her emotional responses (something neither of the adults could do) to try and come to a compromise that worked well for everyone. Dong Chan was her cute and trusty side-kick and the two of them were just a joy to watch on screen- they were so fun! Uhm Chae Young gave a really solid performance and delivered well on her heavy emotional scenes- you really felt for her, and as a viewer your heart ached every time Ha Nee had to suck it up and be strong on her own because the adults around her just didn’t have the sense to be able to support her properly. 

What Wasn’t:

No Love:

The main love line in this drama was just bad. There was not nearly enough cute and sweet moments between the leads- they spent most of the series misunderstanding each other and disliking each other! They constantly pushed the other away under the guise of it being ‘better for them’ or ‘easier for everyone’. The show really didn’t give much away between the mystery of their separation until the end, so it was also hard to understand why these two characters felt so hurt by the other.

JUST GET OVER IT

In the end, it did make sense, but by then it was too late for me to actually care about their relationship. I also had absolutely no faith that these two could make an honest and communicative relationship work. Right until the close of the drama, they didn’t communicate with the other what they wanted- they kept making unilateral decisions without discussion which is a recipe for more misunderstandings and fall outs.

I 100% believe they will break up again anyway

Honestly, considering that they broke up just after their 300 day anniversary and couldn’t move on with their lives, I really question their sanity. Despite how good of a relationship they thought they had, how could they not have moved past that for the rest of their lives. They weren’t even dating for a year. 300 days is less than a year. These two supposedly functional adults dated for less than a year and they f*cked it up so badly that it tainted the rest of their adult lives until they met again. Like oh yeah, it will toooootally work if they get back together. Sure. Even before the main misunderstanding that eventually broke them apart happened, Ae Jung and Dae Oh’s relationship was already breaking down. Dae Oh constantly sidelined Ae Jung and put other things before her, and never told her about what was stressing him out and causing him to act that way, and Ae Jung was never able to adequately express her frustrations in a way that helped Dae Oh understand that what he was doing was seriously damaging and risking their relationship. Even without Ae Jung’s sudden pregnancy and Ah Rin and Jin’s meddling, that relationship was going to break down. The only difference is that without those things, there would have been no mystery surrounding the break up and they both would have just got on with their lives. The chemistry between Song Ji Hyo and Son Ho Joon also wasn’t that convincing. All in all this was a very lacklustre love line.

Friggin’ Time Skip:

Why did anyone think that it was a good idea to finish this drama on a time skip? Like…why? How? I’m baffled. Baffled and confused I say.

Here comes Oh Dae Oh- ready to not communicate his emotions to anyone

After finding out that he had a daughter that he hadn’t heard of for fourteen years, Dae Oh wants to build up a relationship with her and rekindle his romance with her mother, his lost love. And he decides that the best way to do that is to…leave and go no contact for two years?

Ah yes, break her heart. That'll show her you won't hurt her in the future

How is that showing anyone that you are responsible and reliable and not going to walk out on them? Newsflash- it doesn’t. One of Ha Nee’s conditions on being a partner for her mum is that you will always be by her mum’s side, and while looking at those conditions and ticking yes on all of them, Dae Oh then packs his sh*t and nopes out of there. I just have no fathoming of why he thought he needed to leave them, and why he thought either of them would ever welcome him back into their lives after he disappears off again. I sure wouldn’t. I just fail to understand why the original story that was based on Dae Oh’s original perception of the events had to be deleted and changed. These people do know that it’s fiction right? Dae Oh and Ae Jung weren’t really warriors fighting to the death- they know that right? Why can’t they just make the bloody film more accurate, or write a sequel/prequal/spin off afterwards that reflected what really happened. Just because the FICTIONAL STORY didn’t pan out the way real life had, doesn’t mean everybody had to go put their lives on hold for two years while Dae Ho wrote a new book. What utter rubbish.

Recommend?

If you have read this rant and are still unsure whether I would recommend this show to you, you need to…well…just read the rant again. (P.S- the answer is that I would not recommend this show to anyone). 

I want to watch a good drama...

Hwayugi

Hwayugi

6.5/10

Hwayugi

Genre:                                    Episodes: 20                                         Year: 2018

Romance

Fantasy

Synopsis:

Jin Seon Mi is a girl who can see evil spirits. As a child she released a deity, Son Oh Gong, from his prison. As a reward, Oh Gong offers to come to her aid and fight evil spirits whenever she calls his name, but also removes the memory of his name from her mind. As an adult, Seon Mi meets Oh Gong again, and uses a magical bracelet to trick Oh Gong into loving her so that he will protect her.

Cast:

Lee Seung Gi (Son Oh Gong)

Oh Yeon Seo (Jin Seon Mi)

Cha Seung Won (Woo Ma Wang)

Lee Hong Ki (PK)

Lee El (Ma Ji Young)

Lee Se Young (Bu Ja/Ah Sa Nyeo)

Yoon Bo Ra (Alice)

Jang Gwang (Yoon Dae Shik)

Sung Ji Ru (Soon Bo Ri)

Sung Hyuk (Winter General/Summer Fairy)

Song Jong Ho (Kang Dae Sung)

One (Hong Hae Ah)

General Thoughts:

I feel like this drama should have been better than it was. There were so many elements in it that were really, really good, but then there were also quite a lot of parts that were below standard.

I wish it had been just a smidge more exciting

I missed the Hong Sisters’ last drama ‘Warm and Cozy’ as I just heard so many terrible things about it, but I did catch ‘Big’. I’ve also seen a lot of their better works, and I think ‘Hwayugi’ falls somewhere in the middle. It’s not one of their best, but it’s not one of their worst either.

I don't like fantasy, I LOVE it

I’m not sure how much of the world-building they took from the original Chinese novel, but that was one of the better aspects to the show. The way these deities and demons were so naturally disguised in society was brilliant and I loved all the fantasy elements of the characters’ powers and limitations and all the various rules in place from heaven. The heavenly hierarchy was interesting, though mildly confusing at times, but it made all the interactions between our characters fun. The characters were all extremely unique and interesting, and were really the draw for this drama (because there wasn’t really a lot going on in the plot). The different demons were delightful, and each had a story of their own. Having all these personalities interacting was exciting and fun, however after a time it did get a little stagnant. ‘Hwayugi’ was a drama that needed a big plot to move it, as we had all these big characters with big powers. However, as the drama progressed and we got used to the way the characters interacted with each other (Oh Gong and Seon Mi’s push and pull, Oh Gong and Ma Wang’s bickering bromance etc) there was no big force that really pushed our characters into any sort of action- which led to a huge slow in momentum and my interest starting to fade.

I much prefer the pull over the push

The acting was pretty good all around, with the Hong sisters drawing on a lot of actors from their previous dramas. Of course, these actors were brilliant in their previous roles, and so they did well again. Cha Seung Won was hilarious as the bull demon running an entertainment agency.

He's just so hilarious

While his false bravado was slightly reminiscent of his character in ‘Greatest Love’ he managed to add an air of superiority that made Ma Wang feel like a brand new character. Cha Seung Won has such great comedic timing, and such fabulously humorous chemistry with others that sometimes I find it hard to believe that he was ever a serious actor. But then in the heavy, serious scenes he really switches over and shows you what he’s capable of- raw and rich emotion. PK’s character had quite a few similarities to Jeremy in ‘You’re Beautiful’, but similarly to Cha Seung Won, Lee Hong Ki managed to add a unique flavour in his representation of the character that prevented PK from becoming a Jeremy copy-paste. Lee Hong Ki added a bunch of arrogance and tonnes down his innocence for this role, and I really enjoyed the PK he brought out. I’ve not had good experiences with Lee Se Young in the past, after hating her character in ‘The Best Hit’. I really thought she had little to no acting talent at all after seeing her in that drama, and I was happy to be proven wrong here.

She ended up being one of my favourite characters

Lee Se Young was delightful and extremely likeable as our zombie, Bu Ja. She was cute and funny and did an excellent job at bringing in zombie-ish characteristics- such as her slowed speech. Despite how odd these characteristics might have been, Lee Se Young was very natural and made them feel like an authentic part of her character,

Gross yet funny

and I didn’t feel her acting as much as I did in ‘Best Hit’. Her transition to Sa Nyeo was believable and she played the priestess well. However, I do find that she lacks that appeal that makes me intrigued by her whether I like her character or not (something an actress like Lee El has in spades). While there was nothing wrong with her performance as Sa Nyeo, I wasn’t nearly as interested as I was when she was playing Bu Ja- though I think a large part is simply that the character wasn’t as entertaining. I thought One was a bit of a scene stealer, and the cheeky, rebellious grandson role suit him well. The weakest link in the cast was definitely Oh Yeon Seo. She’s gained a lot of popularity recently, and I remember finding her hilarious in ‘Come Back, Ajusshi’, but I really didn't feel it here. There were so many moments when I could see her acting in the scene, and I found that she very rarely seemed natural. Seon Mi was a horrifically boring character on paper (typical useless heroine who is only there to be loved by the hero), and I feel Oh Yeon Seo really struggled trying to give her some life. Sadly, her chemistry with Lee Seung Gi was pretty flat, so I didn’t really buy the romance. She seemed to only have one sweet smiling expression and it just felt kinda fake.

This is the face you make when you can't slap someone who deserves it because it's not 'mature'. This is not an in love face.

I found myself really wishing that Seon Mi had been given more supernatural powers or given more to do in the plot so that Oh Yeon Seo had something else to do other than struggle to look like she was in love with Lee Seung Gi.

A part of me is still pretty disappointed Ma Wang never got horns

The CGI started out pretty well (ignoring the colossal f*ck-up where they aired a half finished episode because they were so far behind on editing). Son Oh Gong’s fire and disappearing and reappearing were awesome, and I adored the demons’ red eyes. The scent of Seon Mi’s blood was done well too- it can be pretty tricky to put a scent into a visual format, but I thought that ‘Hwayugi’ did a pretty convincing job. Maybe they blew their budget on the earlier stuff because after  a while it just seemed like the CGI went downhill. Fast. Ma Wang’s 100 years of suffering was brought down to a few poorly done lights and the big, bad dragon that was supposed to bring about the end of the world was pretty laughable. After how much talk had been going on about what a monstrosity this black dragon was going to be, the final result was definitely a bit lacklustre. One aspect of the show that was brilliant throughout was the soundtrack. As a non-Korean speaking viewer, OSTs that rely on lyrical ballads all end up sounding a bit the same. The soundtrack to ‘Hwayugi' was filled with interesting and easily recognisable songs.

Cue the badass soundtrack

Not only would I be able recognise these songs outside of the drama, but within the drama they served to heighten the mood and give us a hint about what was to fallow. Say if Track 1 played then I knew Oh Gong was about to unleash his powers and get reckless, or if it was Track 2 it meant his feelings for Seon Mi were growing. While some aspects of the drama were a little less exciting than the blockbuster we were promised, the soundtrack carried more than its weight and was undoubtably epic.

What Was Great:

Monkey King:

Did you think I’d forgotten to take about Son Oh Gong played by the dynamic Lee Seung Gi? No, I was just saving it for now.

♫ I don't want to, why should I? How much will you give me? ♫

While I’ve liked Lee Seung Gi in the past, I’ve never quite understood what it was about him that made people lose their minds. I get it now. This was the perfect casting for him and a brilliant way to mark his return from the army.

I am 100 times more into Lee Seung Gi after this drama

Oh Gong’s childish and arrogant ways suited Lee Seung Gi ridiculously well (in a good way), and he gave the character an amazingly endearing vibe for someone who was so…well…so annoying. By all rights Oh Gong should be unlikeable- he’s selfish, rebellious, self-centred- and yet Lee Seung Gi makes all these totally negative traits seem fun and sexy. It’s the perfect example of the bad-boy. You know he’s no good, but you just can’t help loving him. The geumganggo was a nice plot device to tie Oh Gong to the heroine, but Oh Gong was still well aware that he didn’t really love Seon Mi. Lee Seung Gi was brilliant at portraying these totally conflicting feelings of wanting to be near Seon Mi but also wanting nothing to do with her. Having him whine endlessly while he followed her around was just delightful, and of course it was extra fun to watch him slowly start to fall in love for real. Lee Seung Gi matched every emotion of Oh Gong’s perfectly, and we could easily see all his desires and fears that came about due to the geumganggo. His bickering relationship with Ma Wang was always fun, and the two actors had great chemistry (more so than the actual romance).

May bromance never die

While I wasn’t always on board with the main love-line, I was at least convinced that Oh Gong was in love with Seon Mi. All in all, I think a large part of what made this drama watchable was the mischievous nature of our Monkey King hero, and his perfect portrayal by Lee Seung Gi.

What Wasn’t:

Lame Conflicts:

The biggest issue this drama had is that all its problems were so easy to solve. And often had loopholes. The first time I really felt this was during Ma Wang’s 1000 years of suffering.

It started out legitimately sad

This was Ma Wang’s whole story. He loves this girl, sh*t happens in heaven and she’s getting however many reincarnations of suffering. Ma Wang finally finds her and offers to take her punishment (like why didn’t he just do that to begin with?) and we get a lame light-show,

That...that's it?

a couple of minutes pain for Ma Wang paired with short-lived blindness and…that’s it. For what a big windup the show had to Ma Wang’s big sacrifice, he didn’t actually have to sacrifice all that much. From what I can tell, apart from a brief discomfort Ma Wang’s life really wasn’t altered that much after taking one thousand years of pain. It just didn’t seem all that painful is all I’m sayin’. Then we had this to-ing and fro-ing with taking off the geumganggo and we had so many close calls and spent SO MUCH TIME with Seon Mi and Oh Gong deliberating if they were going to take it off that I really stopped caring if they would or not. If you tease something that many times, you’re going to wear out my patience. And I don’t have a lot of it to begin with. By the time the geumganggo finally came off I really didn’t care. We all knew that Oh Gong loved Seon Mi for real- even Seon Mi knew and she’s pretty bloody dense. The biggest and stupidest and most annoying conflict in this drama was actually the main one. All series long we’ve been told that Oh Gong has to kill Seon Mi, and all drama long I’ve been (sort of) interested to see how/if they’d get around this rather large stumbling block in their relationship.

The bell is a lie

Where the drama really started to lose my interest was after it introduced Sa Nyeo. She came right after some other spirit that tried stealing the geumganggo and thus Oh Gong’s love,

Bring back Bu Ja

so I was super underwhelmed when Sa Nyeo seemed to be going for Oh Gong’s love too. Like, we’ve just seen that- give us something new. Sa Nyeo’s arrival of course meant there was no more Bu Ja, and it turns out that PK and Octopus Prince are kinda boring when Bu Ja’s not around- so not only did we lose Bu Ja, we pretty much lost the others too. Things happen and Sa Nyeo decides to call a dragon for Dae Sung, and turns out it’s going to be this giant black dragon that ends the world. So far I can roll with it. But then the characters all start discussing the end of the world (which we’ve been hearing about for around 7 or 8 episodes now) and it's mentioned that only Sa Nyeo can call the world-destroying dragon. Um, hello? Just kill Sa Nyeo while she’s in the body of a weak zombie then. Problemo solved. But no. No one does this. No one really entertains this notion at all. These super wise godly beings who have lived for thousands of years decide that the best course of action is to wait until the dragon is summoned and then try and fight it. Like what the actual f*ck people.

You should have done this AGES AGO

I just couldn’t take the situation seriously from that point on because all I could think about while the characters were discussing how tragic and awful this situation was was that they could literally just kill the only person capable of summoning the dragon and be done with it.

It doesn't even do anything! Just kinda floats around menacingly.

 Sure the dragon is still technically there, but if you just keep getting rid of the people able to summon it (who are way weaker then the dragon itself) isn’t that the easier option? Anyway after a lot of mumbo jumbo bullsh*t the dragon gets summoned and Seon Min is stabbed by Dae Sung. Like really, if you’re going to kill a main character at least put some effort into it. It was like they forgot they were killing Seon Mi off and just squished it in there in the most random way possible. Maybe I would have felt some emotion over Seon Mi’s demise had Oh Gong somehow been cornered into killing her, but no. Also, Dae Sung killing Seon Mi also means that the whole death bell fate scenario was just blatantly wrong. In my not so humble opinion, this drama could have been way more interesting if a lot less time had been spent on the dragon summoning (which was super underwhelming with terrible CGI).

A journey through the underworld to save her soul sounds way more interesting than what I just sat through

Maybe instead of having Seon Mi die at the end and not even seeing Oh Gong's search to find her the show could have condensed the whole series into the first half or two-thirds and then ended with Oh Gong’s journey to the underworld to rescue the girl he loves. That would have been cool. 

Recommend?

If you want to know what the fuss is with Lee Seung Gi then I totally recommend this drama. Otherwise, no.

At least the cast was good