Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (2017)

This drama became by far my absolute love !
The story line mixes rom-com and action/thriller elements in a very sucessfull way.
I honestly felt like the thriller plot was lead in a very smart way giving depth and helping the story line development without being overwatched nor rushed in the end like other romcoms. Also loved how the comical elements were smartly incorporated in the story without being too much nor out of place. The drama gave me some of my biggest laughts !
Both leads grew on my heart and almost fell for the second male lead ! Loved Bong Soon kirky yet super cute character that you never got enough of but most of all the fact the the charater unlike other strong FL never totally fell fot the ML knight syndrome and remained the show stealer <3

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I absolutely adored Park Hyung Sik in Strong Woman Do Bong Soon. He was hilarious, sweet, and heartwarming. Also, super stylish - I loved all his outfits. Park Bo Young was also great as the title character. I loved their interactions and would 100% rewatch their scenes. The rest of it... eh, I accepted it as the price to pay for all of Park Hyung Sik's cute moments. This drama is a strange mix of romantic comedy with a disturbing crime mystery storyline, but I actually didn't mind the crime part as it tied in with Do Bong Soon's power. It was the bizarre side plot with the gangsters that I really didn't care for.   Towards the end I skipped past those parts entirely.

I have no memory of the music so I just gave that a generic 5.0.

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Strong leads, enjoyable, but the plot and focus are a bit of a mess

I thought the cast for this was very strong, especially the three leads. Bong Soon and Min Hyuk have near fatal chemistry and that's the clear highlight of this drama. Bong Soon is adorable and Min Hyuk's mannerisms and romantic approach are overpowering. The rival character is also one of the strongest I've seen in this role, even if I had such a strong distaste for him early on. I don't care at all for love triangles but this one was relatively reasonable and well-acted.

The show has way, way too much comic relief and non-central character focus, to the point that I felt like every episode had nearly 10 minutes of filler. The comedy itself is often very lowest common denominator (don't get me started on the wine gag and loud is funny humor), though the main character centered comedy is pretty good. I'm also an opponent of overarching psycho pervert thriller-style conflict, though here it sort of makes sense given the comic-book/action movie premise. This conflict trope is extremely overused and very often distracts from what actually works for the central relationships. In my mind, Strong Woman Bong Soon should've been a more focused romcom with episodic villains; for instance, they should've made housing development and local thugs the central source of conflict - the show teases this possibility before diving into the thriller stuff. I think defeating villains and converting them to acquaintances/friends would work way better for the tone this show sets early than using the genius evil sicko. One example of why this fails - the main antagonist, despite the job he has, carries around basically tens if not hundreds of rolls of cash; honestly, if the plot needed it, I'm sure he would've had more money on hand than the ML. He's meant to be taken seriously but the overall presentation of his character doesn't make a lot of sense. The slice of life side of this show is undoubtedly the best part so the conflict should be on that level; as it is, there's a sharp divide between what works tonally and the conflict the show forces.

Also, I didn't like the use of wealth in this show (though I'm not a fan of this dynamic in general). Min Hyuk is a very young CEO entrepreneur-type who's absurdly wealthy and who uses it and its influence to basically coerce the main character to him. I don't like rich guy/poor girl dynamics because it leads to a lot of plot expedients and holes in logic. For instance, "if he is so rich, why didn't he do X, Y, and Z" that anyone with that money would do in the circumstance? Beyond such plotting problems, Bong Soon is also extremely economically dependent on her relationship's success to maintain her job. I think having a character be filthy rich actually robs us of layers that their personality could've taken on otherwise and, in this case, moves the relationship further towards the concerning side of the spectrum. I had to bracket off dimensions of their relationship to fully enjoy it, but Bong Soon as a character is so compelling that eventually the wealth problems fade a bit into the background.

Still, a lot of this could be ignored because the show doesn't take itself too seriously and aims mostly for fun over logic. Even so, I think the lack of a clear focus and the weak overarching conflict are major detriments. I would recommend this because it has so many features that one might connect to when watching. Even if I'm pretty critical above, it has a lot going for it at the character level.

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A bit too much? Yes!

Honestly, I only watched this because I love Park Bo Young, but the first half of the season was funny and entertaining. Even tho it looked like it was made in the early 2000s.😅 The base of the story was great, but I was disappointed, because they didn't do anything with it. I mean, why she's so strong, where comes her power etc. The main characters, Bong Soon and Min Hyuk were great together. Bo Young and Hyung Sik had a great chemistry. It really is a feelgood show with some crime story in it. Nothing special, but overall, a decent drama. One of the most predictable drama too.

What I didn't liked, is the second part. The romance was good, but sometimes it was too childish, still it was funny. The biggest problem with this show is the writing. It was all over the place and over the top. One normal guy is smarter and tougher than anyone, basically. Also, this show should've been a 12 episode max. There were way too many filler episodes with the school kids and those mafia guys. I don't skip parts in anything, but this time I felt I have to because neither of those scenes added anything to the story. Not even the scene with Bong Soon's parents at the shop.

The love triangle was weird as hell, but I was happy that they didn't do the same cliché stuff, but I didn't like it when they started it again in the finale. It was 100% unnecessary, and also, childish.

Overall, it's a good, fun show, if you're not thinking about the plot too much. Park Bo Young is probably enough to carry the show until the finale.

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What a batshit crazy useless show!!!!!

I am seriously questioning the sanity of people who found this show even remotely likeable.
The story was a hot mess. There was no particular plot. The plot was the basically 3 good lead actors trying to be cute along with useless unfunny fillers and bunch of people overacting. That's it. That's the plot.

What were those bunch of goons getting beaten up all the time? Why is a very loving father getting beaten up funny?? What was that priest kind of dude trying to do all the time?

Where was the story? Just looking cute can not be whole plotline of the show.

Also what was the really dark weird creepy thriller doing in between??

Basically.. What was this show?? WHY WAS THIS SHOW EVER MADE?

Plus oh my god the amount of homophobia. Yeah i understand most romcoms are not progressive or even give much thought to it but OH MY GOD. The "gay is funny" thing was so on the face. I get it. You think homosexuality is some kind of disease. But can you please have a limit.

The re watch value is actually 0 but that is not allowed.

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Are Korean people so homophonic?

I have been always appreciating Kdrama, but this drama despite its high rank, has gravely dissatisfied me. It is so Pejorative toward LGBT community to garner the high rate acceptance of society. You can clearly trace this disparaging by hearing phrases such as:
1- I am a normal man and I like wemen.
2- he is not gay he is a decent person.
Are gay men not decent or normal??
Is the prove of male lead being heterosexual a strenghtening point of his character??
I didn't consider the Korean people as a modern society to be homophonic but this drama makes me mull over again.

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So cute

This drama is very good because there are many aspects similar to real life, such as the fact that there are many strong women in reality but are still seen as weak or the discrimination that occurs both in the family and in society,the woman being seen most of the time by the bottom. I love this drama because it has the best chemistry among the main characters and how everything it takes a turn and become very thrilling and dangerous. Especially this backward turn of power,this time the women being the strongest not a man it's the aspect that I love the most and the behavior of the main lead when he is in love it's just very funny and cute. I wish I could give this drama the highest rating of 1000000 stars but till then I'm gonna give it 10 stars plus my heart because I love it and sorry if I made some mistakes, English is not my first language.

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Great chemistry between ML and FL

I don't have a lot to say about this drama except that it should be watched just for ML and FL. They had amazing chemistry, romance, kissing, you name it. Everything else was forgettable.

I ended up skipping through the scenes with the parents, gangsters, high school kids. They were not interesting and felt more like fillers than part of the actual story. Even the villain was kind of disappointing because the writers did not really develop him. He had no backstory and his motivations were kind of just doing bad things for the sake of doing bad things, kidnapping just to see his victims suffer, and that's it. He was a one dimensional personality with no substance. However, the actor who played the kidnapper was very handsome and I wish he was cast more in main roles.

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Watch it for Park Hyungsik :-)

I loved this drama. I started watching it, because Park Hyungsik is in it, after having watched and loved the actor in High Society. He is adorable, and it is worth watching SWDBS just for him. Actually, when I rewatched the drama, I skipped everything but the romance plot. This is the kind of drama that, despite being cheesy, is also extremely charming, and that's because the main leads "sell" the romance so well. I'm an ahjumma, but while watching it, I felt like a young girl again, loved and falling in love. If you are looking for a realistic drama - skip it. But if you want to feel romantic - this drama is just right (unless yu don'r fall for Park Hyungsik, but is that even possible?)

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Pros:
- Interesting characters with a diverse set of personalities.
- Unique animation that communicates ideas, and sentiments well.
- Nice blend of dark and light drama in the first two-thirds of the series. I found that the way the two major plot points of the story were transitioned between suggested a sort of "life as it is". At the same time that, say, a major romantic relationship milestone was met, a dark, immoral act was committed concurrently, and these scenes would follow one another. It was really good at keeping the darker elements from becoming uncomfortable and created a more realistic and not-to-scary lens to witness the darker sides of the drama from.
Cons/ Overall:
- The drama had a great start, the characters were interesting, to say the least. Even when some characters became unrelatable, and unrealistic, the personalities of the others would redeem the overall impression of the show. I feel that this series suffered from the usual trend that I find with Kdramas: It starts off with an engrossing cast of characters, a compelling storyline, and great progression, but by episode 12/13 the characters behave in a way that seems inconsistent with how they were initially portrayed. There is an argument with no directed intention,  which felt contrived, relationship problems that could have been avoided by simply communicating the problem, and responding in earnest, the female lead becomes incredibly passive in the relationship. The characters begin to react very emotionally to their circumstances and the drama no longer feels true to itself. The sense of immersion is lost because the initial draw of believable and even relatable characters is lost, and now you, if you're like me, just have to finish because you started. Personally, I thought the outfits were nice, so that also motivated me to stick around.  ^_^

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L’histoire est vraiment intéressante, et ce que j’ai le plus aimée est le fait que même si elle a des pouvoirs, on nous parle de sa vie de tous les jours. Le personnage principale, Do Bong Soon, incarnée par Park Bo Young est très drôle ainsi que An Min Hyuk, incarné par Park Hyung Sik, qui l’est aussi. Ce drama m’a vraiment plue, et à chaque fois je voulais continuer de regarder, mais c’est sur que pendant les vacancess de noel je vais le re-regarder!!!!! En tout cas, je vous le conseil vivement si vous voulez avoir un plein d’émotions comme l’humour, la joie et la tendresse.

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