The Bride of Habaek (2017)

This drama was.... A bit disappointing

I am a person who likes funny or action kind of dramas, and this was just not it. Overall there was almost zero humor and the action was also on a low level. I did complete watching it, but that was a long time ago.

The plot sounds interesting at first and it really intrigues you, but once you start watching it just isn't as interesting. Their love story was quite vague and the plot very neutral. I have watched a few dramas before this one and I can still remember much about those, but not this one.

The role of the god Habaek was not really one for Nam Joohyuk, I think we can all agree that he is handsome and very talented but I guess this just wasn't his piece of cake (if that sounds logical). A lot of people have hated on this drama and I can see why. In comparison to some other 2017 Kdrama's, this was a bit of a disappointment. Shin Sekyung got criticized a lot, she's a great actress but since this was my first time seeing her acting I was not interested in her other works.

The OST's, on the other hand, were definitely my peace of cake, I fell in love with Glass bridge (Savina&drones) and without you (Lucia). Sometimes I still listen to those songs when I need to sleep or when I'm making homework.

I wouldn't recommend this drama, it might be your forte I wouldn't know, but it wasn't my thing and I definitely won't watch it again.

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Poorly written characters, shallow plot.

So this drama is NOT worth the time, unless you're a huge fan of the actors and you want to watch it just for the sake of watching it. But by no means be excited to fall into a well written story, because this drama is not.

There are soooo many things wrong with this drama, all the characters are petty, and very juvenile, It makes the whole story feel shallow. I don't blame the actors it was %100 the "adaptation" from the manhwa, but lord have mercy on the story. It makes no sense, it goes all over the place leaving a bunch of unanswered questions. That is of course until the end where they try to wrap everything up nicely, and answer all those questions, but it turns out super sloppy and rushed.

Once again on our poorly written cast, the main female char. was unbearable and her attitude toward this borderline toxic relationship had me concerned. Left me with a bunch of questions, thinking why she wouldnt stick up for herself in some strange situations. The main male char was super petty and annoying, boasting that he is a god and all that but kinda being useless.

It took me 3 times to fully run through this drama, and the only reason I picked it up once again was because it came out on netflix (Can). The reason to that, is because there is nothing memorable about this drama. No chemistry between actors or and scenes that really moved me ( there were some good moments in the episodes I never saw through previous attempts.). I also wasn't feeling a lot of the music, there was only 1 song I liked.

Aside from the bad stuff, the first maybe 7 episodes I enjoyed, I like the standoffish character traits at first, but it just got tiring after a while. The Cgi was pretty good with the water stuff, but don't get me started on underwater swimming scenes. The secondary actors or the supporting actors I really liked I wish we could get more of them, i felt like some of them had better stories than the main chars.

I feel like this drama butchered the actual manhwa and its sooo sad. I really wanted to like this drama but the story fell very short.
I wont recommend this drama to anyone considering.

This is based off my taste and I don't fault the people who enjoyed~

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Cliche Ending

Anyways, on to the review for “The Bride of Habaek.” Tbh, I’m gonna go on a little side rant… if you ask me, “Did I enjoy it?” I’m gonna answer… “Kinda?” At the beginning, I was super hyped for the drama, especially since I loved the manhwa. I knew that the drama would take a different route by modernizing the setting… and yet, that’s not the reason why this drama disappointed me so much. The most disappointing aspect about this drama was the plot itself. There was so much they could have done with all the elements they introduced into the story… but instead, they took the typical boring route and casted aside development for their characters to have a happy cliche ending.

1. Plot/Story
Again, I’m going to reiterate, the plot/story wasn’t really captivating. Even in the beginning, the plot was kinda confusing. Habaek’s mission was to collect the god stones to become king… but once he found all the god stones… they kinda became insignificant to the storyline. As well as, answers to the questions in the drama were revealed “too late” to add to the suspense of those questions; it would have been helpful to reveal the backstory sooner to better comprehend the plot. Really, the whole purpose of the god stones were for Habaek to travel to the human world to understand and empathize with humans — but once I figured that out, I already didn’t care why those god stones were important. What really threw me off, though, was how this drama ended and basically said “forget all the things we’ve built up for the plot, let’s just have a bullshit happy ending.” Various elements were introduced into the drama to stir up “drama” and create a unique story, such as Habaek’s missing powers, the half-god Shin Hoo-ye, So-ah’s missing father, Habaek’s ex-lover Nak-bin, the disappearance of the other god stone, the rambunctious childhood friend Bi-ryeom, and the cold but unrequited love of Moo-ra towards Habaek. These various elements added flavor to the enjoyment of the drama, however, they were readily tossed aside when it came to the progression of the main couple’s love story — which, in my opinion, was a hit or miss. Sometimes I felt the chemistry between the two and then sometimes it completely flat-lined, but they focused way too much on “fan-service” action and not enough to completely convince me the depth of Habaek and So-ah’s love. Also, so much “fan-service,” to the point where the “heavy consequences” of the drama were complete jokes. Overall, the story was bearable enough for me to finish the drama, but I found myself dreading each episode as they dragged on.

2. Characters
The acting wasn’t phenomenal, but it wasn’t the worst either. I was fairly impressed by Shin Se-kyung’s acting; she was able to portray So-ah’s character of kindness, understanding, but — yet — she is ashamed of her upbringing. Despite being ashamed of her upbringing for helping others before herself, she chose a career that was the definition of helping others — a psychiatrist. Sometimes she didn’t seem like a competent psychiatrist (which I always seem to have problems with dramas that portray mental health and illnesses), but So-ah was a genuine and considerate person when it mattered and she reminded us that she is only human. Thus she makes mistakes (such as her ridiculous debt lmao). As for Habaek, I’m not sure if Nam Joo-hyuk was the best fit to play the character considering how complex Habaek’s personality was, but NJH was very adorable and definitely “eye-candy”… if you know what I mean. I just personally think that perhaps a more experienced actor could have done better to fully bring out the gravity of Habaek’s complex and demanding personality, his trust issues with humans from the betrayal of Nak-bin, and the grandeur of being the chosen king of the gods.

As for the other characters, I really liked Moo Ra and Bi Ryeom… and I kinda wished there was more development for these two characters. Tbh, they didn’t really feel like “second lead” characters and more like side characters. Towards the end, we got a bit of romance between the two, but even their love story was rushed and didn’t fully convince me of Moo Ra’s feelings because she has always loved Habaek. Honestly, you could remove these secondary characters and it wouldn’t change the plot of the drama… that’s how poorly written the second characters were. They just added drama that made the story more disorganized.

Lastly, the winner of this drama goes to Hoo Ye — the adorable CEO. Lim Ju Hwan did a PHENOMENAL job… I completely fell in love with his character to the point I was shipping him with So Ah. In my opinion, Hoo Ye had the best character development and story out of everyone. His character was relatable and felt realistic. He was an abandoned child who was casted away because he was considered a mistake — someone who shouldn’t have been born even though it wasn’t his fault for being a demigod. I loved how the moment he met So Ah, he gradually changed and he became a better person to where he could love and accept his true self. I was so disappointed at how they simply casted him aside after his story was “resolved.” If there was a sequel drama just about him, I wouldn’t complain at all because he deserves a happy ending.

3. Overall
There were too many concepts that this drama introduced, but the writing failed to concretely focus on one message or issue to solidify the drama as a complete story. Basically, this drama was about one’s fate and searching for happiness; to give other people happiness is to sacrifice your own, so you have to learn to love yourself before you can love and understand others. Habaek learned this concept that to be a king, he must be capable of protecting others and not just himself. So Ah learned that in order to help others and give them proper advice, she must help and take care of herself too. Hoo Ye learned that he has to accept him for what he his, so he can learn to accept and trust others into his life. Unfortunately, this drama lands in my list of “dramas that I wouldn’t rewatch.” I still scratch my head to this day as to what the “real” message of the drama was supposed to be. But I guess… one thing that was clearly seen was that Habaek and So Ah were just fated to be.

Though this drama is fantasy, one thing this drama really lacked was the element of the gods’ powers. We got to see snippets of these godly powers, but it continued to be dragged out with Habaek being powerless. I understand why he lost his powers, but we only saw his powers in action like once or twice. The cinematography and sceneries of this drama was done well, so those are some redeeming qualities (as well as the nice music). My recommendation is… if you like these actors and actresses, then give this drama a shot. However, this drama will require your utmost patience and understanding to follow the reckless ideas that occur randomly throughout in this drama. Also, if you just want to see some really cute romantic scenes between the main couple, then this drama takes the trophy.

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Sigh.... I truly was excited for this drama to come out that this was the first drama that I had watched weekly in such a long time. I'm going to be blunt and say it was disappointing. Anyways, I think I should talk about the rest in it's categories.
Story: 7.5/10
I gave the story it's score because yes, it was okay along the way but the ending,like everyone has said, was very bad. I was hoping episode 15 and 16 were to give me more answers and be more hype than the rest of the episodes but it turns out that they were the worst episodes. I watched the first episode and thought it was very boring but I thought, maybe they could clean it up with the second episode. I was not really right about that. It was very slow paced and the romance is actually a hit or miss for people, but for me it was a miss sadly. I think the only reason I actually wanted to finish was because of the secondary characters of this story, which leads on to the next category. (btw, I felt that Ha Baek's power should have been shown more.
Acting/Cast: 6.0/10
Wasn't really impressed with the main characters acting. Nam Joo Hyuk is amazing but just not in this drama. I felt like another male actor could've played this role like Park Bo Gum and a different female lead and a proper story line. Shin Se Kyung.. I've seen her in Girl who see's scents and she was pretty good. In this one though..not so much. I found her character annoying. I have to say though, I think it's not the actor's fault rather than the director and writer for making the characters bland. Krystal,Gong Myung, and Im Joo Hwan were the scene stealers for me. Every time they came on screen, my attention would be stolen. My first time seeing a drama with Im Joo Hwan and I got to say, I'm lowkey a fan of him now.
Music: 8.0/10
Music is pretty good. When I was watching the drama, Glass Bridge by Savina and Drones seemed to play a lot. I checked the soundtrack and sadly there are only 6 OST's. Usually kdrama's have about 8-9 right?
Rewatch Value: 2.0/10
I don't think I'll be rewatching this because I didn't really enjoy it nor did it entertain me :(
Overall: 6.5/10
I don't really know the full story but was there a reason to why they couldn't do it the historic way? I feel like if they did it like that, the story line would have been so much better. Though I think I may have heard rumours was because of the budget.

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This drama was an absolute pain to watch.
Boring, messy, confusing with an extremely lacking story, sadly neither Nam Joo Hyuk beauty saved this drama. The main actress was plain, boring and didn't have a decent facial expression in 16 hours of the show, the second actress made a slightly better work ( the witch/psychologist or whatever she was) but really, even the secondary cast was boring and sometimes extremely over-exaggerated...
The story was actually good, but the cast was poorly directed, sometimes they repeated the same scene over and over again, the only one that I've liked was the person who was covered in water, it was the only thrilling thing that made me finish this show. Absolutely no worth the whole time to watch it...

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This is a very good and entertaining drama. From here on, the rest of this review is full of SPOILERS! This drama is a television series derived from the Korean manhwa of the same name but, given that it is a spin off, it has its own plot. The drama is not about a showdown of powers that the water god Ha Baek (played by Nam Joo Hyuk) and the other involved gods have; it is a fantasy romantic comedy that focuses on the developing relationship between Ha Baek and his servant Yoon So Ah (played by Shin Sae Kyeong). Taken as a romantic drama between God and servant, and other insufferable gods, this drama was nicely done. The leading lady, Yoon So Ah, is a character that carries deep wounds from her dysfunctional parental upbringing and the water god, He Baek, comes to the human realm with a mission. Both leading characters clashed for been presumptuous and self serving given the nature of their backgrounds but, as they experience adversity, tantrums from Moo Ra/He Ra (played by Krystal Jung), a goddess from the Water Kingdom and Bi Ryum / Ahn Bin (played by Gong Myung) a wind god, jealousy, and their own misconceptions, they grow to understand each other and from then on, a steadfast and nice romance develops. Although there are too many stiffed facial expressions, a leading lady that spends most of the drama in tears, quirky characters to bring comedy forth, and a spoil brat that provides some antagonistic instances, at the end of the day, the leading couple has a happy ending and there is also a smart twist to one of the gods. As said before, the drama is entertaining, enjoy it!

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Bitter sweet romantic drama…

The reviews are all over the place…people loved or hate it…
I am inclined in the like it part…
The beginning was funny… with Haebaek trying to adjust to modern life, driving FL crazy… and how they both fell in love was sweet…

Main leads have great chemistry…. Although the story is kept quite PG10… only a gew kisses and ghat was it… and as usual FL is running away every time Haebaek started a bit more romantic than usual… which was not really credible… but its a norm in these series …

And the story was more or less ok until ep 11… then it dragged… like 30 secs of him watching her sleep… and a lot of scenes like that.

Somehow, it felt like the writers missed the point at the end… the resolution of yhe conflict felt deflated…. And it was missing ML showing more of his powers throughout the series…

Overall… I liked it.
Story… 8
Music was really nice! … 9,5
Acting was ok… 8,5

Would I watch it again… 6… maybe…

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I didn't expect a lot but I was still disappointed. There were parts that could've been introduced in the earlier episodes but it was only revealed in the last episode. The execution was bad.

It's so dragging it makes you wonder why a particular scene was shown only as the show was about to end. You could probably understand the story by just watching recaps of it. You would ask yourself "why did this happen only now?" "this should've happened earlier!" things like that.

Do not watch this if you don't want to waste your time. I myself am surprised i was able to watch until the 14th episode. The OST was actually good.

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I've seen other review saying that they expected more from this, but my reaction is the complete opposite. I was not expecting this to be nearly as good as it was. The visuals were stunning the costumes for both the god world and the human world were beautiful. The original soundtrack was fantastic and the actors of course are gorgeous. I will say I cried a lot while watching this. So much in fact, that I almost dropped it because I cried so much. I was expecting a different ending so I was pleased at the way it turned out. There are a couple of things that I think could have been done differently but overall this was fantastic.

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