The Most Beautiful Goodbye (2017)

Very humane. Tangible. Touching, yet not maudlin. Sad, yes. But unpretentiously radiating, too.

"The Most Beautiful Goodbye" is a KDrama that consists of only 4 episodes. However, they have it all and are completely sufficient to leave their mark in the sand. We are confronted with the limits of healthcare system - when medicine no longer has a solution to offer and people are left with themselves and what they are: mortal beings. In ruthless directness, the viewers are confronted with what many people (all over the world) might at some point face in one way or another.

The family here is not particularly rich and not particularly poor. The individual protagonists are not particularly successful and have not particularly failed. Everyone lives their (South Korean) life as best they can. Not very happy and not very unhappy. With a tendency not to not be so happy. But they are actually not really unhappy either. In fact, everything could be quite nice, but everyone is just too busy with themselves. The WE becomes self-evident and rather annoying... until the day the finitude of being was knocking on the door...

However, hello-wake-up does not imply everyone starts reinventing themselves, overcoming their weaknesses and becoming better people. It does, however, force them to reflect on what they have and what they have forgotten (to love) (consciously) despite everything being taken for granted. In stumbling everyone is searching for an expression of their own feelings. At least they try to be a little bit more alert about what is going on in their life.

Very humane. Tangible. Touching, yet not maudlin. Pretty close to life. People are clumsy, speechless and helpless, as akward as it gets. It is a lesson in compassion, triggering your own experiences, when it comes to similarily unprepared being confronted with any form of (unwanted as it is) final farewell.

Sad, yes. But unpretentiously radiating, too.

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This is a great drama written by Noh Hee Kyung, who has written other top-tier dramas like Live and Dear My Friends. At 4 episodes, it tells a very simple story about a middle-aged woman who gets terminal cancer, and how that affects her and her family.

It's a heartbreaking story, and I guarantee you will cry, or at least have tears in your eyes while watching. You slowly see this kind and loving mother, who treats her family with such care, becoming sicker and sicker, and there's nothing anybody can do. This is not a comedic story by any means. It's dark and devastating, and you should definitely prepare yourself before watching. However, it's a very important drama to watch, and I would recommend anyone to watch it once, because it is so realistic, and shows something that can easily happen in real life. It presents many life lessons which are valuable to any human being.

The performances are all great, and I hope by the final episode, all the actors got their tear-ducts filled back up with water, lol. Won Mi Kyung, who plays the mother with cancer, gives a stunning performance which makes you care and feel so sorry for her. So does Yoo Dong Geun, who plays her husband, who is also deeply affected by the tragedy. You will empathise with all of these characters, and cry with them.

However, this drama is so depressing and sad, that I will probably never re-watch it again. Usually short dramas like this make me feel like that it could possibly go on further, but by episode 4 (the finale), I was worn out with emotion and glad that it was over. It's relentlessly sad, and I don't really want to experience it all over again, at least not for the distant future. But, it's still something I'm glad to have watched once, and it has made me think about my own mother and family even more.

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I was trying to figure out why this drama feels different than any other tragedy and why it just rubbed me the wrong way. And I'm going to try and explain my low rating. The thing is when you are rating a piece you rate not only based on your overall experience but also on how it works as the genre it claims to be.

This one started out so well I had such high hopes and all the cast did their job perfectly, so why doesn't it stand out as something that I'd recommend? It is a melodrama after all, it's supposed to be sad, so what went wrong?

Okay, first off I love tragedies and melodrama. If you don't already know. So I'm not rating low because it made me sad. I'm rating low because it made me sad FOR NO REASON.

I'll try to explain.
Yes this drama is sad in the worst way and the it's realistic and reality can be ugly.

There were things that bothered me at first, especially the BLATANT misogyny. The daughter was supposed to cook and do the house work that sort of thing while Minho could sleep all day and drink and no one told him to do the laundry, WHY? But I wanted to give the writers the benefit of the doubt I figured it would be part of the story. So, despite being aggravated I stuck to it and watched the whole thing. And guess what? The misogyny was NEVER CORRECTED. Even the daughter who's supposed to be this progressive chick who's having an affair with a married man didn't ONCE mention it! No! Nor did her brother ever step up like Dad we're millennials we don't do that or never once helped with the housework. He just was this super sweet guy with issues but not a bad person so why couldn't he do the damn laundry once in a while to help his mom or sister when he wasn't studying and didn't have a job?

Look, I get it. I still was on board like maybe even despite the misogyny something about the plot will make sense at some point. Let's overlook the misogyny for a good story and good content.

Now here's the thing.

My favorite stories are the ones where people choose love over everything else meaning they chose to be with family and correct their toxic behaviors if given a second chance. They work on the relationship.

But this was a story where those toxic behaviors were SO EASILY FORGIVEN, it made the entire experience feel like grueling torture. You sit through all that and you're left feeling cheated. Like, you promised me something heartfelt and deep and instead handed me turds. Hyperbole? Um, sit down through the grueling torture and then get back to me.

So the problem with the characters is they don't really understand their toxic behaviors are anything to fix! They're like oh so we all like to be jerks to each other because we had a terrible life but we're living the rest of it together because WE LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH. Which is clearly what the writers believe. They don't see these behaviors as toxic and something to work on they act like they just have to deal with it if they love each other.

So yes, it's a realistic account of a family's struggle with their own toxic behaviors but there's no correction of the behavior at all. Which again I realize that it's the reality for a lot of people because fixing toxic behaviors is not for everyone and not everyone can do it. But this family didn't feel like love felt more like codependency when the guy clearly said this one time his wife is dying and he doesn't feel sad but regret, WHAT?

Anyway so while I absolutely admire the actors this didn't work for me. There's no real point to the misery they put you through. And if you're watching it for Minho well he wasn't a major character in the sense he barely had a few scenes but he did such a great job so I feel bad for rating it lower because of the actors but it is what it is.

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The actors who played the characters in this drama did a good job playing them. You can really feel their acting and they suit their roles. Even though it only has 4 episodes all characters had an impact on me even the characters who only had a small screen time like In Cheol (Lee Hee-Jun), Yang Soon (Yum Hye-Ran), and Chae Young (Son Naeun). In my opinion, they had a good job executing this drama in just 4 episodes. In those 4 episodes, you can see what is happening in their family and its members without getting confused. The story of the parents, the children, and even the sister-in-law of In Hee have shown in this drama.

Since I don't heavily rate mini dramas like this one, I do believe this drama deserves a 10/10 and can be recommended for others to watch if they want to cry.

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It's A Goodbye, I Guess...

Although it's a short mini drama but it's star studded with a full production. that's pretty rare for most short format drama below 4 episodes. Some already decent short dramas just need a good cast and production to elevate it. As sad as the story may seems but the writer over bloated it to the extremes. Everyone around the FL had problems, conflicts and worries (from friends family relatives), each adding an additional layer to her eventful life pre-cancer and an additional one while facing death. Adding the grandmother with dementia to the mix was too much. All of this took away from the most beautiful goodbye. It would have been better to keep everything within the limit of the family (only kids + husband).

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