Start-Up (2020)

ONE OF THR WORST KDRAMAS OF 2020.

A waste of your life.

The only good thing about it is Kim Seon Ho’s character so just search Youtube for the compilation of his scenes. The whole story is a MESS. I wish they didn’t drag out the love triangle scene and just wrote a compelling business story instead or focus on the main couple and have them show us their growth.. not tell us!

They literally said, “I’ve changed, haven’t I?” WHEN NO ONE SAW THE CHANGE IN HIM AT ALL. A manchild of a character, poor Nam Joo Hyuk.

One line in the story that completely describes the drama and was actually said by the friend/colleague of FL & ML about them — “It’s like seeing two cockroaches in love”.

DO NOT WATCH.

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Had a good start but went downhill

I'll keep this review short and simple. This drama had a promising and interesting start with a unique and compelling plot. Sadly, that same plot turned into your typical, predictable romance drama plot that became full of cliché and anti-climactic scenes. They also stirred away from the business focus and turned it to a more sappy, romantic drama.

I was able to force myself to watch until episode 14 in the hopes that the writers can still redeem this drama but honestly, from episode 12, it was already obvious it was not possible anymore. The drama has already became a huge mess and filled with plotholes. The only thing I can commend about this drama is their choice of actors. No actor was a waste and all of them did well in playing their roles. I can say the fault is mainly on the writer and director.

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Start-up started off strong with a really good and unique concept. However, the more you watched, the more it dies down for me. In the first few episodes were focusing on Jipyeong and his story and relationship to SDM and her grandma. We’re now heading towards the future with this wildcard called NDS and his start-up. I’m not gonna go into details. Broadly speaking, the show felt rushed and there was no character development for NDS - he was stale, boring. Jipyeong was a much more appealing character and had much more character growth. A 16 episode series such as this one showed no character development in SDM and NDS. A girl whose stuck with her love letters and a boy who can’t get over his competition when he was a kid. But the one character who grows up and learns is just put to the side.

It was a terrible way of executing the drama. Great job from the actors but the story was not it.

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Plot is gone, drama heavily focuses on romance issues

As I mentioned in my headline, the plot is gone. It started off okay but then the writers just lost the sense of direction from what the title & plot description of drama is about. Really... I mean 90% of this drama is about the romance, the letters, the fake identity, the real identity being revealed, lover's trust, break ups, understanding one another. Literally only about 10% of the drama is what "Start Up" is actually about. People have issues about the love interests and I see that. It feels force between the leads. I don't see the connection between the ML & FL. There's a little bit more in connection with the SML but even still, not strong enough in my opinion and for a drama that heavily focuses on the romance, they failed in that department.

I feel bad for the actors and actresses because they just didn't shine in this drama. There's nothing special about their characters. The main lead characters had nothing significant about them other than a hard childhood. Their roles aren't memorable to me. I mean even the SFL was ripped off. Story was there for her but the writers didn't give her the necessary screen time for her character to evolve. It seemed like she didn't even play an importance to this drama. Even the support characters got more screen time than her. Seon Ho, on the other hand made his character shine. I notice he tends to do his 2nd lead roles really well like Strongest Deliveryman, Two Cops, making them shine. Even his lead role in Catch the Ghost; it started off pretty bland too but the writers deliver on that role and Seon Ho was able to even made that role shine.

Music wise, great music but once again, this drama fails to deliver the overall osts for this drama. Most songs were just played a few times if not once.

Definitely not a rewatch. Bad balance between romance and plot, with romance weighing a lot more than the plot. This just wasn't delivered well at all.

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a giant mess with an even messier main male character

Well if you started it looking to see something about StartUps, there is none in this drama; If you want to see romance, well ...
The drama started off well with an original and promising plot that got so lost along the way that it seems like the second half of it was written by another screenwriter, the protagonists have no chemistry and the couple show a somewhat problematic relationship so to speak . The main male charactert, mainly, does not suffer any development over the 16 episodes and is extremely disappointing to watch him get everything he wants by doing all the wrong things he does!
In fact the only thing that saves this drama is the secondary character??? the story seems to revolve all around him and not only does the character have a captivating story but the actor has a great chemistry with everyone on set and acts extremely well.
Watch at your own risk but be prepared to get angry !!!

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ABSOLUTE DISASTER

Start-Up is one of the most horrific dramas that I unfortunately watched.
One might go by the catchy title and think this would be a good drama but it isn't.
They decided to touch the enshrined part: TECHNOLOGY
which by any means should've been researched about properly, but what we get is half-baked tech forcibly engaged in a terrible Melodrama exhausted by a woman's fantasy.
Everything that was done and each step taken was a huge JOKE in Tech counterpart.

YEP, THIS DRAMA IS A TYPICAL WOMAN'S FANTASY WRITTEN IN THE MOST HORRENDOUS WAY
2 GUY'S LOVING HER.
A FIRST LOVE.
HER BEING A TECH LEADER AND CEO.
WANTING TO SUCCEED
FAMILY SACRIFICE.
BLAH BLAH!
EVEN AFTER ALL THIS, SHE SUFFERS!
Oh Gosh !

Any CS person or even a sane person who knows a bit about technology will absolutely find this drama a complete disaster.

Plus, there was Zero chemistry.
The acting was a disaster.
BAE SUZY CAN'T EVEN ACT!
They messed up it to the whole by casting her.
This has to be the worst show produced by Netflix so far.

PS: This drama tried to be something like MISAENG but ended up being total BullSH*T !!

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sailing off without a map in an already risky startup venture; not recommended

This show should be called Start-DOWN for the incredible 100m nosedive it has taken from a award worthy pilot episode. We open to vibrant colours, incredible cinematography, relatable characterization potential - all to go head first into a horrendously long strung out love (bermuda) triangle for almost all of the last six episodes paired with some horrible decision making and character representation.

I believe in order to write a story you should have a goal. Somewhere you want to end it, something you want to say, but start up missed all the marks. Where was the lesson? Where is the pay-off? Where is the consistency?

If you REALLY want to watch it do yourself a favour and drop it after ep 10. Make up your own ending, because even in your wildest dreams you won't (can't) come up with anything worse than what PHR has.

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Do not watch this drama. You'll be disappointed.

Start-Up had SO MUCH potential. The premise was unique: young adults trying to start their own businesses in modern day South Korea. The actors and actresses are talented, well-known, and attractive. The OSTs were catchy. The cinematography was beautiful. Notice how I commended everything but the actual plot.

This drama went downhill - fast - and what made it worse was how captivating - and misleading - the first couple of episodes were. Seo Dal-mi had so many opportunities for proper character development, starting with her sisterhood rivalry. You'd think most of the drama would be centered around that - but no. The show took an arbitrary turn when Dal-mi suddenly dedicated her life to finding and falling in love with Nam Do-San - who isn't even the guy she wrote in her letters. After breaking up with Nam Do-San, she decided to just join her sister out of desperation. Like seriously? The writers set her up to bluff her way through half of the drama, built her up to prove her sister wrong, and then resolved the sisterhood trope with a no-effort reconciliation.

Now, let's talk about the absolute WORST part of the drama: the writers did Han Ji-Pyeong so wrong! If you're going to make him a second lead, why the heck would you make him EVERYTHING a female lead could ask for? He had no impactful flaws. Ji-Pyeong made it from nothing, cared so much about Seo Dal-mi and her grandma, and was the real guy from the letters - yet he ended up with nothing. Dal-mi never looked his way, even after finding out he was the real Nam-Do San.

Meanwhile, there's Nam Do-San who's a big wimp - he couldn't even fess up to Dal-mi after realizing he started to have feelings for her. Until the very end, he still couldn't man up and face Dal-mi until Ji-Pyeong gave him a wake up call. I'm sorry but there was little to no character development for the guy. He left for 3 years to join 2STO, and came back to Korea as a self-proclaimed "stronger" man. Ok, what? He did nothing but leave for 3 years - the viewers didn't even get to experience his journey to becoming a "stronger" man. After all of this, Dal-mi STILL has feelings for this nut - and when asked for a reason, she just said, "I don't know. I don't have a reason. It's because it's you." Absolute horrendous writing.

Last but not least, why in the f*ck did Dal-mi's mom move back in with her family? After leaving her late husband for a shady walking money bag, she crawls back to her ex-husband's mother and begs for a job and place to stay. It was like a slap in the face, yet grandma still took her in. Like come on - that's not realistic.

I don't know. I'm sad. Ji-Pyeong deserved the world, but was left with nothing. Do-San ends up with the female lead who only liked him for his big hands, and the sisters are now happy and united after a few snarky comments. Very lackluster drama. I would not recommend this unless you want to watch a train wreck.

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its not as bad as everyone says it is

The top few reviews are rating this drama so low with many of them being less than 5? Tbh, i dont think this drama was THAT bad. I shall start off with the things that i liked about the drama.

I loved the concept of business and startup as the main theme of the drama especially during the first few episodes in samsan tech. It was quite fresh and interesting. The bromance between the samsan tech brothers was one of the few things that carried this drama - the bond between the 3 of them was really cute and i cant help but not skip all their scenes and probably repeat them cuz they're funny af. The actors and actresses also did their characters justice, especially Kim Seon Ho (SML) with Han JiPyeong (hence his soaring popularity now). He really brought out the emotions of HJP accurately and stole the show even as a second-lead. I love the scenes of him and haemolni and cry almost every time they are together LOL. I'm so glad they casted Kim Seon Ho for this, hes such an amazing actor and im glad hes gaining international recognition for his acting skills. Another actress that I would like to compliment is Kang Han Na (SFL) but I will save this up for the later part. Suzy and NJH (leads) were also very natural in their acting, but I think everyone kinda knows that so I'll move on. Other than the main leads, I thought the acting of everyone else like the side characters were also really good, hence the 10 for acting. I really love the OST for this drama too, probably one of my fav drama OSTs.

Now for the reasons why I did not rate this drama any higher than 7. Startup was very popular during the first few episodes both domestically and internationally because many people enjoyed it but it just went downhill especially after the competition. The drama focussed WAY TOO MUCH on the love triangle that they forgot about the business concept and neglected their other main lead - In Jae (Kang Hanna) who was not part of the triangle. I lowkey really liked In Jae's character as an independent woman who's capable af but they unknowingly downgraded her to an unfortunate cameo scene as the woman who stares at the girl on the swing in every episode and i thought it was a huge waste on the character. They could have ended the love triangle earlier and used the time to develop more on her character instead. Furthermore, this drama has probably one of the WORST time skips ever. 3 years passed but no one changed and some people are suddenly on good terms with literally no explanation at all?????? I was waiting for the explanation but till the last episode there were no flashbacks or whatsoever, it was as if the writer had no time to write all these in and decided to just give up a potential area to develop the relationship between the characters. The worst part of this show was the lack in character development of the FL and ML. Nam Do-san only became richer after the 3 years but was equally immature as before which annoyed me a lot. Dal Mi downgraded from an independent woman to a woman who needs her man to agree with her before she makes a decision - literally every time she has t make a decision, the professionals will say no and her other co-workers will say no but because her man says "go for it i believe in us" then boom she does it which is so unrealistic in real life and paints the wrong message to the viewers?

Overall, if you are looking for a light hearted drama with serious second-lead syndrome, you can consider this i guess but would suggest you to spend this time on other drama instead HAHAH. Though there were many plot holes in this drama, I loved the vibe of the drama and the friendships between the characters. While considering the negative aspects of the drama, i had to consider the times this drama made me happy and hence nothing less or more than 7.

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disappointed

First episode, the story was good and touching.. But the thing is, the writer made us believe of something else and made us confused. The writer made a focus on the 2nd lead, that's why I can't finish the drama, because it's too painful for me to watch it. I wish she choose him and not Do San. I don't like his character in this drama. He made us feel bad for him, like everyone should pity him. He's doing the victime little boy. I really dont like his character. He doesn't do anything on his own. He need someone to say everything for him. He's still acting like a baby. I'll stop at episode 10.

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Slow And Lots of Character Driven Moments

The cast is the highlight of this show. The three main leads are really good in their roles and really bring the characters to life. And the side characters each have their own charms. The relationship between the 2nd male lead and the grandmother is particularly great. The acting is a real highlight.

The story is mostly driven by the emotional connection to the character's goals rather than outside action. This means that the emotional moments are really really great. But unfortunately, it means that the outside actions sometimes feel contrived or forced. It left me annoyed whenever a new plot thing happened just to get a rise out of the characters.

ALSO this show is SO SLOW. Each scene takes twice as long as is needed. I put my netflix on times 1.25 speed and couldn't even notice it. They even (for the most part) talk slowly and move slowly. They should have had the episodes be and hour instead of an hour and half and just cut the scene of characters staring longingly at things or walking or writing or standing around looking sad.

That being said, despite being so slow, the scenes themselves all look nice. The composition is good and the soundtrack is nice too. I was invested in the characters enough to sit through the slow pace. Over all I am enjoying this show and will continue to watch through to the end.

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