Happiness (2021)

Don't like zombies, but like this!

Full credit to the star power of Park Hyung Sik.... I really don't like anything horror/zombie/gore/jump scare - just not my cup of tea, at all. But I love PSH so I gave this a try solely for him, and ya know, I'm glad I did. Sure the gore was there, but honestly it was well done and not over the top. It was never "gore, just to be gross and shocking", and I appreciated that. PSH knocked it out of the park with his character, which, I fully expected - he never disappoints! But an unexpected gem for me was the FL. I absolutely loved her. She was so badass, but believably so, and stayed true to who she was through the entire series. I can see why ML harbored feelings for her all those years ;-) I'm half in love myself lol. This show is worth watching just for the two main leads alone - they really were terrific!

Overall score: 8.5/10. I want to give this a 10 (because PSH lol) but I've got to take off .5 off the bat for the zombie theme, and then another full point because I thought the whole plot line surrounding Andrew was a little silly... like, what are the odds of not one but TWO run of the mill killers living in the same apartment building... yikes. I think they could have built drama at the end with a different storyline, but it definitely wasn't so bad that it ruined the show. I'm also taking off .5 because I thought they could have built up the romance throughout the show a bit more... that really would have **chefs kiss** the whole thing... some glances, some light touches, more hugs - there was a bit of that, but I wanted more... more to build the romantic tension so that you really felt it when you finally got that kiss. I also would have loved a second kiss in that final scene when everyone was healthy and happy. Kinda bummed that the only kiss we got was wrapped up in zombie stuff.

And yes I know all that equals 2 full points, but I'm adding back in .5 just because I enjoyed PHS so much. Turns out I'll watch anything he's in... even zombies ;-)

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I’M IN LOVE ?

An amazing drama. Park Hyung Sik does an excellent job in the role of a policeman—brave, courageous, and protective of the weak—rather than a sweet boy, as he appeared in Doctor Slump. My admiration for him keeps growing. 🩷

The romantic subplot is well-executed but isn’t the main focus. There’s a lot of action, but the most important message of this drama is how people react in moments of crisis, how they reveal their darker sides when their lives are at stake, and how material things become meaningless in the face of illness—which is the central theme here!

I highly recommend it! 🧚🏻
9.5/10⭐️

I started watching this drama solely because of tiktok edit, and I had no idea what it was about. I haven’t been this pleasantly surprised in a long time.

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Positively Watchable Trash

This is watchable trash in a good way! It's not a quality drama at all but it's watchable. It was just interesting enough for me to not turn off midway through, but it's not exactly the best written, the best plotted, the best character developed drama by any means.

My main problems with this show are (in TLDR form):
1. Stagnant progress for the first 8 eps.
2. Plot focus was wrong.
3. Insufferable characters that aren't even fun to watch.
4. Ending is Rushed.

In long form:

1. Stagnant progress for the first 8 eps:
Literally nothing happens the first 8 episodes. We just see people argument in an apartment, ocassionally someone getting turned and someone dying, for 8 episode straight. Episode 9 finally gets interesting with a MC getting infected, the sudden serial murder plot (< which was so poorly foreshadowed and I actually hated but at least something dramatic was happening), the plan to get the child out, and finally definitely finding a cure. Episodes 9 to 11 are actually interesting to watch.

2. Plot focus was wrong:
Hey who wants to see insufferable people locked in an apartment and argue for almost 12 episodes? *snore*
Who wants to find out why our MC has an antibody, what makes her special? ME!
Who wants to hear references about family members and society on the outside but absolutely zero updates or screentime about them and what's happening outside? ME!

I think this drama focuses on the wrong things; I wanted to know why our MC had the antibody, I wanted to see her and her family's medical reports - surely it comes from the" operation" she mentions one time that she had, or is it because her family has a history of diabetes which would link to the one time Mr Na mentions his family has a history of it towards the end of the show yet he has the antibody too. I want to know the science part and the finding the cure part!!

Also, we know the cop friend has a wife on the outside; we never see her. We know the two cleaners have family on the outisde: never get developed. What about our MCs' families? Never mentions them! Why? I want to know!

And! What's going on outside? Because we're told everywhere is chaos but the army are driving in and out of this apartment building with ZERO problems shown? The little girl has medical staff and a helicopter ready to pick her up with ZERO problems? So were they lying? Cos any time we get shown outside the complex, everyone is living normally???? What a mess of world and character building in this show.

3. Insufferable characters that aren't even fun to watch:
Everyone character except 4 (our two MCs, the little girl, and Apartment 15 guy) are absolutely unbearable to watch - they're not even fun villains to watch, they're just straight up fucking annoying to watch HOURS of screentime of. They're annoying af especially the murdering doctor - he should've died a death so violently after putting the viewer through uninteresting repeitive unjuicy murder after murder he puts us through. He's NOT fun to watch, he is just straight up ANNOYING. Same goes for the cleaning staff, the apartment building lady, the lawyer, the clinic consultant, the old married couple and their son. They're not INTERESTING and everything they do is A WASTE OF SCREEN TIME. I LOVE villains. I LOVE villains that do unhinged shit and yet you root for them or you want to see what they do next. This lot? They just bothered me more than anything. I wanted them all to die because they were a waste of screentime and script.

Also, WHY did anyone even bother to leave their rooms? I know community meetings are a thing in Korea and Japan but why were they joining every single meeting? Especially after they find out the gym guy was sick, STAY IN YOUR ROOMS TIL LOCK DOWN IS OVER! They were actually so fucking stupid. They could've easily reduced the number of people who ended up dying, reduce the number of sick people, and reduce the number of pathetic conflicts they had if they'd all just minded their business and stayed in their damn apartments! Absolute stupidity and illogical thinking from all of them except Apartment 1501 - minus the one time it got him killed.

4. Ending is Rushed:
The last 10 minutes of the show is so bad. It skipped way too far. I needed at least one more episode: I wanted to see the humans start to recover, I wanted to see the vacinne announcement on the news, I wanted to see how our two mcs live together while he's ill up to getting the cure, I wanted to see our military guy finally meet his baby with his recovered wife, I wanted to see the little girl get reunited with her momma. But we just skip one year later and they're still living in the same apartment complex with the little girl -- even though most of the population should be dead by now and housing prices should be pretty cheap, especially because she should be recieving thank you money for help creating the damn cure?!?

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...
«Happiness» est un drama du genre thriller/action avec, bien sûr, une base de fiction, dû aux virus. Malgré tout, le gore n’est pas au premier plan. En fait, je dirais que le drama se concentre surtout sur les résidents du complexe d’appartements, et de comment ils gèrent la situation, ainsi que la peur et tout ce qui en découle, et les changements que tout ça cause chez eux. Et aussi, ce drama n’étant pas une ‘romance’, comme mentionné, la romance n’est pas au premier plan, malgré tout, celle-ci y éclot doucement, subtilement. Une histoire prenante, avec des personnages principaux ‘badass’ qui ne se laisse pas faire, et d’excellents acteurs et actrices !

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Avis Complet sur mon Blog :
https://lamagiedeshistoires.wordpress.com/2024/06/11/happiness-avis/

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good casting, interesting plot, binged in 1 day

i absolutely loved how the ml and fl bonded as their relationship deepens. this is my 2nd time seeing both ml (strong woman do bong soon) and fl (20th century girl) and i must say their acting is pretty good! i seriously love the fl character so much in this drama!! i binged watched this in 1 day bc i was sick and bored and this drama really is worth my time. as someone who enjoys horror genre, i do not find this scary at all like how my friends tell me about it. it's just some infected psycho zombies who are desperate to bite humans and infect them and how the ml+fl along with their neighbours try to prevent themself from getting infected. honestly, this drama is more about showcasing the survival/life during the zombie virus breakout and lockdown etc rather than the ml fl trying to eliminate zombies. for me, i feel like my friends just exaggerate the drama too much for me lol(in terms of how "scary" and "intense" it is. anyways i love ml and fl chemistry, both of them their characters really go well with each other

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sometimes ‘sane’ people are the actual monsters.

this is not your average “fighting monsters” drama, infact it's actually not about it at all. at first i was vary about watching this thinking it'd be just another zombie apocalypse with no explanation as to why it began or how it'll end but still decided to give it a try.
IT IS DIFFERENT. when i started watching it all of my concerns were proven false. and this is NOT a zombie apocalypse drama too btw. it's about how even with sick people around, people with a healthy body prove to be more dangerous. the show had all the different kind of people you do meet atleast once in your life as characters, when u watch some characters and their decisions, you feel like asking yourself “what would I have done in this situation?”
there are some very well shot action scenes and touching emotional scenes that do make you want to want to change their situations only hoping for the better.
every single episode was like a well fit puzzle piece and as the drama progresses the characters’ real faces also start showing up. like i said in the beginning, this drama is all about “are sane people any better than the monsters?”
unlike other apocalypse/pandemic dramas where you're never really told how things began or how it is ever going to be stopped, happiness had answers for EACH AND EVERYTHING. when the drama is done it'll not leave you wondering about anything because everything is cleared in there.
the main duo's chemistry is soo good, whether it be action scenes, emotional scenes, scenes where they fight for each other and for what's right, their characters always match up with each other's chemistry. even the little girl showed more maturity than some “aDuLtS” showing it's not always age proving how mature one is.
overall, i did not regret watching this at all and i will rewatch it in a few months because it's just THAT GOOD. edit : did re-watch it haha.

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Adatto a chi non piacciono le serie sugli zombie

Io sono quel tipo di persona che schifa non troppo velamente serie/film appartenenti a questo genere e per questo appena ho capito in che situazione mi trovavo ho storto il naso. Per fortuna per me, questa serie incentra lo sviluppo su tutt'altro: siamo in quarantena in un palazzo vissuto da gente ricca e chi abita in affitto, quindi trattata non propriamente bene da chi invece l'appartamento lo ha acquistato. Costretti ad avere rapporti per sopravvivere, piano piano verranno a galla le varie differenze sociali e gli strati più nascosti di quelle persone che sembrano una cosa e si rivelano tutt'altro. Il tutto spinto da questa malattia che infesta la popolazione mondiale. Solitamente questo tipo di storia mi piace leggerla ma non sono rimasta affatto delusa da ciò.
Ho amato la chimica tra i due protagonisti, la loro complicità, la fiducia ceca derivante da un passato quanto mai particolare, un evento che li ha legati indissolubilmente. L'amicizia, ma anche l'amore sono sembrati quanto mai veri.
In vero non posso non concordare con chi ha recensito negativamente l'opera poichè ricca di tutti i litigi tra i residenti che davvero possono annoiare, soprattutto se si è avvicinati a questo titolo per l'azione. In verità, secondo me, viene usata la malattia per presentare i problemi della società e nel complesso mi è piaciuto. Tanto.
Inoltre ne sto scrivendo la recensione mentre nelle orecchie ho Pain, la ost principale dell'opera. Tirate voi le somme.

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