Happy Merry Ending (2023)

I'm Happy and Merry That it Ended Quickly

The wedding singing sequence in the first episode captured me. (Side note - the decoration on that venue was absolutely fantastic), I thought it was a strong promising start. Unfortunately things didnt get better after that.

What i dont understand is if this series is meant for streaming or web, why cant they just add few more minutes per episodes. Aside from the obvious intention of patching the episodes together to transform it into a feature length movie - Is there a standard format that requires them to squeeze the playtime like this?

I love short series - when done right. The problem is, Korea has bombarded us with quite a few luckluster short series that are not only under developed but are totally forgetable and that is exactly what we have here. There is nothing in the series that made me want to care about the main leads. Characters keep making questionable choices. There wasnt enough to tell us their backstory, and they didnt develop their love story in a way for me to care about them.

The only thing i liked is the music bcause these two leads can really SING. Jae Hyun's finale song is heartmelting.

The sad truth is Im just glad it ended quickly and i can just put it behind me and forget about it. If these are the caliber of series that GagaOOlala can offer, i think they will have a hard time capturing subscribers.

Rewatcheability - 4 just because Sung Tae is so cute
Story - 5. What story?
Songs - 9
Overall its a 6.5 and thats me being generous. Watch only when youre stuck in a traffic somewhere.

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They got their "Happy Merry Ending," but what about the viewer?

This was just a mess, plain and simple.

First off, this should have been a movie. The pacing would still be absolutely ridiculous, but at least not as noticeable as in drama format. Not to mention, the characters' conflicts and feelings come and go whenever necessary but not in any flowing or sensical way.

Really, only these positives come to mind: The leads' pretty faces, nice singing voices, and good kissing scenes. Nothing else.

Near the end, I felt so detached I would liken it to the experience of an AI robot trying to understand human emotions.

I honestly wonder if they made this just for the OST; otherwise, I can't see a point in its existence.

This is definitely a skip, my friends. I finished it only because I felt obligated to.

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These (basically) 2 hours felt like a summary of the story, not the whole story itself.

From the start I was not exactly amazed. Trauma, depression, and anxiety is a trend in k-bls in 2023 and I’m kind of tired of it. Still, just because it’s used a lot, does not mean it’s written well, so I would not mind a good representation - this ain’t it. It’s not offensive or anything, just painfully superficial. The whole writing lacks details to make it relatable and realistic.

And then they decided to literally put most of the plot and characters progression in the time jump. Not gonna lie, this was an interesting storytelling idea - not really showing the most important developments.

So we end up with Seung Jun who had little to no personality, Jae Hyun who must strongly believe in love at first sight to start liking Seung Jun without any good reason, Joo Won - the truest man-child with toddler tantrums (probably my favorite character, simply because of how entertaining it was to watch him act in such a pathetic manner) and Ho Yeon, a third wheel that is there to fill the space.

Realistically speaking, the best part of the drama was the friendship between Seung Jun and Ho Yeon - caring, supportive, calm and collected, selfless. Because Ho Yeon was such a big part of Seung Jun’s recovery, the relationship between the main couple did not feel as sincere. What about Jae Hyun was so impactful to have any effect on Seung Jun's life - this part of the plot was not really well executed.

The acting was good. Lee Dong Won presented the anxiety in a decent manner and while the writing and directing might have been improved, the performance itself was not an issue. Don’t think Byun Sung Tae had a hard job to do, since Jae Hyun is not exactly the most complex character, but he managed to hold my attention on him during his scenes.

The production was… your typical short low budget k-bl.

Overall, this is sadly a skip.

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Underrated unrefined gem

Okay. I feel the need to defend this short drama bc of all the negative reviews.

Actually, first you have to realise, that it is a short drama. 8 episodes- 15 minutes each. And that might be the reason why some people rate it that low - ''it's not finished''; ''There's too much plot and too little time''. Yes, valid. But. In this drama's defense, the difficult plot was well-adapted and well-paced.

I loved that this drama portrayed traumas that people have and how it affects their daily life and relationships with people. It was not hidden, not vaguely mentioned, it was very realistic in this aspect:
You get the back story of the main lead guy, who's dealing with PTSD and panic disorder bc of his past relationship. He's an ex-trainee with a beautiful voice who is now working as a wedding singer and vocal coach. You get to see how he's interacting with people, and his fear of contact with others, and large crowds.
Also his love interest - he becomes charmed by the main lead's voice and that's how he starts to pursue him- how romantic is that!

ALSO
Actually... this was a pretty unique story, not overused, not overdone. The main lead couple makes smart, realistic, not always positive decisions, gets hurt, try to fix problems ... There are no overly sweet or cringe moments, awkward lines, or non-realistic plot. So if you're looking for only fluff - this one's not for you. From one side it's dealing with very serious topics, but also it tries to focus on the healing journey of the main character and on moving on.

ROMANCE? UMMMMM,.... YES!
Yes, there were a feww cute moments. And taken into consideration that this is a very very short drama - there was a lot of them, so if you're thinking - ''Are they only gonna hold hands'' YES AND A LOT MORE.
Chemistry for me was 10/10. I found the main lead couple very charming and cute. let's just say they had their cute moments and nice montages.

MUSIC!
OH BABY how amazing and sweet it was. Finally, a drama where a soundtrack is not forgotten and is well used. Loved loved all the songs.

Room for improvement:
Definitely wanted a bit more explained about what happened to the 'evil person'. Bc of the length of this drama, you kind of get vague hints, but it ends just there.

IF YOU'RE THINKING - SHOULD I WATCH THIS? BC THERE ARE MANY BAD REVIEWS THAT SAY I WILL WASTE MY TIME...
YES, YOU SHOULD!
YES. This drama will warm your heart, make u angry, make u feel all the right emotions, and feel happy in the end. Yes, it's worth it.

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Sweet story that covers how trauma can affect not only your life but relationships as well.

Overall this show was a great story! I can agree with others that this drama was a little short, but so are all kbls honestly. It would’ve been great if we had a little more explanation on seungjun’s background, but I ended up satisfied and could understand easily through what tidbits we did get, and that didn’t really affect my overall rating of this show.

Dongwon played Seungjun wonderfully and I personally believed he captured all the tidbits of seungjun’s personality perfectly from the anxiety, the coldness towards jaehyun at first, and even down to his interactions with joowon. The character hisself had wonderful development even if it wasn’t shown as well as it could’ve been due to time constraints.

Jaehyun captured my heart from the moment he showed up. His character didn’t change much, but seongtae did great with the role!

Overall the interactions between jaehyun and seungjun were super cute and kept my attention on them the entire time, even with the coldness of seongjun’s past. It’s a quick watch so even if it’s not your normal cup of tea, you should give it a chance! Another wonderful bl drama from our knk boys!

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Surprise Little Gem in the K-BL Sea

Immediately, I thought that I wasn't going to like this. Looking at the MDL overall rating (which I don't pay much attention to, but still, it was pretty low), browsing through the comments briefly, and seeing some of my fave MDL accounts rating it pretty low -- like, I knew what was coming. But out of the blue, I find myself enjoying every little bit of this short series, beginning to end, which is definitely not like me.

Let's Dive In.

For a fat minute, I thought this was some kind of sequel to "Happy Ending Romance" but it's not, just coincidentally they have very similar title names. but anyways, the first episode swept me off my feet, and it's very rare that a series does that for me. It's alike many series I've seen before, but at the same time is something different entirely. I love that they first met and fell in love at a wedding venue, I love that this series dips into mental health struggles, I loved a lot of things about this series.

I think I can make the same argument that I always do with K-BLs which is that this series is severely too short to have played everything out perfectly. We still have a lot of things unanswered, and the romance is slightly abrupt, but I don't mind only because I loved these two. Their chemistry was off the charts. And the kissing?! Being more than decent?! Them kissing each other back?! I nearly fell out of my chair.

Again, I wanted more on Seungjun's mental health and how he's working towards helping himself. We obviously know that his best friend ended up having some sort of feelings for him, so I would've loved to see more of that too. If this series was longer and added maybe 4-5 more episodes, it would've been perfect.

Rating:

Story; 8/10 - Fun! Well, not all parts, but everything was good! It kept my interest and I'm happy with how everything turned out. Again, things are just rushed due to timing.

Acting: 9/10 - Amazing! Especially our main character who plays a very bottled-up person who has so much to deal with from his past. Sungtae (Jaehyun) is such a cutie and plays a perfect boyfriend.

Music - 8.5/10 - Good! Surprisingly I loved it!

Recommendation Value: 9/10 - It's short and an easy watch, along with being pretty good with the allotted time they had. Chemistry is great, skinship is even better. Give this one a watch for sure!

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too many side characters/plot

Overall: this fell into the trap of several KBLs before it, too many characters/plot in a very short runtime. Aired two 14 minute episodes per week on GagaOOLala and Viki.

Content Warnings: anxiety struggles/mental health struggles, manipulation, grooming?, under 18/age gap relationship?, stalking, punch

What I Liked
- the wedding venue was gorgeous
- showing anxiety medication being used
- a few cute parts
- there was a little mouth movement in the kisses, liked that they held hands
- that roommate/friend was sweet

Room For Improvement
- the tried to do too much and it came across as confusing, jumpy/choppy, in episode 4 there is a random scene in the daytime and then suddenly the next scene with two different characters is at night with no transition scene, I'm not 100% sure what happened in the past/what their relationship was, I was not invested in the main characters' relationship
- ignoring boundaries repeatedly is not attractive to me
- cliche ghosting/poor communication combined with a time jump
- ep 1 why was the pianist not dressed up, I know it said he was a substitute but it looked like he had time to practice/could have grabbed a suit/dress shoes (he was wearing white sneakers), or they should have added a scene where the wedding coordinator said he had to play in 30 minutes, he said he just had what he was wearing and she said that's fine

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she might not be EVERYTHING, but she's cute :p

look- imma say it right out the gate, it's a drama that VERY OBVIOUSLY suffers from what i like to call the typical 'KBL Conundrum' which is: 'too much plot, too little airtime' so don't be expecting too much going in, but it's a really cute show, & it barely takes like 2 hours from your life if you wanna watch it (which i'd recommend you do, since it's pretty cute :p)
also, the fact that we get TWO actual kisses (none of that awful fish lips business here), is a WIN idc 😆😆
so, yeah! she might not be everything you want or hope for it to be, but she's cute! & maybe that's enough. not everything has to, or is gonna- be an absolute masterpiece teeheet

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Lackluster, Generic

General spoilers only. The story moved too fast in eight 15min episodes for the main relationship to build any real connection or emotional depth. We get one montage of them happily dating and yet the characters are invested in each other like it's been months.

You might enjoy this if you want something quick and simple while you're sick or to have going on in the background. It's not bad, it's just not very meaningful.

I felt that Ho Yeon, the 2nd male lead, aka the the third wheel with unrequited love, had more depth to his feelings for Seung Jun than Jae Hyun. Jae Hyun has a simple love-at-first-sight obsession. There's no reason behind it. Whereas Ho Yeon has been steadfastly by Seung Jun's side through thick and thin and is so caring and supportive. I would have been much more invested if the story had focused on him and Seung Jun.

I thought the actors did well with what they were given. Lee Dong Won (Seung Jun) and Shin Myung Sung (Ho Yeon) kept my attention the most.

Otherwise, the storyline in generic, there's nothing new or insightful in the script, the cinematography is decent but unremarkable, and the music is sung well but not interesting enough that I would want to play it on it's own.

It wasn't necessarily a waste of time since it's so short, but I won't re-watch it.

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Needed more time

As was mentioned in a few other reviews, this show packed a lot into a short amount of time. They could have done so much more with the storyline and adaptation to give this story so much more breathing room.

First and foremost, what we know is the ML, Seung Jun can't seem to open up and suffers from PTSD, but we don't know exactly why yet. To be honest, we never *truly* find out. We get a hint of it when Seung Jun gets drunk and we learn it had something to do with a past relationship of some sort. Since this is a BL, we can make the assumption it was with a past relationship with a man, which we further learn when Joo Won shows back up in Seung Jun's life. Even then we don't truly know the depth, only know that he betrayed him and seemed to be using him. The pushiness of the second ML, Jae Hyun, makes it difficult for Seung Jun to open up and it's obvious there are moments where he seems to be comparing Jae Hyun to Joo Won.

Then there is the best friend/neighbor who is *obviously* in love with Seung Jun, but quietly takes a backseat because he knows of the trauma from his past and is there to support him. It's implied that the two are FWB, though you can also argue that they are simply cuddle buddies with Ho Yeon wanting it to be more than that.

To be honest, I had little to no interest in the romance of the two leads. Perhaps it is because I am biased toward Kim Kyu Jong, who played Joo Won so deliciously narcissistic, creepy, and downright nasty. But I was far more interested in his character and the history with Seung Jun. I've seen Kyu Jong in other things and he has such range that I see so many hating on Joo Won (rightfully so) and yet knowing more of him, it makes me proud to follow him because he is one of the sweetest people. I hope people hate just the character and look for other things he has done, plus his music as both a solo artist and with SS501/Double S 301, because his talent is phenomenal.

I think this show could have done so much better if they had done it as either a longer web series or a full series. I am fine with the episodes being short in time, but there needed to be more than 8 episodes. We never really got any history of Jae Hyun, we never got to know or see the struggles of Ho Yeon being in his position as someone who obviously loved Seung Jun but was relegated to only the bestie.

I feel that this show could have been fleshed out so much more for us to see much more of Seung Jun's past with Joo Won, including understanding why Joo Won suddenly came back into his life and wanted to be with him. Was it a case of Joo Won only using him as a plaything? Did he see Seung Jun as his "property" and when Jae Hyun arrived on the scene and he saw he could potentially move on, he couldn't handle it? Just what exactly DID Joo Won do to Seung Jun, other than obviously being manipulative and a cheater to cause him to have the level of PTSD that he did that he needed medication? As it "reads" right now, Seung Jun comes off as extremely weak IMO. I wanted to see those scenes more than I wanted to see the two male leads "falling in love".

I had no real investment in Jae Hyun because we knew nothing about him. Except for apparently owning a cafe, we had no backstory for him. While I am all for a love-at-first-sight type of story (I'm a romantic), this one fell short because of how little time the show had to tell its story.

Ultimately, I will probably watch the episodes that Kyu Jong was in again, because I watched this series for him, but otherwise, I would probably not rewatch this often. I hope in the future, when it comes to web series like this, that production companies/writers consider expanding the episodes to have more of them if they want to keep them short to keep people's attention. Complex stories like this need more time to grow and breathe so so much story isn't squished into so little time. It does a disservice to the story and the characters because this could have been such a compelling drama otherwise.

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I was happy and merry when it finally ended

This surely was… something. At this point, I’m used to many KBLs feeling somewhat insta-lovey. The much shorter format in comparison to Thai BLs (for example) kinda has that side effect. And despite me being understanding of that, this one just felt too insta-lovey for me, even for KBL standard. I was not invested in the relationship of the main characters at all, because there was no build up. They met, talked like twice or three times, and suddenly both were apparently madly in love. I say 'apparently’, because the romantic chemistry between the actors was lacking a lot in my opinion, so that didn’t really help with buying the love part. I wasn’t awwing or smiling at any of their cute moments, because I simply didn’t care about their relationship. And that’s pretty bad for a show that is centred around the romance. When they kissed I was confused, because there was nothing really leading up to it. Both main characters are grown men, so I get that a kiss isn’t as heavily built up to as in a high school romance, where it’s the characters’ first kiss. But at least give me something that makes it feel earned.

Here’s three examples for what I mean with "too insta-lovey“ for anyone who hasn’t watched the show, and is considering investing their time (Do yourself a favour and just don’t):
1 - The two main characters meet for the first time at a wedding, where one of them is the singer and the other the pianist. The pianist doesn’t actually work for the company, he just served as a replacement for the usual pianist. A woman that works there (don’t remember her name, there’s too many side-characters for such a short series) asks him to join their company, which the pianist declines, since he’s already the CEO at a café. Suddenly, the other main character shows up. Piano man is so in awe of the singer’s handsome face, that he’s just like "Never mind, actually, I do wanna join the company!“ This grown man just made a decision about a job, based on the handsomeness of his colleague, no consideration of what this would mean for his apparently already tight schedule with a popular café to handle. I sure hope he doesn’t do this every time he meets a handsome person, or he’s switching jobs on a weekly basis.
2 - That same evening, they have dinner with their co-workers. Piano man and handsome singer exchange a few sentences, then handsome singer gets drunk and piano man is helping him get home. The next day, piano man repeatedly texts handsome singer, asking him if he’s okay and saying that he’s worried. Sure, he might just be a naturally empathetic person. But any non-BL-lead would just let it be at that, if the other person doesn’t respond. But when handsome singer doesn’t respond, piano man actually goes to the academy where he works as a vocal coach. They met ONCE and this dude is already borderline stalking him. My mind was yelling 'Run while you still can!‘ Piano man kept having such tendencies throughout the whole show, showing up at handsome singer’s house when he didn’t respond to him. Which seemed to happen frequently. It just felt pretty iffy to me. If someone acts like this after you spent a couple of hours together, I don’t want to know how they’ll act once you’re actually dating…
3 - After having met ONCE, piano man was telling two friends about handsome singer. They said that they hardly recognized him, because he was apparently so head over heels AFTER HAVING KNOWN THIS GUY FOR ONLY ONE NIGHT!!!! Piano man said he also doesn’t recognize himself. On top of that, he was for some reason convinced that handsome singer had his walls up high, and that he was gonna climb over them and win his heart. I don’t mind characters not giving up easily. But the issue is that piano man had no way of even knowing that handsome singer had his walls up. He does, but piano man doesn’t know anything about him at this point. So how does he assume handsome singer has his walls up, and not that maybe he simply has no interest in getting to know him? Your guess is as good as mine.

I could excuse some of these behaviours if this were a show about two high school students. Teens tend to make rash decisions and fall in love much faster, thinking a crush equals true love. But we’re talking about two adult men, who I assume are at least in their late twenties, more likely even in their early thirties. I understand that you can be attracted to someone on first sight, but this wasn’t just attraction, it was love that apparently can develop within seconds if you live in a BL, because who needs shared experiences and a genuine emotional connection, right?

I also took a big issue with the villain of the show, which is (like in many BLs) handsome singer’s ex boyfriend. (At least I think they were dating, but it’s never quite clear. Blame the writing for that, not me.) I did actually like their history. Handsome singer wanting to debut as an idol and having a relationship with the CEO (again, not sure if back then he was the CEO or just an employee, proving how great the writing in this is once again) actually makes for an interesting concept to explore. The problem is that their past was more interesting than the present day relationship of handsome singer, and that’s not great. Besides that, the villain felt like a caricature. He was so overtly evil that it was almost laughable. And also, he was an idiot. He acted like an asshole in front of handsome singer, trying to blackmail him and pretty much stalking and terrorising him. I thought that clearly, this was just about him being evil and having fun toying with handsome singer. Apparently however, all this was an attempt at winning back the love of handsome singer. Wow. Great plan, buddy. I know you’re a disgusting person, but if you try to win someone back, maybe try not to be disgusting in front of them? It made no sense. Also, the villain then just disappeared into thin air, giving no resolution to this storyline.

At this point, I would’ve probably rated the series a 4. It was bad and uninteresting, but not offensively so. But then they did a goddamn time-skip and that dropped my rating to a 2. You see, piano man came to save handsome singer from the hands of his evil ex. Handsome man then was being a douchebag towards piano man, telling him to leave him alone. This isn’t a problem in itself. Clearly, handsome singer had been severely hurt in the past, and was dealing with a lot of issues internally. Actually, this was the only point in the show where I got at least a little invested. I was curious about how handsome singer would overcome his demons, in order to be with piano man. And how piano man would handle the rejection. Of course, we got to see none of that, because they skipped ahead one year in time. I dislike time jumps in general, but this one was just horrible. It felt like such a cheap way of escaping resolving the conflict they had set up. Instead of meaningful character development, they let time heal it all. To me, this jus proves how the writers of this show weren’t capable of handling anything.

So, we skip ahead one year, and time magically fixed every issue. Handsome singer miraculously has overcome his severe panic disorder, because he was so eager to eventually sing in front of piano man without sunglasses on. Because that’s totally how mental illness works, yep. Not only that, but he also finally got to debut as a singer, and of course, his debut song was one huge success that climbed up on the charts like it’s nothing. Because that’s totally how the music industry works, yep. (I mean, it could’ve happened, but it feels extremely unlikely.) Of course, after all this time and being rejected in a really hurtful way, piano man immediately runs to handsome singer when he sees that he’s holding a concert. And of course he takes him back like nothing happened, and like they actually had established a meaningful relationship between the two of them. That one kiss they had must’ve been really good to warrant such behaviour, damn.

Also, how many times are we gonna do the jealous best friend who has a secret crush on the main character trope in KBLs? It’s getting really old at this point. That being said, the best friend character was actually the only character I was rooting for. Not that he had a properly developed personality or anything. He only existed as a shoulder for handsome singer to cry on, and as his emotional trashcan. However, he was caring and put handsome singer’s feelings above his own, which made him the most likeable character in this entire thing. The bar was very low. I actually thought they should’ve ended up together instead, since they at least had some sort of emotional connection. Instead, this storyline too led nowhere and we never got any resolution for the best friend character. So I'll just assume handsome singer will forget all about him in the heat of his new relationship, because he totally feels like the kind of person to do that. I hope the best friend finds someone better who's actually interested in his feelings too, rather than only using him to cry about his own.

The music in the show was pretty good. One of the main characters is a singer after all, so you’d hope so. But I noticed something weird about the background music. While oftentimes it was nice and fitting, sometimes it felt like a very odd and out of place. At least two times, there was a background music playing that sounded kinda like it was supposed to be in a western movie (western as in a cowboy movie, not the western film industry). I was so confused. But maybe that’s just me not getting a reference or something.

As for the positives… There were some moments of decent comedy. Such as when handsome singer blew his nose on a bunch of napkins and then drunkenly handed them to piano man. That got a chuckle out of me. The acting was solid. Not mind-blowing, but solid performances. Their montage of cute moments at the end was nice, it’s just that I didn’t care about their relationship at all, so even that didn’t get a smile out of me. Honestly, the best thing about this show was when it was finally over.

This has got to be one of the worst KBLs I’ve seen, and I’ve seen many. I cannot recommend this to anyone. If it weren’t so short, I would’ve dropped this half-way through, and I’m definitely never rewatching it. If you’re looking for a KBL about the music industry and a singer, I recommend Wish You: Your Melody From My Heart instead. Not that that one’s perfect, but it’s much better executed and a lot cuter, with actual chemistry.

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