Link (2022)

A not-so-cozy mystery/thriller!

More on the light-hearted end but perfect for fans of Beyond Evil, Sell Your Haunted House and He Is Psychometric.

This series is a fabulous blend of romance and mystery. Right from the first episode, you see the actual mystery (and I mean MURDER mystery) unfold in no time! This drama is fast-paced and speculative. The opening scene is indeed very gripping. However, the main characters' encounters seem too cliche, abrupt and convenient—basically, there's too much plot convenience!
But if you are here for the thrill, the guessing game and can pull through a few cliches, STAY! It seems like we have an exciting mystery brewing. The past and the present follow two separate suspicious disappearances, so let's see if they tie together at the end. I like the alternating timelines, the flashbacks add multiple layers to the story. There is an equal degree of suspense surrounding the other people living in the neighbourhood whose past connects them all to each other. With so many characters to account for, the possibilities are endless. You can't help but keep speculating and theorizing.

The actors have such great on-screen chemistry and the acting is like—chef's kiss (get the reference?) Their relationship has the ideal amount of pushing and pulling, ideal amount of pining and ideal amount of jealousy and love.

The music also seems quite promising for this one, so look forward to the OST's!

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The children of Jiwha-dong.

I fell in love within the first few minutes of the first episode of this drama.
The drama follows a man who is looking for his long lost sister, that same man shares same emotional state with a woman he recently met.
Yeo Jingoo’s and Moon Ka-young's performance was so amazing in this drama and their chemistry was flowing so well.
This drama gives it all; the thrill, the fantasy, the romance, the mystery all in one go with exact amount of everything.
As much as this drama is interesting, it also shines light onto serious things that even tend to happen in real life:
Domestic abuse.
Murder.
Bullying.
Stalking.
Attempts of rape.
We get to see so many characters in Link and we get to see their daily life and what they go through. We meet the children of Jiwha-dong.
We also get to see the female lead struggling with a few things that I mentioned up there.
Even though she went through such serious topics, we get to see her heal and become stronger than she was before. Aswell as the male lead. He goes through so many rough things ever since he was little to his adult hood.
He deals with his sister going missing, his mother becoming sick and disassociating from the world, his father barely being there for them when needed.
He turns into this cold, distant character that you want to sympathize with. That you want to hug and put into your pocket and keep him safe.
The drama shows us that tough times never last, but tough people do.
It shows that no matter what we can go through, there is still that tiny speck of light that might drop and shine up your life.
Life can teach people to never trust someone again. Whether it being someone broke your heart, messed with your loyalty, did something bad- life can tend to be unfair but once you get to meet specific people that were made for you, you'll see how much it's worth it.
You will lose people along the way, and like the male lead said;
"It’s because we’ve lost someone. We’ve lost someone precious to us. That’s why we can’t hold on to someone. We’re afraid of losing them again."
However everything is going to be okay, we're all human, afterall.

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Try not to fall asleep

Updated with final thoughts.

What started as a unique concept became tiresome at times. Sometimes shows drag a few episodes but I've become tired at how slow this show has been moving. I've been watching it at 1.25x or 1.5x speed because the show is about to complete and it's dragging. It feels like there wasn't much of a story to begin with so what could have been completed in 10 episodes was stretched out to 16.

The earlier episodes of the show were enjoyable but you slowly start to get fed up and just wish the characters would tell each other what's going on. By the 14th episode, you are just waiting for things to be done already because you've lost hope in anything redeemable in the plot.

As far as acting goes, the male lead has only been able to express concern and sadness and the rest of the time he is straight-faced whereas the actress had to play a clueless bunny who weeps frequently. Not the actors fault for having to portray such characters.

Spoiler:
If they had established that the sister was dead and they just needed to find out what happened to her, I would feel less frustrated with this story. And the chef has not been able to open up his restaurant until the 15th episode which just adds to the madness. I had hoped that the ending might be able to redeem itself but alas, it continued to drag. One final question remains. Why? What was the motive? It is never explained. It seems like no one was interested in finding out if there were more possible victims. Everything else just seems like an attempt at rescuing this show but there's not much they could do at this point.

High expectations. Low return.

I am going to leave the final score at 6 but honestly I would not recommend nor rewatch this show.

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One of the best ongoing dramas of June 2022. The plot is extremely intriguing, and though there are mystery elements and intensity (emotional), the humour is on point too. The pacing of the story, the timing of the humour, the characters — all so well done!

The acting is one of the strongest points of this drama. I don’t see which other two lead actors could have picked it up so well. Yeo Jin Goo is a talent personified and I’m so glad to see him choosing scripts which highlights his emotional acting. Minute emotions are so well portrayed!

It’s a typical who dunnit, a small neighbourhood community where every single person is suspicious. It’s fun to watch while speculating it. I probably wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from binging it entirely if it had been completed.

Edit: This drama falls to the curse of sixteen episodes dramas stretched entirely too long. I had hopes that the writing would stay consistent as you can read from my ongoing review, but unfortunately the last episodes get too dragged out. I did enjoy the characters and the acting immensely but some plot points are just too repetitive.

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Slow and boring

This had the potential to be quite interesting. Two people who are connected by their emotions, with some mystery and crime reaching twenty years back.

It’s slow and boring because it’s repetitive. Maybe it could have been better if it was just 12 episodes? The romance was slow burn, not much sizzling tingling feeling, the mystery kept going back and forth which was rather confusing. The best dynamics I would say are the mother and grandmother. You don’t see this kind of kinship very often, and they are are actually mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

I wouldn’t recommend this, not worth your time. I kept ff quite a lot. And I can’t even remember the ending now... lol.

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Too many unanswered questions

First, let me start by saying that this drama was less from what I expected it to be.
I mean, Jin Goo's past two works were absolutely gold, and in comparison to them, it just fades away.

The story starts with informing that Gye-hoon has some kind of magical ability that makes him feel the emotions of his twin sister, who was kidnapped as a child. As this is a fantasy drama, I'm not going into any logical explanation of the "Wi-Fi" in question.
Next we were introduced to Da-hyun who is a struggling student.
Both live in the same neighbourhood, where Gye-hoon opened his new restaurant, in effort to fin his kidnapped sister.
Next were the usual bickering and romance moments between the leads.
In the end, the identity of the kidnapper (and also killer) was revealed.
The usual 15th episode breakup, danger to life in 16th episode and patch up in the end.

Now, let me tell about "unanswered questions".
1. We never knew why that person kidnapped and killed his sister. No information on whether he was a psychopath, a rapist or a human trafficker. Nothing, nada. All is left at the imagination of the viewers.
2. The neighbours were made to look suspicious since the start. But at the end, none of those neigbours except one was guilty. So all that "suspicion" thing bore nothing.
3. Da-hyun's mother killed a person as an act of self-defence. The murder was covered by the police. Near the end of the series, she went to the police to confess, but was not arrested. Why? Was it statue of limitation or no body was found or anything else. None of the questions unawsered.

So. overall, this was quite a dull drama. The chemistry between the leads was way unnatural. Half-cooked story was another off thing about this drama. I literally completed the last two episodes in mere half hour by fast forwarding and skipping many unnecessary scenes.
Wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless you have too much of spare time or are a fan of Jin-goo or Moon Ga-young.

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Story like an onion

The drama started off strong but after a few episodes, it was getting too boring and long. The attempt at melodrama with excessive use of sad songs and long shots of crying/sad people started to be irritating towards the end.

The plot was too simple for a 16-episode drama. 12 episodes would be sufficient enough. There were episodes that were so unnecessary I can't even remember them. Too many side stories and boring dialogues just to make a 16-episode drama. Like an onion, a simple plot idea wrapped in too many layers to make it into a standard-length drama.

The premise and idea were good but executed poorly in terms of twists and turns. The melodramatic attempt became irritating. The story got boring not even halfway through, a lot of the main characters' decisions didn't make sense (weren't rational) and were made only to prolong the story. However, I did find Gye Hoon's relationship with Da Hyun rather adorable. Both leads did a great job portraying their characters.

Overall, it's an okay drama. The story gets boring around halfway through and it's average but watchable.

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A dish that has a lot of ingredients, tastes a bit odd, but leaves a sweet aftertaste

After reading the comments here, keeping the past works of the cast in mind, and also the genre - I began watching the dramas with lukewarm expectations. I had been ready to drop it after the first episode if it didn't intrigue me. I ended up binging it.

In a morbid manner, I absolutely hate confusing suspense but at the same time I'm so utterly immersed in the whole "who did it?" mystery. Which is why the first 12 episodes kept me glued to the screen and stopped me from fast forwarding a single scene. I wanted to take in all the clues and baits the plot threw my way. And it was a decently paced out one at that. I didn't truly realize is already watched the story unfold for 12 hours.

Here's the caveat though. As soon as the mystery unravelled, somehow, the plot lost is lustre. The thrill died down. Suddenly everything felt smushed in together. I'm holding back a lot of things I want to write because it could be a spoiler. But I'll be hoping my feelings got conveyed ( via the link of course ).

Along with the main leads, the support characters have all been given their due, which is often rare, as we usually do not get to see personalities of supporting characters in depth. The cast is impeccable, they lived and breathed their parts in my opinion. In all honesty I'd been a bit skeptic about Ga Young but she played her nicely! I did feel there were a lot of inconsistencies in the character arcs, sometimes very conveniently to further the plot, but it takes away the umami from the food, if you know what I mean.

The soundtrack is AMAZING. I like the chilling, thriller-isque aspects of the songs. They were really catchy and well timed. "Unknown World" is a FAVORITE. The slower, mellowed tracks were beautiful too.

I want to talk a bit more about the story - without any spoilers of course. Keeping the theme in mind, this is a relatively darker drama. There is romance, there are light-hearted moments, there is dark comedy as well - but at the core, it remains a tragic story. How something might seem like a singular incident but is linked to a hundred more. Maybe the name of the drama is derived from that, and not the emotional link between the leads (which was, again, very conveniently inconsistent). The relations depicted between family are one of the best I've seen, they're heartwarming and wrenching at the same time. The chemistry amongst the entire cast was *chef's kiss* - ah, reminded me of Chef Eun Gye Hoon's kiss, ahem. Also, yes, there's tonnes of crying. The story demands it really. You'd have to be inhuman not to cry of you were put through what the characters went through. But if 80% of the episodes have an average of 50% tear time, maybe the characters were being put through a little too much. Am I micro-analysing a bit too much as well? I loved the premise and the story regardless. A good attempt at combining a lot of genres!

If my review felt a little all over the place, but still made sense to you - you are all clear to
watch the show and enjoy it. If you are one to nitpick and get bothered by convenient plot shifts, anti-climatic reveals, smh moments- maybe give this a pass. My two cents? Watch it if you'd like a diet version of Beyond Evil, with a side of romance and comedy.

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Entertaining thriller series!

This series is SO good! It's what I like in a Kdrama. Mystery/thriller, light on romance but still heart throbbing and has an AMAZING storyline! The cast and acting are fantastic, not giving too much or too little. It's just right to make it more captivating to watch. I don't pay much attention to the OSTs as I constantly keep my eyes on the screen, but I know it always sets the mood for the variety of scenes that an OST would be playing. All in all, it's still a great series with excellent cinematography that captures action-filled scenes accurately and gets your adrenaline flowing. I would recommend this for thriller lovers or those who are light on romance but love the action with an interesting storyline <3

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There is one word that sums up this whole drama; contrivance

What people like or dislike, might not be what you like or dislike so I do suggest to ignore any type of feedbacks and give this drama a try. When you start having mixed feelings about it, my review is here to help.

I think this series have an appeal. It got a innovative concept, an endearing FL, ML, side characters, and a mystery to unravel. I got to this far because I thought this show had potential to be even greater. But instead, it only went downfall when "minor" flaws kept stacking up one on top of the other to the point it fell flat. The writers message was to tell you that true events happen the same way but HOW (keyword) they decided to show it disconnected some viewers from the plot. It suffers from poor execution. I like the message but I dislike the way this drama handled it.

One of the two plotlines this series rely on is the mystery. It carries the show so the writers made the characters superficial. If you watch carefully, you will realize these two writer aren't writing "characters" anymore. They are writing plot points to push their story forward otherwise they won't have a story to tell (with the exception of ML. The FL as well except she loses her way here and there).

Like one of our anatognist here whose whole purpose is just to come in and out to create fake suspense and tension. He does that for 5 episode straight. His whole personality revolves around FL for no reason. Remember what I said? They are not writing characters. They are writing plot points. Ironically, he is the only one who knew what happened 18 years ago and.... drum roll please!

He wants to tell them. Yes, you read this right. He WANTS to tell them.

But they don't want to hear from him. Why? Because the story will conclude at episode 9-10. When a series does that but waits until the very end to "reveal" it, it just lack creativity to tackle it any other way. You already know the writers will come up with different "coincidence" or "reasons" to prevent this guy from talking. Like I said, they aren't writing characters. They are writing plot points.

They would do these type of plot points in other areas. I can mention over 10 instances. You don't not realize at first because you think it's relevant or might be explained later on but then you finished the drama and you look back and realize, they added nothing of value. They tied most of the loose ends like some PowerPoint presentations at the last episode. They expect you to fill the blanks. They expect you to come up with your own interpretation and justif, in your head, why it happened like that. I'm not a fan of those plots because it's pretentious. If the message was so "real" the male and female lead would have both died to reinforced its message.

As for the romance, it's the only redeeming quality this series have. This is where the writers strength are. The dialogue and interaction are pretty good. It handles trauma well. The male lead development is well written. He enhanced the story to another level. The romance though have a minor flaw where the characters are suffering from a "special" version of the break up trope. They are NOT breaking up because it's not "official", they are just constantly separating and distancing themselves from each other and finding their way back to each other. And it repeats for over five times. If this doesn't bother you, you will enjoy the chemistry. The link was also inconsistent. Just used for crying and fear most of the time. Any other emotions became pointless.

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Trying too hard to make this drama a suspense/thriller/fantasy/melodrama....everything.

Went significantly downhill after ep 10. I'm in ep 14 right now, at this point it's not even mysterious, it's plainly annoying. They're trying so hard to make this a suspense drama, this should've ended within 6 eps at most.

Unnecessarily dragging, way too many characters' perspectives shown, sad melodramatic music to make things emphatic, immature adults with unrealistic dialogues, also, nothing makes sense. To this point, the telepathy between the FL and ML does not make sense at all. The more it unfolds, the more unclear and annoying it gets. I'm not even curious about how this drama ends.
Why is there no evidence at all for all the murders but so many characters involved, and shown? Also, why are they all so stupid and immature?

There is no proper investigation from the police department at all, the worst group of police I've seen in a drama so far.

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