I was SO excited about this drama - it had a stellar young cast, anchored with solid veteran actors, and it was written by Kim Eun Sook (who I admittedly didn't love until DotS, but I enjoyed Secret Garden). Lee Min Ho and Park Shin Hye seemed like THE OTP to top all OTPs. Even the familiar Candy premise and the Gossip Girls-like characters didn't rain on my parade (this should totally have been a red flag through - did I learn nothing from Boys Over Flowers?).
What we got though, was a whole lot of nothing. There was no plot to speak of and honestly, most of the characters were frankly unlikable. You should never judge an actor by the character that they play, but my goodness did this dampen my love for Lee Min Ho and Park Shin Hye.
Story:
Cliches galore - the drama basically took the most overused elements of Asian dramas and combined it into one. The fact is, some of the characters did have crazy parents and you could kind of understand their pain - but this was never fleshed out and instead you basically have very shallow characters who never seem to develop much. There was just a lot of posturing, a lot of yelling, and tears.
Cast/Acting:
The only reason to watch this is because the cast is visually so, so pretty. Lee Min Ho was disappointing and while he was absolutely charming in Boys Over Flowers, he faltered here, and was outshone by Kim Woo Bin, whose character was honestly terrible, but Woo Bin had a natural bad boy charm that worked really well. I get that Kim Tan was such a one-dimensional character, but I also think this showed Lee Min Ho's limitations as an actor. I've always loved Park Shin Hye despite her inability to do romance scenes, but the character of Cha Eun Sang was basically the type of character that she should never play. Park Shin Hye does best when her character is funny and sassy, and this...was not it (see: Pinocchio for an awesome PSH performance).
There were a couple of other shining members of the cast: the moms, for one, and Kim Ji Won as Rachel, who was your standard Mean Girl, but Kim Ji Won's performance brought some dimension to the character. As noted by many, Krystal and Minhyuk's characters were adorable and I looked forward to their scenes (Krystal as a spoiled brat is hilarious). Kang Ha Neul and Choi Jin Hyuk were wasted in this drama and I would have loved to see more of them.
Music:
Love is the moment~
Yeah, enough said - some of the songs on the soundtrack were way, way overused and started interrupting any momentum that was building up.
If you are going to watch this, turn off your brain, and just watch it for the cast.
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