I was expecting to love this drama, I like the main leads and I love the premise of the story plus everyone seems to praise this show and the main leads chemistry, however I ended up just being indifferent to it all, which really sucks. When you hate a show at least you have that strong emotion of annoyance or whatever towards the show, indifference is worse because it just makes you not care about it.
(I watched the version divided into 16 episodes and not 32)
I really enjoyed the beginning, the first 5 episodes in particular were extremely good and I was really shocked that I could enjoy a show that much even when the two main leads had barely no interactions at all. In general I really enjoyed what took place in 2006 and 2015, I liked the characters andI liked the relationships.
However the first and probably main problem that I had with the show is the main couple. I know people loved their relationship but I simply wasn’t invested in it at all, we get a little glimpse of them starting to like each other when they were younger (and even then we didn’t get too much of them actually falling for each other) and then in 2018 they were already in love (in like?) with each other, we didn’t get to see them falling in love again, we didn’t get to see them rediscover each other after having spent 12 years apart, we didn’t get to see them fall in love with each other again regardless of how different they might be from their 16 year old selves. This is the same problem that I had with Tale of the nine tailed, where, because they were in love before, they must be in love now too. While it’s true that my favourite part of kdramas is the getting to know each other and falling in love, the getting together stages, I can enjoy shows where they are already together, for example I loved Flower of evil, I just simply didn’t enjoy the way their relationship was developed in the show, there’s no particular reason why, I simply didn’t get involved or attached to their relationship.
That’s not to say that there weren’t any good moments or nice scenes between them, I just simply didn’t care because I wasn’t invested in their relationship: they weren't a cute butterfly in the stomach kind of couple, they weren’t a badass power couple, they weren’t a hot couple and honestly they weren’t melodramatic enough to be a heartbreaking, soul crushing, tear jerking couple.
Regarding the “masterful plot” that people talk about: I thought it was boring, I’m sorry. There wasn’t any mystery or anything really that kept me hooked, things just happened and I went along with it. I never really felt the tension or suspense or anything really.
Here’s a list of some of the things that I enjoyed the most:
Dojin and his mum relationship
Dojin and hi sister relationship
Dojin and his his brother relationship
Hyunmoo and his mother relationship
Hyunmoo and his sister relationship
Hyunmoo story
Kiyong acting
Joonho acting
Kiyong in a police uniform
That scene during Dojin graduation