It got a unique vibe, it's not even similar to the writer's and the director's previous projects. The editing, pacing, dialogue exchange, transitions and the type of events are all unusual, in a good way. Especially when it comes to Yeong Hyun & Sung Ki which I enjoyed the most. I wanted something more for So Yeong, since she is a main character, she should have had a bigger impact. It's okay for the son to have to have a child without a mother but god forbid if the daughter had a child without a father. Classic Korea! There were a lot of shortcomings and misses but the drama is still a decent watch for a family drama.

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Meh...

Poor directing that reflected on the cast middling performance, especially Joo Ji Hoon who was barely acting maybe because this was his second project. The thriller aspect was weak and the mystery didn't exist, the "baddies" were known too early, like in the first few episodes. Don't even get me started on the supernatural element, total flop. Some may watch it for Shin Min Ah but this is her weakest project imo.

The ending was extremely over dramatic that it straight up made it bad. It's okay to have the same "outcome" but what led to it "the final 2 scenes" needed a re-write as it is completely nonsensical in its current state.

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Not good...

Well, it's obvious for everyone that Do Jin Woo is the worst part about this drama, every second Jin Woo appeared on screen it felt revolting. In fact, you may include Jin Woo and Seol Ah plot line as a whole in general. I highly doubt anyway would like Seol Ah ending. Looking at what the writer did to Jin Woo and Seol Ah plot line and looking at her previous works, I'm starting to see a pattern. Is it safe to assume it's a reflection of her own life?

It's not like the drama didn't have other problems. The drama was interesting for the first few episodes prior to the 9-years time skip, it gave off promising vibes with good build up then became utterly soulless, monotone and even got hit with a massive downgrade in overall quality. Maybe about 90% of the drama was uneventful, things kept going in circles with little to zero progression.
The writing was straight up bad and inconsistent. Some parts you can notice the writer is trying to create some logic but most of the time the writer end up doing the exact opposite. Most of the side stories were weak due to the lack of investment in liking any character, since none of them stands out anyway. This also made the size of the cast feel smaller than it is.

The ending as well was flat, lukewarm and lacked a meaningful conclusion to any character.
Chung Ah and Joon Hwi ending was too quick, while the other characters got a "whatever bs" kind of ending. It's really a shame what this drama ended up being since the beginning was too good, a massive bait and switch tactic.

If you can't stand single digit IQ characters then you should avoid this drama.
2.5/10

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Great first half, abhorrent second half!

First half (1-28): Great Glorious Golden Gloria! Lively characters that flow and bounce off each others very nicely. Doesn't look or feel like other generic long running format dramas. Jazzy with a style and a spoken personality. The first half was destined for greatness. No triangle/square? I was jazzing! Amazing performance by Bae Doo Na, I've seen most of her movies but this is the first time seeing her in a drama. I couldn't get the song out my head!

Second half (29-50): sucked ass royally!! The biggest flippity flop out there. They sucked the life out of the drama and killed any potentials. No more music, characters got dull and one dimensional, turned to a tasteless washed up melodrama. Bae Doo Na became a one-facial expression actress whispering into the mic barely audible, any personality she had before is now gone. The events such as the retaliation and both couples' relationships issues kept going in a repeating cycle until the last episode. There was some serious insane stretch for the last 10 episodes, almost zero content. I refuse to believe it's the same writer.

Lee Jong Won, a despicable looking actor playing a despicable character in a despicable role. It's even the same case with his other roles, playing as the despicable man. Hard to stomach his presence and this drama is no exception.

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Poor 19

This was a meaty 167 episodes daily drama that left me with conflicting feelings. To get some positives out of the way, I much appreciate the roughness and scuffiness of older dailies over the jaded cleanliness and overly-sanitized modern dailies. It's a good thing that conflicts don't last a long time in this lengthy drama, but this also created a problem I'll talk about later. The drama took advantage of its length in regards to the main point of tension with the objecting parents of the ML, simply, let the girl hang around long enough until they get used to her. Now, let's get into the underlying problems. There was a love triangle involving the 70ish elderly father, his 50ish son, and the restaurant lady, I've never seen such an absurd, trashy and distasteful love triangle like this one before. It's shocking how much screen time they dedicated to that which was for almost the entire runtime. Due to its length, the drama was somewhat divided into 2 halves that were different enough to consider one a downgrade over the other. The exact point that split it into 2 halves was when the pseudo love triangle/square over the FL was resolved. In comparison, the most glaring difference was with the characters' writing of the duo Uk Yeong & Yun Jeong, they made them dumb, quirky, and borderline retarded, just because they were out of the circling conflicts from the first half and had no other roles to justify their existence in the drama. It's clear that its length was problematic. There was a shocking lack of material to fill the runtime. Initially, it had many small side plots that seemed promising but were completely dropped off after a handful of episodes, for example, the rouge sister Yun Ji and her ostracized family. There was only 2 main plotlines running in parallel, whatever was the FL involved in and the repulsive elderly love triangle. This could've been easily fixed since they already had enough pieces laid out. For example, give Shin Hyeong a full family background dynamic to interact with everyone rather than being a random employee with no attachments to anything, replace the elderly love triangle with another involving Wu Suk and other characters, despite the established premise but giving the female lead some familial connections would strengthen her character's existence, and lastly give the lead couples more problems to overcome rather than a couple of elongated ones. Finally, there was a huge lack of affection from the female lead while the male lead was always loud, clear and persistent about his love, she couldn't reciprocate his feeling with the same level if any at all, leaving a constant weird imbalance in their relationship. As if she was pressured to accept his love and run with it, nonetheless, this was less of a problem later on. At the end of the day and despite everything, this was just an okay vanilla daily drama.

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Just Another Husband

Whip out your makjang bingo card (easy misunderstandings, cut short scenes/dialogues, holding back when scolded, wrongfully convicted, extremely incompetent police, extremely capable characters with pulling any string, eavesdropping at the right moment like a superpower, triple birth secret, pseudo incest, comeback as rich, fake death, too many crimes with little to no punishment... ) honestly you could fill a stack of bingo cards. Given its length there was obvious planning issues, the drama hit a major road block at episode 66 and had to hard press the reset button, setting everything back 20 steps. That wasn't enough as the drama, once again, soft hit the reset button at episode 105 and one more time at episode 114 to buy more time. This drama wasn't different from the ones alike it at all but there was a serious drop in overall quality in the second half. It got seriously sloppy and lacked the slightest attention to details. One example is how important scenes are empty, such as the company's 30th celebration had a couple of tables and only the family was there, yet they were delivering a speech as if it was a major event for the entire company. Another one with the investors voting where they showed only one investor. There were many other examples were the drama needed to hire a few random extras to fill some gaps. On a side note, where did Bae Dal Bong disappear? Per usual, character stop showing up suddenly with no explanation has become a normal occurrence with modern daily makjangs. I could go on forever but everything can be boiled down to the fact that if the drama kept its consistency from the first half it wouldn't have been as bad. One final thing, while Uhm Hyun Kyung is mostly fine but she lacked a tiny bit of oomph to better sell the revenge story here.

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The Aries Maidens

The drama turned out to be very different from its initial premise, setup and introduction. Things were changing too frequently and taking a different direction at every turn, this can be both a good and a bad thing. The Aries maiden, horseback riding, school dynamics, and the 'dark family secret', all became irrelevant after a few episodes. The main focus was on the love triangle with the pseudo delinquent guy. While the transition wasn't necessarily bad but I wish they kept exploring the initial elements, especially the Aries maiden dynamic and horseback riding. That Aries theme song definitely stuck in my head. One thing that stood out was how everything was interconnected which allowed the drama to draw all kinds of parallels between what was going on. The writing was surprisingly good and multilayered which saved the drama with the change of directions, however, it still has its flaws with handling many of the side characters. The biggest misstep was the inclusion of that one male teacher, it was very unnecessary, it didn't fit any part of the story and done more harm than not. Despite some problems here and there it was a decent drama from the 80s.

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A Handful of Missed Opportunities

Beautiful Life (2000) was an emotionally charged drama that struck a familiar chord reminiscent of other ones like it for its textbook depiction of love, loss, and resilience, but it wasn’t without its flaws. At its heart, the story was anchored by the chemistry between Takuya Kimura’s charming yet understated portrayal of Shuji and Takako Tokiwa’s luminous performance as Kyoko, a woman whose physical limitations were treated with admirable sensitivity for its time. The drama’s beauty lay in its quiet moments, Kyoko's defiant joy, Shuji's evolving tenderness, and the unspoken melancholy of ordinary life brushed with rising pain. However, its emotional power often bordered on manipulation, with tear-jerking sequences and swelling musical cues that risked reducing a nuanced relationship to a mere tragedy. Fortunately, this was only most applicable to the last 3 episodes. Additionally, while the drama broke ground by portraying a disabled FL in a leading role, it sometimes leaned into idealized tropes, framing Kyoko’s struggles more as narrative devices to drive Shuji’s growth rather than delving deeper into her agency and identity despite being a leading character. The pacing, too, occasionally faltered, with melodramatic stretches that risked to undercut the rawness of its central theme. In a different world, I would love to see them continue exploring the relationship without the terminal illness element since it was somewhat cut short to accommodate for the writer's predetermined plan. On another note, a few things were planted but neglected and ended up being underutilized. For example, it was foreshadowed multiple times how Shuji was the son of a famous hospital director/CEO and coming from a family of doctors but that didn't play a role later on, nor the anticipated involvement of his family which remained anonymous. Many things were either missing or unfinished at the cost of fleshing out the story and its characters just to reach the highly emotional familiar moments. For all of its shortcomings, Beautiful Life captured something universally human: the poignancy of love in the face of fate. It was imperfectly told and profound, a drama which, even as one wished it had dared to be bolder, lingered on in the heart, at least for a little while.

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Nakayama Miho

Update: I watched and wrote my comment a few days before the news broke out. I'm in utter disbelief upon hearing the news of Nakayama Miho passing away at the young age of 54. During the past couple of weeks I went into a binge-watch of all her projects from the 80s and 90s, she was a truly striking, talented and fun actress that gave a unique signature to all the projects she's been in. It's unfortunate what has happened and she will be missed dearly. Rest in peace, mama idol!

The drama mirrored the reality of its time with idols culture, ironically, nothing changed since the 80s. Given the setup, the formula was pretty clear with how things were going to be laid out. Each episode gave a focus to one of the characters while cycling through some jokes. Most of these episodes were alright in general but some of the running jokes lasted a bit too long. Take for example the constant interruption of the married leads' 'first night alone' which lasted for several episodes. In fact, they never showed that the leads were actually just sleeping together even after marriage, aside from being together in a bedroom. The female lead's age probably had something to do with that. Instead of wasting time on that and other similar things, they could've gave a reasonable showcase to how they met, fell in love and decided to marry. Anyway, the drama had good dynamics between the characters, nostalgia inducing OST and 80s vibes so it was decent enough.

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Mama wa Idol Reboot

Update: I watched and wrote my comment a few days before the news broke out. I'm in utter disbelief upon hearing the news of Nakayama Miho passing away at the young age of 54. During the past couple of weeks I went into a binge-watch of all her projects from the 80s and 90s, she was a truly striking, talented and fun actress that gave a unique signature to all the projects she's been in. It's unfortunate what has happened and she will be missed dearly. Rest in peace, mama idol!

Following the success or appeal (?) of Mama wa Idol (1987) the leads returned for another run, they even brought some of the side cast like the neighbor who still have her eyes on the male lead. In fact, the entire thing felt like a carbon copy of its predecessor, from the cast to the setup, story, dynamics, characters, jaded jokes, setting and production. They were seriously trying too hard to make it as similar as possible without offering anything new. Nakayama Miho is still trying to be a mother of children not of her own while suffering from the same interrupted intimacy trope in every episode. I couldn't find a single thing that might nudge this over Mama wa Idol, they should've aimed to improve over or at least not repeat the same mistakes.

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SUIKA!

This slice-of-life drama was a quirky concoction of midlife crises, emotional constipation, and nostalgia. It’s not going to set your pulse racing or redefine the genre, but it got enough charm to keep you interested, for the most parts. The story follows Motoko, a 34-year-old woman whose life got a kick in the pants when her friend absconded with 300 million yen. Then, there was a sexually frustrated manga artist, a melancholic professor, and an emotionally stunted young landlord. It was basically the setup for a comedic entanglement, but instead, you get slow-burning introspection with the occasional dash of the familiar Japanese absurdity. There’s something hypnotic about watching these women fumble their way to self-discovery, finding happiness in their mundane fractured lives. It had this warm nostalgic glow all over it but that couldn't save it from some inconsistencies and shortcomings. Particularly with its 2nd half where the drama already exhausted most of the personal stories around the housemates and what left was a lot of emptiness. There was an opportunity to dedicate an episode for the young landlord since she was the fourth wheel in the dynamic. Suika was the kind of drama that doesn’t try too hard to impress, and somehow that was its biggest charm. It wasn't revolutionary, but if you’re in the mood for a contemplative drama with a few laughs and a lot of heart, this one might be worth it.

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Surprisingly Good

At the surface, the drama explored the abuse cases as expected from reading the synopsis, however, the rabbit hole was much deeper than initially thought. Each episode peeled one layer after another with more haunting revelations up until the last episode. I was worried we would be presented with a superficial showcase of some traumas but the drama actually took its time with each of leads' struggles and constructed a solid story. Although it went off the rails a little bit at the end but nothing too outrageous. I would've hoped if the ending was more grounded but one can look at it serving a theatrical over-exaggeration for the final act. Moreover, the constant jumping back and forth between different periods could've been done better. The side abuse cases didn't hold up compared to what the leads were going through nor did they blend well with the story. Aside from the intense cruelty, that one menacing soundtrack caught my attention. It's the same soundtrack that was used in Silent Hill 2 (White Noiz) which is strange because it's not the same composer. It definitely gave the drama a unique signature that was absolutely chilling whenever it played, though they almost didn't use it in the last couple of episodes.

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Inconsistencies Hell

Amazing first episode that was masterfully crafted to kick start the story and prepare it to venture in all kinds of directions. There was a slight decline in the writing moving forward but it kept holding its own weight for awhile. That prison warden was quite the character. The OST was pretty decent. There was also some glaring inconsistencies like the alcoholic father suddenly becoming sober just to get to the next point in the story. However, the drama hit a major unsalvageable road block. Specifically at the beginning of the last 1/3 of the drama. It turned the drama into cheap vapid melodrama diminishing any merits it previously established for the past 8 episodes. The ending was questionable at best, it didn't really allow for real conversations to be had. It's really unfortunate after it had a very solid run before flipping the switch.

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