Dead Romance

This was an unpleasant watch. The relentless barrage of abuse and animosity made it very hard to see them being together later on, regardless of their chemistry. The same thing applied with that loathsome sister. They went overboard and made it challenging for any of them to redeem themselves, the drama needed to put a lot more effort to rectify the damage done which it didn't. Despite having a very relaxed and lazy 16-episodes, somehow they managed to screw up the last episode by shoving every last minute thing into it. It didn't give enough space at the end to wrap up and gave an extremely comical and superficial ending to everything.

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Big Tissue

The drama had an interesting and enjoyable premise. The first episode on the train, despite being an obvious green-screened and cgi mix, served as a good gripping introduction to the drama. However, the drama went overboard in forcing us to suspend our disbelief without needing to do so at all, subsequently, the writing got much weaker and lazier as the drama went on. Apparently all the involved parties were super hackers running an advanced intelligence agency that is able to pull anything and everything. At the beginning of the drama, we had actual real paparazzi work with risky and challenging shots, which I really liked, but later on the drama became a mix of a power play and high-tech game, ditching what made it good in the first place. At this point, I've became too used to watching shows ditching their original premise for something cheap and lazy. Anyway, this was another drama where the romance was really out of place and did more harm than good to the story. It just couldn't work in this setting. No matter how they might spin it, it wouldn't have been a successful romance.

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Mysteries

With what OCN have done with the drama, I found it hard to justify adding the 18+ rating. There was a slight skinship and one quick 30 second vague intimate scene in the first 2 episodes and that was it. The usual bait and switch tactic. Admittedly, it was one of the better attempts from OCN when it comes to creating a mystery drama. However, it quickly went downhill. It felt like the writers were stuffing up the mystery to make it as big as possible, with twists and turns that were more like cheap thrills than actual surprises. It became too bloated to make something coherent. It was hard for the drama to juggle between all of the 4 main characters and their interconnected stories which also affected the dynamic between the four of them. You can notice who ended up being the fourth wheel.

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Dali The Helpless!

I can't think of another actress that could've played Da Li. She brought a lot of character and identity to the drama and made it stand out. The same thing can be said about the ML although him being too loud began to get on my nerves over time. However, I found the romance in general to be questionable. At every transition and development in the relationship, there was a clear unnatural progression to their romance. From their first kiss to opening up to traumas and the subsequent events of their relationship. I really liked that one signature background soundtrack that they kept playing but they completely stopped using it in the second half which was really unfortunate because it fit the the vibes perfectly.

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Decent Inheritance

There were definitely a few things to like here with the obvious main attraction being the kids interactions. The main lead had a good enjoyable dynamic going on outside the supposed "romance". Speaking of which, the romance was underdeveloped and made me wonder if it was necessary to begin with. They surely had plenty of time to give it more attention if they wanted to. Which brings me to my next point, it was a tad bit too long. Once the male lead transformed into someone who cared for the children and the kindergarten, things started to get draggy and less enjoyable. The 2nd half was mostly defending and protecting the kindergarten but it wasn't interesting and didn't have the same vibes of the 1st half. If the drama had more side characters and side plots it would have had rectified the problem. The drama made me wanting to see the leads reuniting in a modern drama.

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The Spies Who Lied To Me

Although its earlier parts were better than the rest but the initial set up needed more time and thoughts to be put into it. They wanted to kick start the premise quickly but they rushed things along the way which made later parts to drag instead of having a better investment at the start. The first 5-6 episodes kept you interested and had a good amount of intrigue but things slowed down significantly after that and it began to lose its attraction even when Derek began to be involved in the story heavily. They had a lot of elements lined up perfectly to create something good but never committed to one theme. Derek was an interesting addition to the dynamic but his character was never consistent, his character was forcefully bent 3-4 times to fit whatever narrative the writer wanted to steer the story towards. This also affected how the triangle played out. Again, they had a lot of time to better allocate and divide the runtime to make it more natural. There were a few attempts where the drama tried to get preachy and profound with dialogue and inner-monologue but once you zoom out it turned out to be condescending nonsense. I would say the drama was partially fun but not all the way.

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In Another World With My Smartphone

Although its earlier parts were much better than the rest but the initial set up needed more time and thoughts to be put into it. They wanted to kick start the premise quickly but they rushed things along the way. The first 5-6 episodes kept you interested about the plot and had a good amount of thriller but things slowed down significantly after that and it began to lose its attraction even when they attempted to add story-altering twists. The story itself got sloppier for no reason in the second half and the villains turned out to be underwhelming. The characters never felt like they had a good dynamic or chemistry going on, not even with the most obvious main mother-daughter or father-daughter relationship. Their lack of appeal made it hard to root for anyone. Something was missing, none of them clicked.

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You Are My Psychiatrist AKA Trauma Bonding

There is a comment to be made about psychiatrists dating, loving, diagnosing, healing their patients but, technically, she wasn't a patient during working hours. The writer brushed that off by having ML to pull up the "If you were my patient, I would have asked you this...." By no metric this should've been longer than 8 episodes. The slow dreamy scenes and extensions didn't serve a purpose, they didn't enhance a scene, build an atmosphere, have a cinematic purpose, or contribute to the story. I think they wanted to associate pretty nicely shot slow-mo scenes with it being a cute show? Such things would only work if they struck at the right moment, not every moment. Some cognitive things didn't need to be portrayed on screen to convey a piece of information, like the ML lead forgetting the fridge door open to tell us he was distracted. It's okay to have a few sprinkled here and there but the drama was infested with such scenes. The first 3 episodes were a bit too boring but I stuck with it to see more of this supposed "mystery", of which, there was barely any mystery after that. This was supposed to be the secondary main plot but ended up being less important than most of the insignificant side plots like Da Jung's mother or Ga Young's trainer (btw what happened to the trainer?). The drama didn't know what it wanted to be so we had an uneven mix of genres and themes. Observing the characters, there was something off about their behavior, like an imitation through a fancy lens. Not only through their portrayal but also through their driven narrative. The drama had a lot of inner monologue and self-narration to fill its time but most of them were a hit or miss and didn't provide a deeper connection as they hoped. The drama was supposed to show the healing process but both leads didn't have more than a couple of scenes where they properly talked.

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LOVE SUCKERS

The drama started on a decent pace with few things to look forward to. It was somewhat fine for the first 5 episodes until the drama made its biggest mistake with the reality show plot. It killed the story, romance, characters and ruined the overall vibe of the show. Completely shifting the structure and tone to something different entirely. The reality show plot became the center focus and didn't give room to let the characters work on their problems, instead we got a handful of cheesy lines that lacked any sincerity. Somewhere along the way they forgot to add romance for the leads but, regardless, the leads relationship was the farthest thing from being healthy and would eventually lead to misery. They never really worked on their relationship like adults but instead the whole thing was drenched with empty sweet talk. What I'm trying to say, the drama failed to offer a serviceable comedy, romance, slice-of-life or human drama. Lee Da Hee charms weren't enough to carry.

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The Lawless Empire

I wish the Kdrama industry would grow out of this conglomerate high-class trend, it's been over done to death now and each iteration is worse than its predecessor. In the first episode, the drama had a lot of flashy elements, big bold statements, bloated itself with trendy topics, and cast its net as wide as humanly possible; however, all of that was done and came across as nothing but tacky. Despite boasting a stellar cast, the drama turned out to be a colossal disappointment, a bloated spectacle that collapsed under the weight of its own ambition. Although the drama had a lot going on all the time but the infidelity was always its loudest and trashiest plot, overshadowing everything else. It occupied all of the tension the drama had to offer. There was also this narrative of all "men" are bad that the drama kept pushing for some reason. One more thing, at the end of episode 5, there was a ridiculously comical hacker-like-scene that immediately abandoned the slightest suspension of disbelief the drama ever had. It was a goner at that point.

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Disastrous Job

It's a really cheap, lazy and outdated copycat that had no soul or identity to speak of. This shouldn't have been released in 2022. The cast were fine but they should've had some standards when picking up their projects. The synopsis emphasized on the drama having a love story and romance but that doesn't happen until the last 1/4. During which, the drama pushed their romance into our faces to a sickening level without actually being romantic but more like children discovering attraction to the opposite sex type of romance. The story and writing were practically nonfunctional on a literary level that it made me feel ashamed for finishing it. I wanted to draw some parallels between it and orange cats but I would be insulting orange cats. It was broadcasted by ENA, I should've known better.

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Really Sad Man's Story

It wouldn't have been a 2005 melo without some heavy spoilers as the introduction scene. It was meant to be a sad love story but it was more like a really sad man's story. It's expected to see such themes in melodrama but a better balance was needed. It went overboard with how much misery it inflected on the male lead, there were some false hope moments just to double and triple down on his misery afterwards. I liked how they incorporated the friendship into the mix, it helped recovering from the inevitable bad blood. Having 20 episodes runtime turned out to be too long, not enough attention on side characters/plots to keep it rolling. I didn't like what they've done with the character Park Hye In, ended up disliking her the most. Cha Hwa Jung was the one to kick start the snowball effect but the drama didn't do much with her or give her what she deserved. Regarding the ending, I've seen the exact same ending where the male lead took the same decision from another drama but I can't remember the name. Most people would disagree with the ending but it was done like that on purpose just like every heavy melodrama back then.

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The Scam Cafe

Right off the bat the technical problems were too glaring to ignore. The washed out black levels were a true eye sore that I had to make a custom color profile for it through the media player. A big portion of the drama was shot in direct bright sun light which amplified the problem even further. Enough technicality, the drama was supposed to offer a mix of romance, comedy and law, although hints of these genres do exist but the drama did an outstanding job in failing miserably with incorporating and mixing each one of them. They may throw some cheap lines within the legal field but that wasn't enough to qualify it to slap the law genre tag, let alone its name. I find it hard to believe that someone would find this funny. I think even our primitive ancestors would have a hard time with it. Finally, anything involving the romance as a concept was unquestionably broken. They couldn't even have a chemistry running despite being the first step for any kind of romance. Lee Seung Gi shouldn't have accepted this project. For dramas that waste 90% of its runtime on absolute nothingness, this drama would have a strong placement in my Top 10. With all that being said, unfortunately, this drama isn't the worst of its kind; I've seen worse.

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ALL OUT!!

The drama had many great things going on for it until it went through an unfortunate interruption. It built a solid vibe for all the involved characters and gave each one a purpose to dynamically interact with one another. Kim In Ha jumping into sticky situations was always fun, you never knew when would he pull up his signature move, the sneaky high kick! Giving the male lead a solid side kick was the best thing the drama did. Yoo Jong Goo was In Ha's partner through thick and thin. They always came in as a one package and provided the needed duo action. The soundtrack "Like The First Day" got engraved in my brain cavities for how much of a banger it was. However, everything I mentioned evaporated when the drama suddenly poured all its attention into the love square after halfway through. The love square was painfully out of place in all regards, it even went against the characters' writing contradicting itself just to be part of the nasty melo trend. It also shifted its main point of tension to be all about that. The saddest part was the lack of "duo" action after that, we barely got any. Around the end of it, it decided to double down on the melo and have the deplorable trope of two characters pushing each other away to show some kind of "poetic love", yikes! Anyway, the drama was another good example of a great first half only to fumble in its second half. The biggest point of comparison between this drama and "Swallow the Sun (2009)" was its insulting transition and disparity between its 1st and 2nd half.

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YOU MUST SWALLOW!

It started off with a bang and kept its tempo up for another 10 episodes before performing the hardest emergency brake pull ever. At least for that portion, this is what modern day parodies would cite mimicking the exaggerated nature of the melo landscape from late 2000s. Lots of abroad filming with the typical Korean lens of foreign lands, loads of shaky action with tons of cuts for every shot that can rival that one Liam Neeson scene jumping over a fence, plenty of exposed skin akin to the usual Korean broadcast ratings, and all kinds of flashy elements that they could through at us as fast as possible. All of that stopped with the brake slam and the drama turned to the usual slow melo of that time, it was around when they moved the setting back to Korea. Although the earlier parts lacked a real sense of focus and were disjointed as hell but at least they weren't as boring as the 2nd half. On another note, the speedy harsh soundtrack got me exhausted after playing for nth time in every episode. The biggest point of comparison between this drama and "All In (2003)" was its insulting transition and disparity between its 1st and 2nd half.

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