A cheap flick

Went from promising to disappointing real quick. Cults and hypnosis/mind-control is the worst combination to make a mystery/thriller/horror drama. It gives the writer an unlimited pass for a lazy writing and this is what we got here. The cast was alright tho.

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Weak attempt for a sports-themed drama

It's an oversaturated manufactured cheap emotional bait that lacked the genuine human connection and necessary depth but rather opted out for easily digestible cliches. Most of the cast, especially the younger ones, were desperately overacting in an attempt to translate the youth energy to screen but it came off as fake most of the time. The actual sports scenes were average at best, it's themed around the sport but not the sport itself. Most scenes with a sweaty face, the sweat looked as fake as it can be. It's so damn laughable that some scenes the neck was sweaty but the face was perfectly dry! The cast didn't do a good job in showing the physical exhaustion of performing the sport whether it was while training or competing. Again, making the sports scenes even more fake. What's up with the drama trying so hard to pair every boy with a girl? Really unnecessary. This drama would have fared infinitely better as a standalone one-off movie. The drama really highlighted the "bad" in badminton. Going into this I had the slightest tiniest bits of hope to get something that can be remotely and ever so slightly similar to "Ping Pong the Animation" but I quickly realized within a few minutes it wouldn't be the case.

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Weaker than expected

It's good enough but not that good! It's highly rated so it's only natural to get into it with high expectations, unfortunately, it became quickly evident what kind of show I'll be getting. As a life drama, it lacked the essence of genuine human connection and eventually dipped in mediocrity trying to achieve that artificially by adopting quick, dry and cutthroat life cliches lacking nuances, depth, relevant characterization and thematic attachment. Aside from the 2 main characters, none of the side cast was interesting the slightest and clearly had the absolute minimal amount of effort put into them which is why the drama may come off as boring sometimes. Speaking of effort, the soundtrack was abysmal if you are watching it from Netflix! They clearly didn't give any attention to it and slapped in some royalty free default tracks because it's easier for Netflix to distribute it world wide. The TV version had real music and songs which is really important for a drama of this theme. Stupid Netflix as always. One more thing, the drama has this habits of sprinkling in a handful of random mini stories for the side characters that doesn't get attention for more than 2 scenes or contribute to the overall narrative in a desperate attempt to buff up the drama. The only noteworthy thing about this drama is having an elderly cast getting the spotlight which we don't see often, otherwise, it's a bland collection of life drama cliches with the occasional nice moments.

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Driest music-themed drama ever...

Do I Like Brahms? No. While the scarce music bits sprinkled throughout the drama were great, yet, this is one of the worst music themed drama. The relationships, despite being the main focus here, proved to be detrimental, leading to a catastrophic downfall of the entire drama. The amount of brain worms these characters were ingesting was unprecedented. This is a 16 episodes drama that was purely driven by the characters self-sabotaging themselves constantly in the most pitiful and mind-boggling manner imaginable. Even trashy soap operas can be more fun. Going back to the music, I couldn't feel the cast's passion while performing, under-delivering on the music part again. You better off close your eyes and imagine. Even then, I believe there was a total of 5 very short performances for a drama themed around music!! Honestly, you're better off to go watch some classical music on YouTube. This is the writer's first full feature drama and I'm not looking forward to see more of her works at all.

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Okay...

The usual makjang drama nothing new nothing special. You stick around to watch them go mental and laugh at the absurdity. However, this one got a really unlikable male lead. The guy feels so out of place and had zero chemistry with anyone around him even himself. On the other hand, Shin So Yool was the female lead, she always caught my attention playing support roles so it was nice seeing her as the lead. She did good. The drama lacked a consistent plot line, even the main one was scattered and mostly felt as if there were no persistent goal and antagonist. At the same time, too many side plots ended up being underdeveloped and neglected later on, like the delusional FL's father one.

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Not recommended!

One of the poorest past-life/reincarnation written stories. I can't stress enough how sloppy and incoherent this was. The entire drama was solely driven by this triangle which is why most things were neglected. I was expecting a smart play between the characters and their reincarnation but what we got is a copy paste between past and present. At the same time, the memories from the past played a minimal role in the grand scheme of things. The characters from the past had the exact same traits as their present counterparts, which made things ever so slightly more dull. I don't know what the writer was aiming for because all I see is failure in all directions. I couldn't get over the fact that they treated the direct point-blank bullet to the head ordeal like a casual broken bone with minor scuffs!!!

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Shit

Sometimes there are few selected dramas that shouldn't even be submitted to the network for approval and this is definitely one of them. My soul has been drained out from this abomination and I don't feel like writing too much. It's impressive how one writer can fuck up this hard. It takes a talent! This drama is classified under "rage bait kink" and "fucky wucky ending" labels, it's manufactured that way. This drama is a waste of carbon emissions. If I'm not clear enough, you're very much highly recommended and advised to absolutely turn around far away from this cancerous tumor.

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Not so good first half, dogshit second half...

Awful writing. The writer had absolutely zero idea how to balance the bad guys and the good guys. There were barely any story other than the cheating, the rest were barely random snippets. Which resulted in an unreasonable drag, especially after the first half the drama was pretty much over but the writer went full random throwing anything at the viewers to get to the 128 mark. That illness at the end was pure rage bait for the viewers. You can feel the painful stretch. Each turning point took forever for this reason. Anyway, this is the writer's first project and it's not looking good at all.

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Who in their right mind made this awful soundtrack at the ending of each episode? Who thought making a mix of violin and dubstep would be a good idea? Have mercy on my ears!! My biggest problem with this drama is the pacing. It took about 20 episodes for the story to be fully set up but it turned to an awkward slice of life fighting inside the kitchen with minimum development related to the culprit identity until the last chunk of episodes it picked itself up again. The cast was fine but both female leads were lacking in many areas. Both in regard of their performance and character writing. Anyway, not a fan of the ending either.

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Fine...

Extremely slow and full of endlessly recycled events, 64 episodes for two main stories that is Ji Young shenanigans and the search of that brain-dead father. At least it was heartwarming smooth sailing for the leads, not much conflict you only see them love each other for the 100th time. I didn't like how the drama made the female lead as if she came from an alien planet and just started to learn about the human race. On the other hand, the ending left many things unfinished despite this long run, the last episode was dedicated to a 4-years time skip and yet that didn't accomplish much. Why have it then? The drama is fine but it felt empty for a 64 episodes drama. P.S. the leads' kid doesn't resemble them at all!

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Okay-ish

You may think it's a medical drama like any other medical one but it leans heavily on the business/political aspect while being in a hospital setting. So don't expect the typical medical formula of patients/cases every few episodes.

There was a scene where every single doctor and personal in the hospital gathering to watch one operation, who's running the hospital then? The drama failed to keep hold of my attention since it didn't have any interesting elements other than the male lead being a semi bad guy. Some plot lines left unfinished or untouched like the infidelity one. The ending and the last two episodes felt forced to provoke some emotions and leave a stronger lasting impression by the viewers since all the prior episodes were lacking.

The drama had one of the weakest performances I've seen from Lee Sun Kyun. Keep in mind if you wanted to watch it that the remaster version, although it looks slightly better, it chops off scenes from every single episode.

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Lots of talented familiar faces

If you are a first time watcher I suggest grabbing the Bluray version since it got few minutes extra content with every episode + small epilogue revealing a short emotional monologue or just a cute cut of a scene.
I knew what I was getting myself into yet I can't help but feel it's overrated. It's good but not great.

The good: Lots of talented familiar faces, big diverse cast. Great acting. Enjoyable contrast between the leads. Female lead personality reminds me of Han Ye Seul role in Couple or Trouble.

The bad: Long, really long! It takes forever for something significant to happen. Given its length, too much screen time was given to the main leads that the rest feels like less than a support character. You have a big cast full of diverse characters and mini sub stories yet barely anything shown from that. That's something I find modern dramas does better.
Male lead powers are problematic element that only leads to a weaker writing with plot holes.

The ugly: The villain character is just not good. It's the weakest part of the drama. Feels like there is a big contrast between how his character was written and the rest of the script.

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Goong C-

It was a really hard sell when a core part of the plot was the male lead treating the female lead like a piece of shit, combined with the "oh no he doesn't know how to express his feelings", these tropes are better left in fanfiction. The case was even worse due to the absolute lack of any chemistry between any of the four leads, this was the definition of negative rizz. It got even worse, all of the three leading cast Ju Ji Hoon & Song Ji Hyo & Kim Jeong Hoon brought an utterly abysmal joke of a performance, admittedly, this was their first main role and was totally incomparable with their current performance, all of them went to do much better and bigger things, it's better to forget they worked on this drama. On the other hand, Yoon Eun Hye was pulling the entire thing together, solo carrying whatever left to be salvaged. Her dynamic with her friends and family was quite good, but not with any of the leads. The puppets at the end of each episode were a nice touch, it would have been nicer if they incorporated that in the drama itself. The earlier parts of the drama were generally better, the events in the palace were a bit boring. To build up for the climax, the last 4 episodes created the last point of tension however it was seriously atrocious writing, one of the worst conflicts I've seen a writer come up with. It was just pure bad writing from that point until the last frame of the drama. If they slapped in some random terminal illness nuances it would've been a better serviceable finale. If anything, I'm only remembering this drama for its awful last few episodes. At least it was much better than Boys Over Flowers (2009).

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Goong F

How could they ever think this remake was a good idea? It didn't take more than half an episode to know everything you need going forward. Setting the expectations really low from the beginning. They immediately jumped into the premise with little to no build up. Yer a prince, Harry! Deal with it. The setup was bad, the writing was shameful and the characters were garbage. The main cast members were barely functional and their chemistry was a constant struggle that never washed away. The original Goong had a plethora of problems but, in contrast, this remake made me appreciate season 1 for whatever it had .

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