Melodia de Esperança (2020)

It was cute!

Listen, I honestly enjoyed this drama a lot. The characters were cute and sometimes all over the place. The chemistry was amazing. The music was fantastic. The plot was a little predictable though, and the ending was okay. I kind of wish it hadn't gone the way it did but there's really nothing we can do about that lol The main leads were so cute though, especially the least actress. It was refreshing seeing a cute, bubbly "rich" girl with good morals. Honestly, I know this may not be fore everyone, but it's just my style. It's not too over the top but it's also not too slow paced. It's just right imo.

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Started out fine, charming characters and was entertaining, but turned into an absolute sh*t show

I have never written a review before, but the ending was so stupid that I had to warn someone.

The first 12 episodes are good, the rest are complete garbage. And there are still useless plot points that don't go anywhere in the first 12 episodes, but the characters are very enjoyable so you shrug it off. But it becomes intolerable after that.

Pointless drama. No communication. Added character out of nowhere with cliché plot. The DUMBEST ending of all time that is an absolute insult to viewer's intelligence. The writers need to lay off the crack. Nothing about what happened those last 2 episodes was excusable.

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"The fact is, they lost what could turn out to be one of the best kdramas of 2020."

The catchphrase I'm going to put on to sum up this drama will be that one.
-
At first, I had the prospect that I was watching a 'My secrect romance' 2, but it was only until the fifth episode that everything changed.

To be aware, I managed to drop in a drama that I was enjoying and that from one moment to another, there were scrambled in the script that did not conquer me anymore. It seems like everything was going well, until... from episode 6 to 16 was just downhill. I literally don't know what really happened!

Or, as I said at the time I watched:
"In the first few episodes, I thought the drama would follow the hype of "my secrect romance" - kdrama 2017, but over
time I realized that it would be inappropriate* to make such an analogy...
After two droppes, I was able to watch and finish! I'm not going to say it was very good, good, or even great, but I sure wouldn't want to watch it if there was that possibility. What was that ending? Does anyone know how to define in a word this ending?!"

~ excerpt taken from the @theletyhapp, on site mydramalist.com

- > Observations

East: 7.0
Set design: 6.5 (places are really beautiful!)
Development: 5.0
Production: 5.0
Plot: 4.0
List: 7.5
Overall rating: 5.0

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Beautiful love story with wasted potential

The protagonists of this drama were the ones who gave light to the plot.
Jun showed impressive maturity to take care of another person while still a teenager, even though he could've made better decisions and been more honest, he was a wonderful person to those around him.
Rara was a very happy female lead, full of light and life, I loved her positivity and her desire to move forward without getting stuck in the past, she really is very strong.
Regarding their relationship, it's one of the most beautiful couples I've seen in dramas. They developed a love so pure and honest, as they both came into each other's lives at their worst moments, each was the light that helped the other move forward. Jun's love confession "I was all depressed, then one day joy came to me and that was you" and Rara's response "you are the lucky charm that came into my hopeless life, thank you for liking someone like me", they squeezed my heart with their feelings.
I'd love for this to have been the end of everything so I could give this story a higher rating, but unfortunately the final 3 episodes arrived and gave a twist to the wonderful love story that was being built.
One of the first plot twists that added drama to the story was the age difference between Rara and Jun, an issue that we knew they had to resolved at some point in the series, but I never expected them to do it so badly.
They could've had them separate while Jun was completing his studies, do a time jump and finally get them together, but the writers came up with the wonderful idea of giving Jun cancer... and to top it all off, faking his death for 5 years to then give us a 1 minute scene where he magically resurrects and Rara immediately forgives him. In any case, if they had decided to just kill him, it would still have been terrible, cause how do they give hope to Rara's life after the death of her father, and then also take away another loved one? They rushed the ending to try to make it "happy", when they shouldn't have made it so melodramatic from the beginning.
But, despite everything, nothing takes away the happiness that the first 10 chapters of this series gave me.
I must admit that I started watching this drama excited for it being Lee Jaewook's first leading role, who did not disappoint at all, his way of acting is incredible, especially the feelings he conveys with his eyes, he really immerses himself in the characters and I believe every word he says, he's too natural.
Despite everything, I'm glad I watched this drama, cause he made me laugh and bawl my eyes out at different times, and I fell much more in love with Lee Jaewook, so I'm looking forward to watching more of his projects.

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If you don't want to be spoiled please go on ?

Let me say one thing... I loved all the episodes up until the last minutes of the last episode. I was expecting the plot to be something other than that, I was super sad about Jun but then the writers took my emotions and threw them into a rollercoaster so in one minute I was extremely happy he was okay but the next I was furious.
I really loved Ra Ra's and Jun's chemistry and of course Ha Young and Seung Gi were my faves laughed with all my heart with their arguments and love ❤️
If i were to watch this drama again I would skip the ending so that I would be less frustrated

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Light and Fun but Suddenly WTF

My 4 categories are Acting/Cast, Writing, Direction/SFX/Music, Entertainment Value.

If I were to rate the 1st half of this drama and the 2nd half separately, the ratings would be very different. Let's just go through the categories and I'll explain:

Acting/Cast: Easily the best thing about this drama. In the beginning, I was iffy about some of the characters. However, well before the end of the drama, I liked every character and enjoyed all of their roles. 1st half - 6/10 ; 2nd half - 10/10

Writing: This category can be broken into 2 parts - character writing/dialogue and story writing. Throughout the drama, the character writing was well done. Everyone had very distinct personalities that felt real. I easily became attached to multiple characters. That being said, I felt the male lead was the weakest in this department, especially in the 2nd half. His character felt like he had the least development. I knew the other characters so well, but the male lead remained fairly mysterious. Although, I also realize this was intentional, but I still didn't like it. Now for story writing...great in the 1st half. I loved the light and fun vibe of the 1st half. It was very charming. My only gripe was the writer's overuse of red herrings to the point of slight annoyance. I also thought the cliché stalker plot point didn't fit in well with the feel of the drama. It was also quickly glazed over like it never even happened, which made it feel even more out-of-place. In the 2nd half, the overuse of red herrings became obnoxiously ridiculous and those cliché out-of-place plot points were, unfortunately, here to stay. How can I put this simply? The story became confusing, unrealistic, and I haven't been so pissed of about an ending since Black. The ending ruined the entire drama for me, just like what happened with Black (which, oddly enough, stars the same female lead). It's as though the writers didn't know how to end the drama and they were fighting with each other and changing their minds every episode. But, what makes it worse, the writers were foreshadowing the ending from much earlier in the drama. It makes me believe that this mess was completely intentional and I'm shocked. And what's even worse, I feel betrayed, emotionally manipulated, violated even -- similar to how the characters in the drama SHOULD have felt about the whole situation. 1st half - 9/10 ; 2nd half - 1/10

Direction/SFX/Music: Almost no complaints here. However, I am reminded of that one scene...the piano on the beach. I was so confused. Very out-of-place scene. Was it a dream, was it a fantasy? I hope so. Regarding the music/OST part, the OST is nothing special; not my cup of tea; it neither caught my attention nor annoyed me. However, the piano music was great. 8/10

Entertainment Value: I got through this drama fairly quick because it was fun and had likeable characters. In the 2nd half when crazy random things were happening, I'm not going to lie, I was entertained and the cliff hangers got me through the drama even faster in the 2nd half. I was extremely curious about how the writers were going to play out this ending. I was hoping the male lead's mom would get some kind of redemption arc. I was hoping everything would come together and make sense. It seemed like it was heading that was until suddenly -- the writers forgot how to write and my hopes were shattered. 1st half - 4/10 ; 2nd half - 6/10

Overall, this drama would get an unweighted score of 6.5/10, technically speaking. But since the ending was drama-ruining, my weighted score would be 3.5/10.

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Flawed characters, flawed families

It would have been nice if this was written as a straightforward love story with the occasional car accident but the characters dropped in from the beginning with traumatic childhoods, abusive parents and power crazy family businesses. Plus deaths, debt and unsuitable spouses. This does seem to be a trend in South Korean drama.
Jun descended like a tortured soul and just oozed past mistreatment. Both the main leads, Go Ara and Lee Jae-wook were exemplary in their roles and their roles were definitely written as two very flawed characters who mad bad decisions a lot of the time and were almost impossible to help. Jun's inability to open up about his past, his family and his illness were clear to see and his and Ra-Ra's relationship was filled with understandable potholes. How many people do we know where one suddenly says goodbye for no reason and disappears?
I know many families where cancer is hidden and treatment undertaken secretly. If people acted rationally, all people would get their cancer treated on time. If Jun was to get cancer we would all have wanted him to tell Ra-ra and for her to stay by his bedside until he was cured but real life is very far from cosy dramas.
The rest of the cast nobly kept humour going through all the difficult storylines. I've scored this quite high because I was upset by the last episode but I thought the screen writer was trying not to mollycoddle us. Odd ending though!

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The ending that keeps on failing

An impossibly bad ending to a very good show . I started bracing myself ahead of time, but there’s no bracing for how bad they ruined it. Had any of the writers ever experienced loss or illness? It’s just hard to fathom how unrealistic this was on so very many levels. you guys really did the cast wrong. The more I think about it, the more upsetting it is to how many ways they made this unrealistic. spoliers below.

I get that because of his age, he might make some bad decisions, But acting like he is so Independent that the adults would do those things was absurd.

And why are you forcing me to give a rewatch value of one or higher?

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