Queen of Tears (2024)

did not live up to expectations...

When I first watched episodes 1 to 4 I was shocked because based on the budget and story expectations I had, the plot was cliche and there was nothing engaging...given the deep plots introduced early in the drama I thought those will be the focus point for the drama. But eventually the plot just became messy because they added every single plot possible inside without giving proper closure to some open plots.

Plenty of loopholes, still dont understand how not a single family member went with her to germany for such an important surgery. The car crash and the kidnap and the getting s**t and stuff was so redundant to be honest. The villain's story just ended abruptly after dragging it for 16 episodes....the main plots were barely discussed, why did he want to divorce, why was she so cold to him.

Yes needless to say the acting and the osts are really good, but sometimes if the plot is so obviously not linking, it removes the relatability from the drama making it harder to understand the characters. For example, first half of the drama even though she had few months to live she focused so hard on getting into the trillion group (disregarding her health), the minute she just lost her company overnight suddenly all her desires disappeared??? literally the only person who was fighting back was the aunt. Even the family, how can a director and CEO of such a big company know nothing on how to handle the situation and they just dumped everything on hyunwoo to solve....

anyway i really tried to find why this was so hyped but really it is way too overrated and overhyped.

Leia Mais

Frustrating to watch. Problematic characters. Toxic FL.

The character design is quite problematic. I'm really struggling to understand the FL's mother and brother.

----------Mother----------
Regarding the mother, she's been blaming the FL for her own negligence in supervising her small children, which resulted in a serious accident when the FL was just 10 years old. It's absurd how she continues to openly blame a child for 20 years when it's obvious that the adult should take responsibility. She doesn't just do this in their personal life, but also in their work life, going as far as finding reasons to sue her own daughter, which could harm their family company that's publicly traded on the stock market. And all of this is happening right under the noses of the FL's grandfather and father, who are much more rational and surely wouldn't want their corporation's reputation tarnished. The whole situation is just so unrealistic and absurd.

----------Brother----------
As for the brother, it's unbelievable. His wife deceives him into marriage and even has a child with another man while they're married. Then she flees away with money of her husband's family, only to return after being abused by her child's biological father. Despite all this, the brother unquestionably welcomes her back with open arms, and still loves her illegitimate child as if the child is his own. It's like he lacks any capacity for learning or judgment. It's hard to trust someone like him to run a company at an executive level, yet he holds a high-ranking position in their publicly listed company. How is that even possible?

----------Female Lead----------
And don't even get me started on the FL herself. She gets kidnapped by the villain in a car. And when the ML catches up with them after a violent car chase, succeeding in rescuing her while he's injured, she complies with the villain's gaslighting to say that she voluntarily follows the villain, then she willingly gets back into the villain's car to be kidnapped again. The reason the villain gives her is that if she doesn't go along, the ML will realize her illness is worsening, causing her to mistake the villain for the ML. But later on, the ML still has to break into the house where the FL is being held captive to rescue her once more, and she still has to tell the ML the truth in the end. It's infuriating how easily she falls for such manipulation, especially considering the ML already knows about her illness and its progression.

----------Toxic love----------
Let me address the ML's love for the FL as my last point. I find his renewed affection for her perplexing. While his initial love before their marriage is understandable, I fail to comprehend how he could still love her after enduring a toxic relationship. Despite their troubled history, she continues to resist cooperation, vilify him, withhold her true feelings, and maintain emotional distance. It appears to be a very one-sided effort, devoid of reciprocity. His affection seems solely driven by blind devotion, without any tangible reason or justification. Their past history of love before marriage doesn't seem to influence his current feelings, and the FL's behavior offers little to warrant his continued love. In essence, it feels like he is merely serving her as a servant of love. Such a dynamic doesn't foster a genuine and sustainable relationship in real life, though.

The story's irrational elements are so frustrating to watch. I keep going with it until the end because I'm a fan of the lead actors. However, while the FL's acting is passable, it still comes across as quite stiff to me. I've seen her in 3 series, including 'Descendants of the Sun' and 'Fight for My Way,' and her acting seems to be consistently one-dimensional, and not even the best version of the character she's portraying.

Leia Mais

Starpower shines, while storytelling stagnates

What worked for the show:

Major starpower across the board. Even outside of Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Ji Won, Park Sung Hoon and Kwak Dong Yeon are budding stars of their own and provide reason to tune in.

Strong middle episodes. Once the FL's family moved in with the ML's family in the rural town I was sure it was going to follow the trope of them being arrogant, rude etc, but actually the budding relationships among the family members on each side was the major positive driving force of the show.

Inverting the gender trope of the tsundre male CEO to female CEO. The drama industry needs more badass FLs.

What didn't work:

Over-focus on the antagonist in later episodes when the screentime could have been focused on the main couple overcomming the FL's memory loss. Like many kdramas this one included someone with psychopathy/sociopathy playing an overbearing evil character.

Childhood reunion trope. In this drama we find out that the ML not only saved the FL's life, but also kept her ipod as she was his first crush. I don't think this trope is natural, although extremely common in kdramas with the idea of fated love, but felt completely unnessary and forced.

Poor writing at times and overly convient plot devices. There are several issues with the plot in general, how are we supposed to support a character who actively feels relief when he finds out his partner is dying in a few months. Everything medical is spoken as a matter of fact and that medical science for experimental procedures is exact. The show treats her surgery which is a supposed rare technique with a few academic papers as a 100 percent success rate on curing her terminal cancer and highly likely to affect her memory. Medical procedures, even those not used for dramatic effect, have risk involved and uncertainty.
The certainty of how the medical side was handled made the show feel less realistic. How are the parents not following their daughter who is getting an experimental treatment in a foreign country with likely memory side effects?

Leia Mais

I would not have continue watching if not for both the main leads

-Kim Ji Won is beautiful and owned Hong Hae In but maybe an unpopular opinion- she always feels awkward at cuter roles/scenes. Just doesn't feel as natural. Can see why IU was the first choice.
-Kim Soo Hyun is the same character in every single drama, not saying that he is a bad actor but level up please
-Solid chemistry, carried
-The OST was amazing i love Crush
-Not bad but not as good as the internet makes it to be
-The show peaked from episodes 5-10, struggled to finish,

-Full of emotional fluff o.m.g
-The plot was messy especially in the beginning even though the story is basic, nothing was really being explained well and oops another crying scene
-It became predictable, repetitive, and draggy towards the end episodes 13-16, I skipped a lot; again a lot of lengthy emotional fluff to drag it, eventually cheapening the whole experience yawn
-If you keep lying nobody is gonna believe you, similarly if you keep crying nobody will feel sad anymore. I just think there was a lack of finesse when delivering the emotional scenes be it frequency or timing. It just feels like they are spamming it every episode to get "that" reaction from the crowd. Too much.

-Boy I am mad that the world decided that this kind of kdrama is the best but fine yall can have your opinions, we are just not the same and I know who to filter for my kdramas picks now
-I am lazy to write a full lengthy review because I know this show has a lot of fans and they are just gonna kill me for it, meh done, and onto the next, won't miss this

Leia Mais

Everything-in-one-pan sort of comfort food.

I was trying to work out why this one blew up and got the attention it did. And I don’t think I was the only one, I think the whole company were probably a little surprised too. So what I came up with was that they managed to find the perfect recipe for how to appeal to the maximum number of possible audiences - a producer’s dream. And how, imo, did they do it?

By cherry picking from all the genres and eliminating the potential bitterness before making a judicious blend of sweetness, with a twist of out-of-the-ordinary, that is just sufficient to stimulate almost everyone’s tastebuds. It has the ingredients of a melo without excessive wailing (well it does get a bit wet though, just note the title…); a romcom without cringeworthy comedy (mostly); a makjang without full-blown psychosis (just regular hysteria); a conspiracy without frustrating mystery (but a few too many conveniences), and a slice-of-life romance (plus free homilies) without the plodding reality.

It manages to be a very clever balance of light and dark. Nothing stands out as particularly noteworthy in itself, but put together it becomes great comfort food. Somewhat like all our beloved, over-rated national dishes that tempt the foreigner into disappointment because they expect Michelin stars and it turns out to be your grandma’s cooking.

Overall, it failed to really impress in the creatively inventive/awesome stakes but it delivered a solid script; credible good characters (aside from the ML being ex-special services, puleeeeease…he would have been breakfast); dastardly bad characters and some hearty performances, especially from the leads (and a personal favourite, the shameless rum flip, Grace, played by Kim Ju Ryoung). However it stumbled on the plot front probably because it had too many chickens on the rotisserie. It worked well until about episode eleven, but then the plot began to curdle in certain areas as the focus shifted more to the melo. By the last two episodes, it was shredded and went into makjang meltdown followed by a layer cake of all the genres piled on top.

So, to sum up, if you want the equivalent of a Jamie Oliver everything-in-one-pan sort of meal, you have found it. It’s finger-licking quality with good home grown meat and veggies plus a grating of cheese. Such a thing is hard to achieve so credit to those concerned. It’s the sort of comfort food you’re happy to come home to, but not up there for a gourmet night out or a revelatory culinary experience.

‘Nuff said. There’s already at least 6 pages of “reviews”, posted well before it finished airing!

Leia Mais

Glossy romcom

It's a glossy rom com with very little to cherish tbh so far. The power tripping Fam is just crazy. Enjoying terminal illness of spouse is like a new Kdrama genre or something & that dreaded TRIANGLE whether it's love or hate. ARGH!!!

That Soo Hyun scene saying why am I cute when I drink was the best thing about this drama so far. The wedding scene was Binjin coded so much so that they even called it wedding of the century too.

The outfits that Kim Ji won is wearing is absolutely stunning ? ? ? ? ? so far.

Let's see how it goes later on. So far I won't rate it extraordinarily for what I have seen.

Leia Mais

Boring and overrated !!!

A bit tired of these absurd stories about these "poor" rich chaebol.
A poor script, a drama that relies only on the couple FL and ML A disastrous casting choice, with the father looks as old as the grandfather (Hong family) and the son (ML's brother) as old as the father (Baek family). Useless characters to fill out an empty story. Everything in this drama sounds fake (how can such wealthy people be so naive and stupid?), and due to the lack of content, we're force-fed with repetitive crying scenes, where we are not even able to see the tears roll down on the protagonists' cheeks...

Leia Mais

It is good but not that good!

As someone how has watched kdrama's since 2016 and has watched over a 120 kdrama's and 40 kmovies. I think it is safe to say that I know what I'm tallking a about.
It is good but not that good!
Don't watch it because of the viewer rating:
https://mydramalist.com/article/queen-of-tears-officially-surpasses-the-ratings-of-crash-landing-on-you

Crash Landing is better, if it came out this year instead of 2020 it would have had a much higher rating. A lot has changed in the last years, kdrama's are way popular now then only a few years back.
Back in the day we only had a couple kdrama's a year and a lot where very good, but now there are just too many which also gives us a lot of bad ones.
I mean come on! Who remenbes the days of amazing Kdrama's like "My Mister", "What's Wrong with Secretary Kim", "Mother", "It's Okay to Not Be Okay", "Prison Playbook", "True Beauty", "Mr. Sunshine", "18 Again", "Mr. Queen", "Descendants of the Sun", ...
Seriously the industry felt a lot more honest back then, now it feels like it's all about the money. They are anouncing a new kdrama every hour now its ridiculous now.
I will even go as far as saying that : assuming that a kdrama is better based on percentage of viewer rating is a insult to the industrie and to all the master pieces and the people worked on them really hard.
Queen of Tears is good but not as good as Crash Landing, just because something has a higher viewer rating doesn't mean it is better.
If you are a real kdrama fan you should watch the classics even if they are a couple of years old, instead of watching the hyped up ones.

Leia Mais

IT'S IN MY TOP TEN RIGHT NOW

I need to go and calm down myself after reading a few reviews and now Im gonna try to make a good one with my poor writting skills.

So, even though a lot of people it's calling this drama overhyped, overrated, boring, lack of spark, a flat plot and other adjectives and trying to explain their opinion of why they gave them like 5 stars and even though I know their explanations are completely valid, I must mark them as a biased ones and it's not because I put this drama in my top 2, replacing Goblin it's because I genuinely like it.

First of all, I didn't like this drama at the beginning, just like ton of people in comments say, I stop watching it by episode 2, but I gave it a second chance, so I realize the two fisrt episodes are so slow and lack of emotion, I mean a marriage going though a crisis and the wife being diagnosed with a terminal ill, that was not for me, but after watching a few spoilers of the next episodes I decided to watching again with an open mind this time and OMG, was the best decision I made. I dare to say people who are criticism in comments are the ones who never try to stop criticism the drama.

Even if the storytelling was a little... ¿creative? Its what dramas usually are, very full of fantasy, like you all are mad because the plot wasn't what you were expecting so im gonna explain a bit of my opinions.

First of all, I gotta admit that i wasn't engaged to the drama at the beginning until up to episode 3, but after that, I was sooo engaged and waiting for it every weekend.

I guess I like the kind of dramas where there are a lot of characters and all of them support to each other just lik this drama is.

The plot was good, but it left a lot of things whitout answer, like who was secretary Nam's husband or how many children the main leaders has or if Baek Hyunwoo's sister meet her husband. I would like we would have this answers, but we just can imagine this, just like we do in real life, there are things for what we never got answer.

The characters were so good, a good love story we don't usually have in dramaland and if there where hole plots is because life is like that.

The music I've always said that a good drama must have a very good OST and this one has it. The OST was as good as Goblin, CLOY and DOTS which are my favorite dramas of all time.

The acting was SO GOOD TOO. To be honest I don't have words right now cause I've just finished the whole thing and I'm sensitive because if there is one thing that I dont like about it, was the ending, I don't find necessary that they showed us their death, 'cause for me they ended up dying in 2074, first her and then him. Well that's all I got to say. But I really love this drama, for the laughs and for tears it mades me tear up.

Leia Mais