GLAD I WATCHED IT ONCE/KOREAN

This series was fun and the story, even with its sadness, was still nice.  There wasn't anything cerebral but it did have moments of emotional tugging value.  There are the standard cliche characters, however they are not so annoyingly written that I wanted to stop watching.  

Also, bonus points for making me Google Seo In-guk so I could discover that he is also a singer/songwriter and very good at both. 

Full credit for casting and acting.

WOOOOOOOW, this was long! Every part of the production except writing, gets the 8 stars to be considered as 10. The FL is worth her weight in diamonds, I have no idea who she is, but she's brilliant...well done casting! 

My favourites after her are the restaurant owner on the production company's first floor, the ex-con baker and the ML.  I'd watch these four together in series after series after series. 

Two stars off for the vicious, vindictive, and the airheaded, bloody annoying whiners...OH MY NERVES...I hit fast forward through every scene they were in to stop myself from doing the whole stabby stabby thing into my own brain...it would have hurt less.

EDIT:

It's been four months since I watched this and I'd forgotten pretty much everything about it.  I've just tried to re-watch, but as soon as I saw the FL's grandmother (even before she opened her mouth) my hackles went up, I bared my teeth and a deep, threatening growl worked its way up from the core of my being.   It was a struggle to restrain myself from snapping at the old hag and ripping her throat out.   Then the FL's middle sister opened her mouth...all restraint shot to hell.   

If it weren't for those cliche soap opera characters, I would willingly watch this production once a year for the rest of my existence.   I'm angry that this title has to be on this list...way to go writers...argh!

Not awful, so definitely worth a once through.    Even with its flaws, it's still considerably less annoying than a lot of the tripe that is out there now.

I had to fast forward within episodes and skip a few episodes to get through plot lags or cliche infestations.

It get 9 stars because the acting wasn't ridiculous and the writing was for the most part, intelligent.

I have it under this heading, but I think I might watch it again in a few years. 

Given the length of it, I was expecting  a cloying soap opera...it sort of was...but wasn't?  Whatever, I only skipped a few episodes because of boredom due to lag or annoyance due to nonsensical behaviours.

Cliche alert...seriously K-d writers...it's like your entire upper echelon are vicious, emotionally driven, megalomaniacs...WHY?????  

So much talent wasted on so much tripe....argh.

All eight stars go toward acting...  

I'm on the fence about watching it again.

This story is a collection of nasty, unhinged characters fighting over money and power and how that never ends well.

There are too many holes in the plot.   My primary annoyance with this is when characters said or did something COMPLETELY out of character for them to accommodate lazy writers.

The ML's character and those of a few supporting ones were the reason I stayed until the end.  It felt like these characters where written with a level of intelligence that is hit or miss with the rest.

Not awful.  Nothing negative about the casting or the acting.   Too many worn-out chaebal based cliches.

Well, it was another movie that should have been a series.  Everyone did a superb job with their roles and the writing was well done.
Not sorry I watched it, but I probably won't watch it again...because it's a movie.

I almost quit this after two episodes because the lead female detective and the guy in the wheel chair were unnecessarily cold and rude to the people around them...especially toward the FL character, who was never deserving of it.   These types of characteristics are unnecessary to the story, it would have played out as well had they just been distant.  Being distant would have been quite understandable given their backstories.

After two episodes, I skipped ahead a couple of episodes and this allowed me to continue as the annoying writing started to turn toward intelligent and gave the characters some humanity.

I still skipped episodes here and there because this series overall, is quite dark, which is not somewhere I step purposely.  

The acting, for the most part was brilliant, the casting was spot on and the production as a whole was very well done.

Overall this production was well done.  It dragged in bits across the entirety of it, so one star off for that.

Casting was excellent, thus acting followed suit giving us a well balanced set of characters whose stories drew us in.

Is it one of the best, I don't think so, however it is not a great distance from the top.

I'm on the fence about watching it again in the future but I'm glad I watched it this once.

Ahhh, one star off for the cliche annoying best friend of the FL and tyrant mother of the ML...and that there are only 8 episodes...eight is NOT enough.  This story was sweet while keeping the fluff down to a reasonably bearable limit.

I probably won't watch this again because it's too short but I'm almost okay with having watched it once.

Most other viewers will definitely enjoy it thoroughly.

I am enjoying everything about this series...EXCEPT...the TOKEN, CLICHE ADULT THAT ACTS AND SOUNDS LIKE A SEVEN YEAR OLD AND THE HORRIBLE MOTHER...WHY???

Yes, I yelled it because I'm that sick of it, right up there with the vicious mothers, mother-in-laws and chaebols. I FF through all their scenes lest I toss my monitor out the window...that I admittedly don't have because I'm a basement troll.

I realize, that sadly, there are people like that in the world, and that it its quite possible that these scenarios can and do happen, HOWEVER, why continuously stereotype an entire population for the global eye?  

Those characters aside, this is a really good production offering a vignette of the path to the destruction of mental health along with possible ramifications.  

I've watched up to episode 6 and will return when it's done to update.

I found this to be painfully long, and did skip episodes, HOWEVER, some of the characters were just brilliant and made this series worth recommending.

The acting was at such a level that both the evolution and devolution of the characters was seamless.

The story itself (cliches and stereotypical nasties aside) was well written and lead the viewer through a million different versions of political intrigue while maintaining the humanity of those involved...regardless of how horrible they were.

I won't watch this again, but I still recommend that you at least give it a go.

For the most part, I enjoyed this series.   I'm really not a fan of characters that get to be vicious their entire lives and then be forgiven by the person they were so vile toward and then suddenly everything is okay and they get to be a part of their lives...wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.  

Casting was thought out as all the actors did their jobs well.  The criminal twin was so goofy that it felt like he was right out of a slap stick comedy...which made the entire scenario laughable...and not in a good way.  I would have made him a bit calmer and articulate whilst keeping true to his character...this would have made him FAR more believable as a judge and would have given us reason to believe that those around him wouldn't have immediately realized that they were not looking at the same person.   Kinda hard to believe that all those upper echelon criminals were too dumb to figure it out.  

I may watch this again in a few years.

PROBABLY SPOILERS.

Question, does anyone one else think EVERY other platform for watching English subtitled anything is better than watching it on Disney?  I don't know, maybe I've just been spoiled by Viki, and (ugh) Netflix.  Netflix aggrivates me for other reasons, but not whilst watching it.

All stars to be regarded as 10 for acting and production.  Nothing for writing or those that okayed it.

I honestly don't know how I feel about this series.  The acting was fabulous, the story line wasn't awful, but I did guess the secondary baddy almost immediately and the primary one not long after.   Where it gets all wonky is where everyone that helped to turn the ML into the cold walled fortress that he was AND subsequently tried to kill him, got off scot free and were apologized to by the person they tried to kill....And the ex-girl friend while supposedly trying to save the person that loved her more than the world tells him that he meant nothing to her and was off to marry someone else, then turns around and walks away like she's a fecking martyr...and continues to play the fecking martyr...until she gets pissy because he doesn't want her back...WTF?????  

I find it easier to believe that a frog once kissed, will turn into a Ducati Superleggera  before I will even entertain the viability of these characters in the real world.   

I am okay that I watched this once.  The acting was well done and the script wasn't too shabby.  However, because it is so dark and dismal for so much of it, I don't think I will revisit it.  

This is a whole lifetime's worth of sad, misunderstanding and heartbreak.  The last episode has all that too but threw in happy endings for almost everyone in hopes of making up for all the preceding pain, I guess.  I'm okay with having watched it once, but honestly, I was exhausted by constant misery, so this will be a one time only for me.

Ack, another  set of hours passed in debilitating anguish.  It was intelligently written, but I wonder why Netflix is bent on casting Song Kang in these types of roles.  From what I've seen, he appears to have the capacity for a world of different personas, yet here we are AGAIN.   Can he not be in a comedy, or a position of intelligent power, an average guy in an average life, a good friend, a lousy friend, a criminal even.  Can he just once, just once, make it through a series without crying????  It's not wrong to cry, it's a relief mechanism designed by nature, however...I think if you combine all the crying, all of my six children did...it wouldn't add up to what I've been forced to was him do....I am truly tired of this talent being boxed in.

All my angst aside, all of the actors did their jobs well, the story itself was well done and the production overall was presented somewhat intelligently.

I won't watch it again, however, I do recommend it for a once through.

Sigh...I watched this when it came out, but didn't write a review, so I forgot what it was about...I'm making sure I don't forget again.

This story is heart-wrenching.  I absolutely do not want to watch it again... 

Watch it once...

Eight stars count as 10 for the acting, it was believable.
The production itself was well done.

Script...I was left with too many questions at the end.
-What happened to his childhood friend?
- Why was the ML's uncle the only baddie that received consequences for his criminal behaviour?
-The mean girls got off scot free?
-What happened to the crappy board of directors of the school?

There are more, but my time is precious.

Once through was okay but that will be it.

It wasn't awful...I think...sorta...

It found it to be very disjointed, like bad cell reception.

From the beginning, I questioned whether the ML had a split personality...I still don't have an answer.

In 10 short episodes, there is no room for unrelated side events or any type of filler...yet the producers made room for them anyway and we are left with crap we don't need a not a lot of what we do.   So we are left scratching our heads over, well, everything.

It really felt like it was written and produced by an 8 year old whose only exposure to media has been strictly webtoons.  Give it a go, you'll understand.

I won't watch it again...

This was both heart wrenching and heart warming.  The kids were brilliant at their craft.