To have a place to return to is an incredible relief

Ending on a positive and lovely note, the drama's run was sure a rollercoaster of emotions. While at times I felt extreme amounts of hate towards the writer for not having the female lead take very obvious logical decisions, she managed to calm me down by the second half of the drama. The journey of finding herself was beautifully portrayed. Shoutout to Shin Hye Sun, what an actress she is! The sheer amount of emotions she can convey with just her eyes is *chef's kiss*. The cast did an amazing work, especially Jo Yoon Seo, god did I hate her character's guts. Overall a good slice of life drama with great side character arcs, wouldn't go through the pain of watching the first half of the drama again tho.

The Man-Su arc was the best in my opinion XD

Leia Mais

So much wasted potential, it hurts

Looking at the first couple reviews, my opinion seems to be on the unpopular side - I did not, in fact, like the drama.

Having watched just a couple modern c-dramas before, I decided to give this one a try solely because of much I adored Zhao Lusi in Hidden Love and this seemed to be one of her more popular roles. As I progressed into the drama, I started realising that I was not immersed in the story at all. Maybe it was because this was my first historical c-drama ever, but it was so. Here's a few thoughts:

1. Direction : The overall direction seemed extremely all over the place. Scenes would transition very abruptly, the buildup towards certain important plot points was too underwhelming, hell even the climax felt anti climactic. The pacing and development was off, making the viewer feel disconnected to the drama as a whole.

2. Story: I believe that the writing of this show was one of the main reasons everything felt the way it did. The writing did NOT do justice to the characters, or the plot itself. The story shifted directions way too many times, and lots of things introduced in the earlier episodes were left unexplored which is one of my biggest complaints with the show:

For example, the first couple episodes hinted at the complex relationship between the leads, with the FL actively disliking the ML. So much substance could have been added to the show by delving into the leads' collective pasts but alas, it was not.

Hei Fengxi, our beloved ML was introduced as a shrewd, clever and cunning man and while he did technically use his 'cleverness' in the battles etc., he was just ultimately written off as a soft man, with a 'cold exterior', an exterior which was never really shown to us somehow.

The whole reveal of Bai Fengxi being Feng Xiyun could have been written and utilised in a much, much better manner. They could have easily used her identity as an element of surprise in the final battle, but instead we got a flat 'I figured this must have been the case when so and so happened' from both the ML as well as the antagonist, in the damn middle of the drama.

So many interesting relationship dynamics were introduced, but none were developed - INCLUDING THE LEADS'. Well, the entire relationship development of the leads felt very skewed in the first place. We went from them not liking each other, to somehow falling in love - a point we were supposed to decipher from the few 'romantic' scenes we were shown (which were really just half a minute scenes popping out of nowhere with intense eye contact and weird falling into the other's arms and awkwardly poetic dialogues, but that's just the whole 'historic' premise ig).
Also, as much as I detest love triangles, this show could have really done with one considering how bland the leads' whole relationship turned out to be. We got that one random scene with Yu Wu Yuan reminiscing about FL dearest only for it to never be talked about again. We had Hua Chunran, a very shrewd and calculative character who ultimately ended up not having much contribution to the plot - WHY?? The relationship between the FL and Huang Chao was given a relatively larger screentime tho - an entire 5 to 6 minutes! The ML and his elder bro's relationship could have been much better too, so much wasted potential omg.

The writing felt as if they tried to show a healthy relationship between the leads with no misunderstandings, but it just ended up depicting a very boring one.

3. Acting: I have pretty much no idea about c-dramas and actors so I went in without any expectations about acting, except for Zhao Lusi who obviously did not let down. The overall acting was good and even the side characters did a pretty decent job imo.

4. Chemistry: Now here's the thing, I can handle even the shittiest of dramas if the chemistry makes up for it but while I appreciated both the leads' acting, I could not feel that kind of explosive chemistry that could save this drama for me. Obviously they did not feel downright incompatible, I just found the chemistry very mid.

Leia Mais

AMOGUS

High school students play the mafia game. Cool, we all played the game in high school. Except people really do get killed. The mafias killing them are among them and they have to vote out these mafias, who would ALSO actually die. Basically among us in real life - minus the tasks.
Now this is a plot which is bound to attract viewers. Fresh storyline, fresh actors, keeps people on the edge of their seat - it's pretty much set up to become a hit. The only problem that can possibly arise is poor execution. And that is exactly what happened here.

*ACTORS*:
The actors were mostly those I had never seen before (except the one who played Oh Jung Won, who I believe is that one girl from Penthouse). Assuming that it was one of their initial projects, they did a pretty good job. That bully guy tho - he did a really good job pissing me off. Great acting skills fr.

*STORY*:
Boy when I tell you that this drama is a huuuge missed opportunity. It had MASSIVE potential -it started out strong and would have easily become a huge success had it not crumbled in the latter half. It was as if the writer got a really great idea and started writing excitedly, then ran out of ideas on how to further develop the premise of the whys and hows and just.... finished it off. A few things I would like to point out, MAJOR SPOILERS ahead so continue reading only if you have seen the drama in its entirety:

1. The children got used to the game too quickly for my liking. I guess that was required to condense everything in 12 episodes, but they should have dwelled on their confusion, despair and thought processes, which they didn't. They could have made use of that main bully's acting skills when they showed him crying in one of the initial episodes, so that viewers could better understand the shock and distress everyone was going through.

2. What was the point of ML's backstory? To add a little conviction to his very anticlimactic "death"? If yes, then it unfortunately didn't serve the purpose very well.

3. The entire Se-eun situation - The last ep was pretty much dedicated to this and I believe it was supposed to act as an explanation as to whatever happened but it seems pretty half baked and only leaves us with further questions. For instance, how did Se-eun's parents manage to gather those children in the first place? Was it that game notification everyone received? What about those children's parents then? What on earth are they doing? Why are Se-eun's parents also targeting those who weren't even aware about the whole Se-eun scandal? How blinded by revenge were they that they dragged in innocent children to suffer their wrath too? I'm sorry but the whole 'those-who-do-nothing-while-others-are-bullied-and-stay-silent' argument isn't very convincing tbh. What kind of an investigation took place that they could not track down who made that scandalous video? If Se-eun's parents have enough money and resources (so much so that they got into every one of their daughter's classmate's brain to make them suffer), how did they allow it to be swept under the rugs?

4. "Make the bullies suffer as she did" was the whole premise and yet it wasn't carried out satisfactorily. Not once do the bullies connect their wrongdoings to their circumstances, not once do they feel bad about their actions, not once do they regret doing what they did. Instead, innocent children got PTSD from witnessing their friends die, as if having one friend suicide wasn't enough.

All in all, it was a good watch but the ending was SO unsatisfying that it became yet another average drama.

P.S: What's with all those Kyung Jun and Yoon-Seo edits on youtube lmaoo?! Where on earth do people even get such ideas +_+

Leia Mais