This is yet another revenge story about brothers separated as children who end up by coincidence being closely mixed up in each others’ lives as adults, even though they’re unaware that they’re brothers. I was turned off by Young-dal’s thuggishness and stupidity in the first couple of episodes, but fortunately, he gradually improved, and Kim Jae-joong’s fine acting performance made him a character you end up really rooting for. And Lee Bum-soo’s intensity and utterly Korean sentimentality was always fun to watch. Baek Jin-hee was a total charmer too. Unfortunately, Im Si-wan couldn’t keep up with those superior actors. Also, his character made no sense to me.

The story was gripping and bingeable up until the last quarter or third of the season, where it became really repetitive, with one side attacking the other and the other side responding, and continuing like that over and over. And the plot became more and more ridiculous and difficult to believe. And I got tired of characters who knew they were sitting duck targets just casually going about their lives with no protection or precautions. If this were real life, all of the main characters would have been murder victims like halfway through the drama.

Still, it’s an addictive watch most of the time. Just be ready to increase the playback speed or fast forward a lot during the latter part of the series.