'Iris 2' will be airing soon, and as it has a lot of people I really enjoy watching, I want to watch it. But first, I figured I had to watch this to understand what was going on. After finishing the first episode, I was watching it because I was hooked already, and not solely because of 'Iris 2'. Before I even started watching this, I started its story score with a 10 because it isn't a common type of drama (at least not that I see). No clichés tossed into each episode, no rich mothers who hate the one you're dating, nobody having to dump you because it looks bad for their family's company, etc. That will always get you a good score from me. As for how the story was told, it was enjoyable. It wasn't going by so fast that I couldn't keep up, and it wasn't moving at a pace that had me wanting to abuse the skip button. Every now and then, they would toss in a twist; sometimes they were predictable, and sometimes I found myself actually being surprised. The action scenes would keep me on the edge of my seat almost every time, wondering what might happen next. 'Iris' has, without a doubt, my favorite fight between two females as of right now. And one of my favorite kisses in a drama as well. The acting/cast for this show was amazing. Absolutely amazing. The chemistry was working in all the right places for me. Friendships being made, enemies being discovered, people falling love, etc. were all great to watch in action. This was the first time I had seen Lee Byung Hun in anything (but can I just say that I had a serious fanboy moment when I saw that we shared the same birthday?), but I found myself loving him instantly. He makes these facial expressions sometimes that just make you melt. When it came to his acting in emotional scenes, it would just tear me apart. If that man would be crying, you could assume I'd be crying as well. And his English! Oh jesus, his English is perfect. I would rewind a scene and rewatch it over and over when he would speak English. Kim So Yeon has slowly been making her way up my list of favorite Korean actors/actresses, and this role totally pushed her into my top five. With her, I can't really explain what I was crazy about while watching her. She just had this way with her acting that constantly had me wishing I could just hop over to North Korea and befriend her. Jung Joon Ho has apparently had a guest role in a show I watched before, but since I don't remember that at all, I'm thinking of this as his debut performance for me, and I loved it. He actually looked like he was struggling with trying to be the bad guy while still being good, which I don't often see. Usually people just start off bad or we never really see any kind of transition from good to bad. The only acting I was really unsure of here was T.O.P's. The only time I really seemed to enjoy his acting was when he wasn't speaking. When he was, it seemed, to me, like he was trying too hard to sound evil, and it just wasn't doing anything for me. I was 50/50 when it came to the music. I really enjoyed the music during action scenes, while the songs during every other part just didn't sound good to me. Overall, I started this score off at 10 and took it down two points. While I loved basically all of this, some things just bugged me the whole time. One of the things I couldn't get over was how often they used flashbacks. Even starting from the first few episodes, they happened often, and they were long. Another thing that really bugged me (and bugs me about most action-y shows) is when main characters (and some side characters) use guns. They can hit absolutely anything or anyone, still or moving, when they're just grunts of a more important person, yet they seem to waste clip after clip shooting an important person without ever hitting them once, and it's incredibly irritating.