I finally found this bs drama. I need an outlet for my emotions, because this drama was like a last drop in a short list of failed-to-impress me watches and it was basically responsible for my decade-long rest and almost instilled fear in front of kdramas in general lol.
Now when I'm back as a viewer and joined MDL several great dramas finally subverted my deeply-seeted fear and showed that modern series are different, production/cinematography/stories are all different. There's so much good stuff to watch. Not everything is an unneededly dragged out melodramatic story.

Beats me why I chose to watch it in the first place, when you have no idea what to watch you often may turn your head to what is "popular", my gut tells me that I probably picked it up because of advertisement. After all in the list of failed-to-impress me series was one with.. Lee MinHo? Yes, it's him. Wait.. he pretended to be gay in it or am I wrong? But when I dived into watching I was truly and utterly disappointed. This was the last drop, the peak of disappointment.

So what led me to drop watching kdramas?
I always felt that the acting was wooden, when you had emotional outburst it was like screeching. While I think acting should be more delicate, even for a TV series. Also there was the problem with storytelling and the length of the show. It felt so-so-so-so-so long~ and it wasn't as exciting to support it, thus it ended up being utterly boring too. All long series I call Santa Barbara, because it was the first really long show I was aware of and later when long series became popular (from European countries, now there's a lot of Turkish stuff) I called them all Santa Barbara, because this name spoke for itself. Same with this drama. The premise of it is actually not bad, I mean the exploration of a couple with age difference and she also has a child, of course it's not going to be easy to be together. But it was so long, so melodramatic, so badly executed despite the themes chosen, I didn't feel any chemistry, back in the day on-screen intimacy (kisses) seem to be on a different level, I really couldn't understand why would you shoot how two people just touch each other's lips, then as if the moment is frozen (it's not) you go on with this shot from different angles. Both characters and actors looked so cramped in such scenes. And in general it felt boring. So-so boring.

Part of me was a bit mad about the problem of parents and children in this drama and because our mentality is a bit different and we don't have such excessive "honoring the older generation" thing going on, part of me couldn't process how a young man had to bend under the constant oppression and couldn't do things for the woman he is supposed to love. This is where my mind and this drama seriously conflicted, because to me it felt so much about the mentality, which I couldn't grasp. It's not my turn to comment on another society that lives differently, but as an outsider some of these things feel oppressive and sometimes you feel they're heavily exploited. Doesn't mean that the theme of "I don't like the woman/man you're dating, you should break up" cannot be found here, I'm pretty sure every country has it and sometimes family's disagreement may play a huge role. The big difference is that children here, unless parents insist on it, are pretty much expected to be independent after a certain age and because of this independence children might as well not listen and do what they feel is right for them. The topic of a single woman with a child also left me with dread, because I honestly felt sorry and still do when I found out how women may be treated in S.Korea, especially single mothers. This leaves me with dread, because here people would talk about someone who is like that, but that was like 30+ years ago. Now I know some family stories that will leave all dramas in shame. Doesn't mean many things should be normalized, but I think that single mothers shouldn't be so stigmatized, ostracized and treated like a pariah, who don't deserve love, that's what I thought.
This series also felt melodramatic and sad because everyone around them felt as if they were against their relationship. Family of the man felt he needed to be with a girl they felt more "fitting", drandma of the woman was also not a fan of this relationship. Basically, it was sad, no pay-off for a long time, so much melodrama, so badly executed, yet so much water and too much time spent on it.
I'm surprised I remember this much about it.
But yeah, this and other dramas, including one with Lee Min Ho, I remember him because of his stone face, he just added to the overall impression of poor acting in kdramas, thus I did not want to continue. And my desire to contunie explore Korean series was extinguished at that time. A lot of time has passed (a decade, no kidding) and with emerging trends of doing short videos and uploading to YT shorts (I don't use TT) the desire to watch reignited. And I don't see actually too much bad in such a long pause. First of all I have all the previous shows at my disposal and I can pick and choose, secondly, more modern dramas have better production, directing, storylines and overall quality in comparison.
In the end I skimmed this show and then dropped watching kdramas all-together. Melodrama should be taken in moderation.