Fun movie!

Sometimes you want to watch something that will only take a couple of hours of your time. I was concerned at the beginning of this movie, because it didn't suck me in right away, but I'm glad I hung in there. At about the 15-minute mark it really took off.

Kim Young Kwang as Woo Soo Han is really good. He appeared to be such an idiot, but the writers were able to throw in a few surprises that I didn't see coming. I got a couple of clues of his comedic timing in The Secret Life of My Secretary, and there were numerous laugh-out-loud moments in this movie, from him as well as from others in the cast.

The lead actors had excellent chemistry with one another, in an unexpected way. I don't want to give anything away, but suffice it to say, I was glad to hear that they will be making a Mission Possible 2.

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Thank goodness the episodes were short

I don't mind cliches. Actually, to a certain degree, you can't, if you watch Asian drama. Original storylines are few and far between. However, this drama took the typical new girl/most popular boy and ran with it until I felt like I was parked right in the middle of "Cliche Central". He was the most popular boy in school - we get it. All the girls are falling all over him, they are constantly talking about how much they like him, they are selling tickets to win a date with him, and he's given a ring to 99 different girls. To me, this made the girls seem ridiculous and the male lead look like a jerk. There wasn't any evidence to show how he came to like the new girl and why he was willing to give up his playboy ways. I kept waiting for the obligatory "I bet my friend that I could get you to like me, it started out as a joke," but that never happened. Plus, it's a high school drama, but these kids barely ever went to class. There were festivals, planning for festivals, hanging out on a bench, meeting in a secret room, but not much learning going on. Why did she like him? Never really got that either.

I found the acting in this to be bad, especially by the female lead. She spent a lot of time with a look on her face like she was in pain. Was it an editing issue? Sometimes her facial expressions didn't even go with the story line. That was odd.

So, it's an easy and quick watch if you just want something mindless and you don't expect much.

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Is a little chemistry too much to ask?

I found it difficult to suspend disbelief enough to believe that her parents would let her stay by herself to go to school, with Kugayama Shusei living right next door. THEN, there wasn't any build up to their relationship, it was suddenly just there. The main couple was cute together, but I didn't feel any chemistry between them. Poor excuses for kisses, they just looked so fake and awkward. The yelling of the male actors was irritating, it just looks like overacting. Sexism is alive and well in Japanese dramas - the male rating the female on a scale of 1-100, talking to everyone about her looks and lack of boobs - not cool.

Yosuke Sugino as Kugayama Shusei was good. He's got that quiet, deep-thinking thing going on. He was the high point of this movie for me.

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Cute, but nothing special

The male lead was a complete jerk, and I didn't like him talking about sex all the time. It made him seem like too much of a scumbag.

Female lead was written in such a way that she wasn't a doormat, which was refreshing.

The timing of the story was uneven. Not enough for us to see why they liked each other and then the obligatory breakup. I did like her standing up for herself.

I was disappointed in the ending. I felt that she gave up something that was important to her, to be with him. She says at the end that they are high school sophomores?!?! Too much going on for them to be that young. His confession was sweet, and long overdue.

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Easy watch even if you're a scaredy cat

This show had a good premise. I can't watch things that are going to scare me, and I took a chance just because it was a movie. I figured, less chances to be scared. The first few minutes have some scary stuff, but after that it was fine. The concept of ghosts having unfinished business, and a person that can see and interact with ghosts, if it's done right, it can be very entertaining. I'm kind of on the fence about this one. Would it have been better as a series? I don't necessarily think so, because the story was simple and straightforward enough for it to be told in movie form.

I think where this fell short for me was the writing, the directing, the acting, and the sound quality. It felt a lot like I was watching someone's attempts to make a movie for a grade at school. The acting was stiff; however, I don't think that can necessarily be blamed entirely on the actors. The writing and the directing were clunky and didn't flow naturally. Add to that that multiple times the microphones didn't appear to be in the right spot, and this just seemed like the efforts of a beginner team.

It was an okay watch, and I was grateful that it WASN'T a series, because it didn't take up too much of my time.

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Got better at the end

In the middle of the drama, I had to start listing my complaints about what was happening. I never do that, but there was so much I was irritated by. Some of my issues: Soooo many red herrings! Everyone in the whole town is suspicious, and only one person is a culprit. The townspeople seem like cartoon characters, each is more strange than the last. Trying to fit too much in – romance, drama, comedy, thriller, mystery – so much that it doesn’t do any one genre justice. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched something that made me yell at my tv with the implausible things going on. There is a stalker on the loose, but you go wandering in dark alleyways by yourself (every night, it seems). The stalker appears and no one recognizes him?!?!? Her saying, “Let’s end this”. She repeats this in numerous episodes. What are they ending, exactly? They aren’t in a relationship.

Midway through the show, I was thinking that I would probably rate this show a 6, maybe a little higher due to the excellent acting. Upon completion, my rating had to go up. I loved the way they tied up everyone’s storyline and the ending wasn’t totally rushed. It’s been awhile since a drama has made me cry, this one got to me. I got stuck on, how do you move on from a tragedy of that magnitude? I loved the voice over work that let us in on some of the internal dialog of our main couple.
Once we were let in on what happened exactly, the behavior of the townspeople made a lot more sense, and I kind of had to say that I forgave their ridiculous antics from earlier on.

Acting: The acting was good by everyone, though as mentioned before, the townspeople (and her family) were over-the-top. Yeo Jin Goo as Eun Gye Hoon – he does understated very well, because he doesn’t have much facial expression. Expressive eyes, however. And the episode early on where he laughed out loud? So cute! Moon Ga Young as Noh Da Hyun – I love this actress. Her character, I vacillated back and forth between she was full of naivete or she was just stupid. I have to say that her hair bothered me (dyed VERY black). Special mention to Shin Jae Hwi as the stalker – oh my goodness he was excellent and creepy. He had a knack for changing his facial expressions from friendly to dark in just a moment and it made my flesh crawl.
Chemistry: Cute chemistry between the main leads, though, again, too many “let’s break up” moments.

Music: I loved the music. There were some really beautiful songs. But strangely, the standout to me was Unknown World by Janet Suhh – kind of a whispery, nursery rhyme-y scary song played at the end of each cliffhanger episode. I found myself humming that…a lot. I found myself appreciating the music a lot more in the episodes toward the end, when there wasn’t so much going on. It’s a wonderful OST.
Rewatch value: If I need a Eun Gye Hoon or Moon Ga Young fix, I’d watch some of the scenes, but they could have cut this down to 12 episodes to make the writing a bit tighter and the whole drama more enjoyable.

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You MUST suspend disbelief!

Let's talk about the elephant in the room - one person at 18 and at 28 being in the same place at the same time. Personally, I really had a hard time getting past that. I'm all for fantasy, but something about that just didn't sit right with me. Plus, the teenager liking "the teacher" and the teacher liking the student put me off.

The ML was stuck in a place of regret, of things that he didn't do and didn't say as a teen. If given the chance to change things from your past to rectify your life in the present, would you do things differently? And would you really be able to change things, or is your fate already set? This was an interesting concept and gave a lot of food for thought.

My favorite thing was his relationship with his mother. This was a very sweet and touching story arc.

Interestingly enough, when I saw that it was only 10 episodes, I was glad, because I tend to like shorter shows between the longer, more involved shows. However, 10 episodes was too long for this! It could have been a movie, covered all the pertinent points, and they could have gotten rid of all the time of nothingness.

I thought the actors did a good job, my problem with this was the writing.

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Loved the acting of the main leads however, the characters themselves, not so much

All the acting was good. Rowoon as Chae Hyun Seung and Won Jin Ah as Yoon Song Ah were both excellent, given what they had to work with. I liked their chemistry in the brief amount of time that they were actually together. Lots of cute interactions and good kisses. I also loved Park So Yi as Kang Ha Eun, Hyun Seung's young niece. She was precocious without being obnoxious, and I loved their scenes together especially.

Costuming was good, with generally classy outfits worn in the workplace and out and about. I tend to like office romance stories, and it's a bonus when the office workers are tolerable. I would have liked to have worked with these people. Hardworking and supporting of each other.

Here's where my problems came in: Yoon Song Ah has been in a secret relationship with her boss for two years. She finds out (because Chae Hyun Seung sets her up) that her boss is getting married in a couple of months. I'll address the set-up later. So, she's brokenhearted and mad, yet she tells the boyfriend that she wants to end their relationship, not mentioning that she's found out that he's a two-timing slime ball. He is constantly in her face, wanting to get back together, to the point that he should have had a restraining order out against him. You feel sorry for Song because she's supposedly so in love, but then suddenly decides she liked Hyun Seung - I was never able to see the transition. THEN she decides to go work in Europe for five years and they are going to try the long-distance thing. She never has time for him, so she breaks up with him by trampling all over his feelings. THEN she comes back and wants to get back together with him. This woman was so self-absorbed I had a hard time sympathizing with her. Weak woman.

Chae Hyun Seung had his own issues. In the first episode I thought he was so sweet, pining for Song Ah, but when he set her up for her to find out the truth, that really bothered me. Plus, the fact that he sounded like he was threatening her by saying things like, "You'd better show up" and especially when he wiped the lipstick from her lips and told her not to wear it. Once she knew the truth of the deadbeat boyfriend, Hyun Seung kept after her and after her, one minute saying he'd wait for her, and in the next minute wanting to know if she liked him yet. There were times that he was supposed to look like he was protecting her, but I thought his actions were very high-handed.

As for the side couples: I LOVED the storyline for Lee Jae Woon and Chae Ji Seung. He was immediately smitten, and the things he would do to be in her presence were precious.

Lee Jae Shin and Lee Hyo Joo - rat bastard cheating man that is marrying her because he feels he owes his friend a debt? Wants to get up in the world? I don't know and I don't care. But he stayed with her so she wouldn't kill herself? Weak woman.

Kang Woo Hyeon and Chae Yung Seung - You could tell at the outset that he didn't love her in a romantic way. And they stated that he spends ALL his free time with his friend from school. Once they started to address the possibility of him being gay, he blamed everything on the friend. She said she'd stay with him until he figured out who he was. Weak woman. So, she wasted years on this guy, living with him while he tried to find himself. Once he figured out what he wanted and they divorced, all I could think of was the years she wasted. The scenes with their young daughter when she found out they were getting divorced broke my heart.

The storyline with Song Ah and her mother I absolutely hated. Her mother was a complete and total mess and irritated me to pieces. What this storyline just reinforced to me was the Song Ah saw what her father did and so she was never going to make herself vulnerable to a man. That showed why she kept herself slightly apart from men, but on the other hand she seemed to always need to have a man in her life.

I do have to say that I enjoyed the last couple of episodes, though I couldn't quite forgive her for what she put him through. It's very shallow of me to say, but I was able to forgive quite a bit, just because I had the opportunity to watch Rowoon.

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She's a surgeon!??!

I REALLY struggled with this one. First, the female was so self-absorbed it wasn't even funny. She only cared about herself and furthering her career. She was not a likeable character, and everything she did smacked of self-interest in trying to save her own skin. Because everything she did was to benefit herself, I didn't buy the relationship until the very end, and even then, I was unable to point to when she started to like him. This also left me with the feeling that everything she did was a lie.

The male lead, however, was a man stuck in his grief, and the actor did an excellent job. I really enjoyed watching him coming out of that grief, yet he was really able to capture that survivor's guilt. I probably would have rated this even lower, if not for him.

I also took issue with a lot of the medical things. First, there is no way they would let her be a surgeon with the medical condition she had, especially since it's often brought on by stress. Then, the whole thing with the patient in the hospital that this story revolves around (don't want to give anything away) - there is no way the hospital could have or would have let that situation play out that way, and for that extended period of time.

To sum up, worth watching for the male lead actor/character. Thankfully it was a movie and not an episodic drama.

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The power of the internet (good and bad)

Bottom line? In my opinion, this is an okay show to watch when you don't really want/need to be invested in what's going on. The acting is okay and there are no over-the-top evil characters. It was sort of a cute college romance.

Another show about hiding behind the internet/social media. While I don't think it's intrinsically bad, I do find that the anonymity can perpetuate a lot of misunderstandings and create toxic situations (though not in this show, thankfully) including cyber-bullying. I'm finding myself really appreciating show where the people actually talk to one another and there aren't ridiculous understandings.

The show was pretty fluffy, but I felt it suffered from an over-abundance of characters, especially considering its short length. I know who was SUPPOSED to be the main couple, but they often felt like secondary characters. Two of the female secondary actresses looked so much alike I wished they were wearing nametags. There were so many characters, their story lines were rushed, and that kept me from developing an attachment to them. For me, that's an important part of the experience for me. If I don't care about them, why should I watch?

Not to give anything away, when one of the men confessed, I felt that the female's response was terrible! It wasn't like he was a stranger or a stalker. There is no reason to be so mean. It takes a lot of bravery to confess to someone, and that kind of response could traumatize someone for a long time!

I found that I never really did care about who was posting on the internet, so when that was revealed, I STILL didn't care.

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Cute but forgettable

The synopsis sounded good, and it was starring Yokohama Ryusei, so why not? In general, it was sweet, I liked that there weren't a ton of episodes, and there was no angst. The main couple was very cute, but I found it hard to feel a connection with them. Friends, more than friends, roommates, it seemed to change at the drop of a hat. I didn't really feel their chemistry.

Maybe because I'm, "of a certain age", but her constantly being on her phone really bugged me. Living life through your phone screen, while the world passes you by, I don't think there is anything sadder than that. I did, however, like how they treated the juxtaposition of the two main characters - her constantly being on her phone, him not even carrying a phone with him.

I struggled with the triangle as well. It was hinted at early on, but actually entered the picture pretty late in the show. The whole thing made me feel like she couldn't make up her mind.

I liked the housemates concept, learning to live with different personalities, and ultimately becoming a family of sorts.

It's a good, short watch if you just want fluff.

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Don't come for the romance

Lee Jong Suk plays a young many with an attitude that seems he doesn't even care about swimming. Pressure can take enjoyment out of anything. Seo In Guk is a young man that has basically nothing and needs to work for everything he gets. The movie does a good job with the bromance, showing how they become better once they become friends.

Kwan Yu Ri - I felt that her part was poorly written and not very well acted, if I'm honest. I couldn't see how either of them could fall in love with her and she just seemed too shallow.

We get to see Lee Jong Suk's charm, which is always a bonus.
Seo In Guk with physical comedy and over-the-top use of his face and his hands, just wonderful. He does goofy well (as further evidenced by Shopping King Louie and King of High School).

I enjoyed the swimming scenes, as well as the rare opportunity for an overbearing parent to turn around.

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This is a show to be savored, not binge-watched

I tend to be a binge-watcher, so I had troubles with this show at the start. There were so many characters, and so much going on, added to the fact that each character was not too terribly likeable. There seemed to be an abnormal preponderance of evil parents, and I seriously got tired of every character saying something about they wanted to die, they wished they were dead, they almost died, etc. It seemed to me they threw that phrase out too cavalierly.

However, I think that if you slow down and watch one episode at a time, with a breather between each episode, you will quickly get drawn into each story. There are multiple story lines, and the writers were clever in having each character tie to another in a twisty-turny, round-about way. I imagined them sitting in an office with a giant white board, making a flow chart to keep each character straight. As mentioned, there were multiple characters that were not very likeable at the beginning of the show, but as we saw their growth through their relationships with one another, I felt like every person redeemed themself. An advantage to so many episodes - you have a good amount of time to flesh out the characters, and that was done really well here.

This is a melodrama with periods of lightness. There were multiple times that I felt that I couldn't take another tragedy. Kudos to the writers for two particular things - 1) No obligatory time jump, and 2) a satisfying, unrushed ending.

ACTING: First and foremost, Kim Yeong Cheol as Byun Han Soo, and Kim Haw Sook as Na Yeung Shil were absolutely brilliant as the parents of this family. I felt that everyone did an excellent job, but they were standouts. On a basic level, I just love seeing Ahn Hyo Seop in anything, so that was a treat.

FAMILY DYNAMICS: They did a wonderful job of showing this family, warts and all. Each person had their own demons to fight. They showed the strength of the family, and how each person was stronger for being in the family. The siblings often fought like cats and dogs, but at the end of the day, they loved one another and supported one another unconditionally. I loved all the scenes around the table for meals. It was so special to see more and more people come to the table, room being made for them in the family, and there was even a comment about how empty the table seemed when someone was missing. Toward the end, I was so grateful to have spent time with this family.

MUSIC: The music was very melodramatic for the most part, but there were a few good songs, especially as related to the main couple.

REWATCH VALUE: It's too long and my list of "to watch" shows is too extensive to rewatch the show.

NEGATIVES: It is never okay for an adult to use violence on their child (I'm not talking spanking here).

So, if you decide to give this show a try, take your time with it and allow yourself to settle in with the family. You'll be glad you did.

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