Dropped: You Are My Spring

27 Replies

Given that a number of people have told me that they enjoyed this show, I was expecting to like this one at least reasonably well.

I knew going in, that there was murder in this story, and I also knew that this murder stuff wouldn’t turn out to be Show’s main focus. Instead, the focus would be on the OTP and the mutual healing that they would bring to each other. I didn’t mind the sound of that, and I also enjoy both Seo Hyun Jin and Kim Dong Wook – plus I do have a bit of a soft spot for Yoon Park, who’s our second male lead. All the chips seemed destined to fall in favor of this being a show that I would be able to enjoy, at least reasonably well.

The thing is, though.. try as I might, I couldn’t get into this one – from episode 1. 😅

WHAT DIDN’T I LIKE ABOUT EPISODE 1?

It’s not the murder stuff, really. In fact, by the end of the episode, I actually felt relatively more interested in the mystery stuff, than in our OTP interactions. Uh-oh, right?

1. The dialogue doesn’t sound natural to my ears

This might be a personal thing, because I haven’t heard anyone else complain about it, with this show. I just felt like all the dialogue felt stilted and try-hard, like Show was doing its best to be interesting and quirky, and it was trying too hard, and therefore nothing felt natural. That’s how it sounded to my ears, at least.

I love Seo Hyun Jin, but I felt like Show was trying too hard to make her damaged on the inside and flaky on the outside. The lines assigned to her character, Da Jung, this episode, just didn’t sound to me like they’d come from a real person.

2. Our characters don’t quite seem to behave like real people

That whole meet-awkward on the stairs, where Kim Dong Wook’s character Young Do starts answering Da Jung, when she’s really talking on her phone, was a bit of a stretch. But that’s not a big deal, all things considered.

The conversation I took most issue with, is the one where Young Do starts psycho-analyzing Da Jung, at their first official meeting, at the goading of their mutual friends.

OH MY GOSH. That was so bizarre and rude, I don’t even know what to say. Who does that? Who psycho-analyzes someone that they’ve barely met, as a party trick? And the way he picks on clues that he’s glimpsed in her apartment – which he’s spent all of 2 minutes in – and then draws these strong conclusions about her, saying stuff like she has a fear of relationships that require emotional commitment, and that she keeps attracting trash men, because she’s trying to overcome her childhood misery, is just too much. Surely this isn’t considered sound psychiatry?

Also, the whole scene where he goes to her apartment and inspects the bathroom because of a leak in his office below, is so weird. Who steps on a shower head, in order to tame it, because it’s gone too wild from the high water pressure? Surely he could have just dashed for the tap, regardless of where the shower head was spraying? Dya see what I mean by stuff not feeling natural? 😅

And then there’s the thing where Nam Gyu Ri turns out to be Young Do’s ex-wife. The way her character acts is supposed to be cute and quirky, I think, but it just comes off as really weird, to my eyes. She seems hung up on her ex-husband, and keeps visiting him at his office, and then when they talk at the carpark, she sing-songs loudly, that people don’t think a couple can stay friends after their divorce, but they can. I think this is supposed to be charming. I did not find this charming, unfortunately.

3. The dark murder stuff

I do think Yoon Park is handsome in this, but by the end of the episode, his character Chae Jun is setting off all sorts of alarm bells in my head. Da Jung casually calls him her stalker, and it’s meant to be a joke of sorts, but by the end of the episode, I do think he is quite literally her stalker. The way he stakes out her apartment and the convenience store, and insists on seeing her when she’s just minding her own business, and keeps asking her to date him, when she’s said no, screams stalker to me.

And we haven’t even taken into account how he appears to be possibly involved in the murder that had taken place in the same building. By episode’s end, Young Do is arriving at the conclusion that Chae Jun is a sociopath – and that’s something that I do feel mildly curious to know more about.

However, since I already knew that the murder stuff is definitely going to take a backseat in favor of the OTP relationship, and since I was having so much trouble getting into the groove with all the OTP-related stuff that Show’s served up in this first hour, I already knew this wasn’t a good sign.

SAYING GOODBYE

After taking a break to, I dunno, give myself a chance to be in a different sort of drama mood, perhaps, I decided to give episode 2 a look, in the mild hope that I would take to Show better, on the second try.

On the upside, the dialogue and character behavior to go with, feel marginally (just a bit!) more natural to me, this episode. That’s definitely a step in the right direction. On the downside, I didn’t find myself responding to the stuff on my screen with any level of interest. 😅 This drama world still felt mostly staged and try-hard, and there’s also the thing where the psychiatry in this drama world mainly sounds too pat and textbook, whether Young Do is psycho-analyzing Da Jung as a party trick, or actually treating a patient in his office.

There’s also the thing where I literally fell asleep for most of episode 2’s second half (something which almost never happens to me!) – and then woke up to see Chae Jun kill himself by throwing himself off a building. Yikes. 😬

I did go back to see what I might’ve missed while asleep, and I concede that our OTP does share a nice conversation. Late in the episode (above), Young Do speaks gently to Da Jung and explains what is typically really going on with people, when they claim that they’re fine. I did like that.

However, the murder stuff is proving to be darker than I’d like, and the meshing of the romance with the murder stuff feels rather uneasy to my eyes (so far, anyway). I have enjoyed a few healing romances with a side of murder (like 2019’s When The Camellia Blooms and 2020’s Find Me In Your Memory), so it’s not a genre thing per se. I’m just.. not feeling this one, somehow.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 14 years of drama watching, it’s that you really shouldn’t try to force it, if you’re not feeling it. Since I don’t want to risk hate-watching this show, I’m calling it quits now, rather than later.

At least Show’s gotten lots of love from almost everyone else, by this point, and therefore won’t feel too hurt by my decision..? 😅

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Review: Hometown Cha Cha Cha - The Fangirl Verdict

2 days ago

[…] number of times when I’ve had trouble taking to popular rom-coms. For example, I didn’t take to You Are My Spring and didn’t watch past E1, and I didn’t truly love Run On, nor Start-Up, even though I finished […]

swannn

10 days ago

I continue watching bcs i really want to know what happened to Jung Min. 👀

21 days ago

I watched this for Seo Hyun Jin and she did not disappoint. She was terrific throughout and it cemented my opinion of her as the best female rom com actor working in K Drama land today. Her repertoire of gestures and facial expressions is encyclopedic. Because the show pretty quickly dropped its suspense element that initiated the whole and ran to rom com, and because the support ensemble for the rom com, particularly the effervescent, wonderful Nam Gyu Ri, were so wonderful, and the otp so adorably enacting all the follies and neuroses folks get stuck in trying to hook up, became more endearing with each episode between episodes 3-10, I was quite optimistic that this was going to be a favorite of mine in rom com land.
But all that ceased for me at episode 11 and show ran downhill for me from there. The show writers never could figure out how the eff to integrate the suspense element into the story, and the childhood connections between the main characters reduced to the cliched and overly relied upon K Drama trope of such rather than really becoming something of interest or value. And this made the whole show feel like show writers had an idea early on, but in the filming real time found themselves following a better line to follow given the cast, and then when it came time to reintegrate the whole, they had no idea how to do so as the two aspects of the show were so tonally completely at odds.
And worst of all, when show came to the sexual part of hooking up–these were two characters in their thirties, the woman having been through a few relationships, and the man having been married, albeit it turns out to have been a largely, if not completely, sexless marriage. Show could have explored in the same touching depth it went about the neurotic fears around the psychological/mental aspects of rejection and loss the issue of physical intimacy. Could have been funny, sympathetic, humane, but instead that aspect of their relationship was treated as if this was about 13 year old virgins, and in a rather silly hyperbolic fashion.
Really, I am not interested in prurience, or sex, meaning hopping in bed asap, as a shorthand for the detail good K Rom Coms take in the real world neurotic hangups folks have in hooking up with one another. But I am extremely fatigued with the complete absence of acknowledgement of the issue of sexuality, which could certainly benefit from the typically humane way K Drama addresses all the other relationship issues in their comedies. Rewatching the serious Secret Love Affair has only re emphasized my complete impatience with the bs way in which eroticism, a central aspect of romance, is handled so unnecessarily poorly. This white washing has almost the same effect as undue prurience, ie taking what ought to be wholesome, fun, if passionate, affection between two people who share as well the intimate elements of their psyches with one another, and turning it into something either dirty or so dirty as to be taboo.
Bad writing, lack of plot direction, a cowardly approach to grown up sexuality compromised two very good performances by lead and second lead female actors. Too bad.
But I will say this, after a fairly strong first half of this year, I found many K Drama shows faltering in their lack of direction, plot holes, and hard to sustain pleas for suspension of disbelief. Devil Judge, a show as different from You Are My Spring as one can imagine, comes to mind as a show that could have been much, much better but turned into a hot mess at the end. Bossom like You Are My Spring was awash in cliched tropes that, for me, along with the shrill direction and acting of the child actor in it, reduced the whole to what I consider second rate sageuk. And I have no idea what happened in Hometown Cha Cha Cha, but I dropped it like a hot potato because I could not in the least find the FL interesting or attractive, and here say what you will about the relative merits of each show, I will stick to my guns and say however fetching Gumiho Shin Min Ah was, side by side next to Seo Hyun Jin in You Are My Spring, the former is nowhere in the category, not even close, of the latter.

Indeed of the summer fare, and I have mentioned this elsewhere, I found On The Verge of Insanity far and away the freshest, most delightful, most thoroughly entertaining from start to finish series. The cast from bottom to top was wonderful, the take on the salary person in big companies refreshingly empty of very much cheobol nonsense, and mostly about the workaday folks themselves, the only viable comparison to which I have seen would be Misaeng, a good show but one completely, imo, compromised by the wooden and unappealing acting of its young ML. I thought On the Verge was considerably better than Misaeng, and given the run of disappointing series this past summer think it deserved far more attention than it received.

Bollywood and Kdrama Newbie

21 days ago

Reply to BE

I agree with your thoughts about eroticism in Kdramas. It’s frustrating that physical intimacy between adults in love is mishandled or completely obliterated from the narrative more often than not. You may want to check out Dali and Gamjatang for a surprising and delightful take on sexuality. The female lead initiates the first kiss and makes the first move toward sex. When they do consumate the relationship she is an enthusiastic participant and it’s choreographed as a funny and loving scene. It’s not a romcom for everyone but points to the writer and director for depicting sexual desire in such a charming way.

Carulhein

21 days ago

Reply to BE

I agree with you completely. Just less eloquently 😂. Nothing really floated my boat this year. Even Vincenzo. I dropped it after 6. FL comedic acting was very cringey. And I liked her very much in Be melodramatic. A show that I loved at first was At a distance spring is green, but it also deteriorated a bit to the end. Can’t really think of anything exceptional this year, but I keep watching. So many older shows to love. I’ll watch them again.

Trent

21 days ago

Reply to BE

@BE — I will gently dissent with your take on Hometown Chachacha, but I will not in the least try to argue you away from your guns; I’m perfectly willing to chalk that up to the principle of de gustibus and let sleeping tigers slumber…

And that aside, I have nothing to say but “Bravo” for your exegesis of how much kdramaland in general leaves on the table, so to speak, with its widespread reluctance to deal thoughtfully and with any nuanced depth with physical passion and intimacy in relationships. Like you, I don’t think it requires a tilt to the prurient, so much as an acknowledgment that there’s an essential element to most romantic relationships that deserves more than to be passed over in silence or “left to the imagination.” (I know this is not a universally held opinion, to say the least. As you said on another topic, though, Imma stick to my guns…).

I think there may be small steps at the margins, here and there? I remember watching IOTNBO last year, how genuinely pleased I was, and it’s one of the many things I loved about that production, when the OTP finally shared a realistically, legitimately passionate, desire-filled kiss — the first I’d seen in my kdrama odyssey to date — and unapologetically spent the night together, with no attempt by the show to cover up or take back that they woke up, unclothed, in the same bed together (well, he was down making breakfast by then, as I recall…but still). And none of it was prurient or anything beyond what would get the most anodyne of “PG” ratings.

Anyway, all that is a rather long-winded way of expressing, well-said good sir.

20 days ago

Reply to Trent

@Trent – Would you expound more on how you would like to see Kdramas acknowledge the essential element in romantic relationships? Would you want them to go more for a Western TV route? I like the example you provided from IOTNBO. I am wondering what would you have liked to have seen more from Hometown Cha Cha Cha or any other of your favorites that you found a bit lacking in this area?

I might be the only one in our Patreon group (wait besides me someone else who called it a guilty pleasure, gah, memory!!! Natalia? Paulina?) who made it through Nevertheless (it was the music that kept me hooked as well as both leads) as KFG dropped it in seconds! And they did not shy away from intimacy as it was central the story. I saw an interview with Song Kang and Han So Hee where they watched some episodes together. And I remember Song Kang being totally shocked one of their scenes made it to air. It was a very funny moment.

I remember being a little shocked to see so much intimacy in a Kdrama and then pleased on how well they handled the intimate moments. Then, I learned the Show had a female director and tried begging(totally unsuccessfully) KFG to give it a try again ! LOL!

Its not a great Show, but I found it interesting.

20 days ago

Reply to BE

@BE – Hi BE! I am fairly new here!!!! I wanted to ask you a question and make a comment with a question 🙂

First, I wanted to ask a clarifying question about something you wrote about Secret Love Affair here. And second, I wanted to make a comment with a question about the latest Kdrama fare.

In regards to SLA your wrote – “Rewatching the serious Secret Love Affair has only re emphasized my complete impatience with the bs way in which eroticism, a central aspect of romance, is handled so unnecessarily poorly.”

So my first set of questions are the following; do you mean that you do not like how Secret Love Affair has been handling the intimacy between the two leads in that Show? Its not enough ? Its too tame? Its glossed over? Or they have done well in showing the passionate side in comparison to other shows who generally almost ignore the topic all together except for a chaste kiss.

And second you wrote – “But I will say this, after a fairly strong first half of this year, I found many K Drama shows faltering in their lack of direction, plot holes, and hard to sustain pleas for suspension of disbelief.”

My comment and question – I sometimes wonder if those who are in the creative realms have been feeling creatively tired from what has been going on in the World. I wonder if some of these Shows you mentioned your disappointment would have been better at a different time and place.

Thank you 🙂

20 days ago

Reply to JJ

I think SLA is exemplary, and sorry my way of saying this has confused you. Indeed, since it was one of the first K drama shows I watched, I have been puzzled and disappointed ever since as to how this part of romantic engagement has been dealt with in 99.9% of K Dramas. This is especially so since many of these same dramas do such a bang up job detailing the emotional nuances and challenges of hooking up so well, albeit in part because of the lack of emphasis on sexuality.

Insofar as the latter, my disappointment has had several undercurrents, including my own physical realities. Because of infirmity, I probably watched too many shows and became a bit jaded. But also because I believe the best K Drama shows set such a high standard for all the rest. I could not watch Bossam for example without the recent group watch of Chuno–relatively same time period, and several similar tropes–in mind. The latter was a show for the ages, imo, one of the greatest pieces of filmed work to ever hit the screens anywhere in the world. It was a consummate entertainment, a tragedy, a heroic tale, wildly comedic by turns, with an incredibly able support ensemble that went on and on and on, and a lead role enacted by perhaps the world’s greatest physical actor in the role of his lifetime. The former, to me, by contrast: meh.
But also I have predilections. I do love well done sageuks or historical tales, but the last great one I saw was Nokdu Flower. I liked more recently B level sageuk styled shows like Rookie Historian and The Tale of the Nokdu, each less for their stories and more for the acting of specific characters. More recently, last year I thought The Crowned Clown did a bang up job taking the fine movie (not to mention Lee Byung Hun’s astonishingly good performance) Masquerade and by developing the story turning the show into a top to bottom well crafted series. I appreciated how somehow Kingdom managed to mash up that particularly silly horror trope of Zombies to which South Korean film is so wildly addicted with a hard hitting political indictment making use of the sageuk form. And most of all, albeit the story hardly interested me, thought Shin Hae Sun put on such a spectacular performance in Mr. Queen, I simply loved the show from almost start to finish. I have wanted to like sageuks on Netflix or Viki this year, but honestly ho hum.
With the two guilty pleasure shows of this year, Vincenzo and Devil Judge, both suffered from a problem widespread throughout the history of K Dramas apparently since it is so widely discussed–not knowing how to stick the landing. Vincenzo started out so spectacularly well that its failures in the final four episodes were particularly galling. The whole show pinned itself on the combination of its violent menace being undercut and overthrown by its wildly inventive, surrealistic, and absurdist play on S. Korean broad humor. The final four episodes, however, the violence and menace, far from moving the plot necessarily forward, became cliched, cynical, sadistic, and bitter and the wonderful absurdity of show reduced to comic book caricature.
With Devil Judge, show already having problems with the gratuitous and slimy over the top violent, creepy self indulgences, might still have stayed afloat somewhat if the final episode had not appeared so hastily thrown together, one unbelievable outcome following the next.
Then there was Sisyphus! A big, overblown, sci fi dystopic production which seemed to be a parody of itself from the first moment without the least sense of its own spectacular ridiculousness. Big name actors, big production, really bad. Bad, bad, bad.

Yes I understand dystopia is the carte du jour, and I cannot really say much about Squid Game having only watched a couple episodes, the second of which put me to sleep–I mean Hunger Games meets Red Light, Green Light with a dash of–god how many shows and movies about this do I have to see that class has been an issue for hundreds of years in South Korea, and thus, any old eyes open cynic could use that old stick to poke the dystopic futuristic bear–class warfare thrown in. I might yet still watch the show, so many, including K, not really given to praising such fare, have enjoyed it, but something about its world wide popularity, when shows such as Youth of May or even moreso as I have mentioned On the Verge of Insanity, a very small show, with an excellent, if not star studded, ensemble, taking the stuff of everyday work a day frustrations, and turning it into a kind of refuge entertainment, funny and touching by turns, fly almost completely under the radar. i am glad Vincenzo will not be reprieved, despite how much I love Song Joong Ki in that role, and I am disheartened to hear Squid Games is going to have a second season.

I quite liked Navillera, the wonderful slice of life piece on Netflix this year, albeit I will say for folks who liked Navillera, Dear My Friends lifts the same theme in a heftier package with many more great performances to it. And I quite loved the moving Romeo and Juliet go to the Gwangju martial law massacre riots of the 1980s that was The Youth of May, in which imo Go MIn Si puts on the best performance I have seen all year by a lead woman actor. But here again, I can say that Youth of May could be said to fit into one small corner of the mid 1990s epic Sandglass, whose coverage of that same time and place was far more nuanced and even more devastating, especially in terms of presenting those events in their proper scope.

I had high hopes for You Are My Spring because I just find Seo Hyun Jin thoroughly delightful. But it like a lot of shows I have seen this year have fallen prey to a kind of this is K Drama so you will love it and all its goofy tropes with good actors we can throw into it, not to mention mashing up serial killers with off the wall rom com neurotics mentality. I am not one who says “oh the good old days.” For me this is simply a likely slump, especially as the medium has risen to a kind of international success story. I suspect enough good writers, directors, and actors will continue to produce worthy shows, albeit perhaps one should take this like any other pop culture stream with the understanding cliches and formulas are inevitable, freshness harder and harder to come by, but when it does…how cool is that?

19 days ago

Reply to BE

@ BE – Ahhh got it ! I am tracking now. No need to apologize! It was just me since I have not see You Are My Spring 🙂

I can completely understand if SLA was your first K drama for you to be puzzled and disappointed moving further into Kdramaland. I had watched many other Kdramas until KFG convinced me to give SLA a go and I am glad I did watch SLA. A profound piece of Art that still sits heavy with me today even during the second watch.

I still yet have to see Chuno! Its been on my list and waiting for the right time. I made it through Bossam (Albeit a little exasperatedly)
probably because I have not seen Chuno. And some on patreon made some comments/connections with Chuno when we watched Bossam. I am hoping to gear up soon for a Chuno watch.

Rookie Historian was my 2nd sageuk and loved it specifically as you pointed out for the specific character. I am hoping to start Mr. Queen soon as several and now you have said good things about this Show.

I have not ventured into K Movies as of yet. Looking to change that soon.

I steered clear of Vincenzo and Devil Judge. And was on the fence about Sisyphus…glad I didnt go there now after reading your comments.

I managed only three episodes of SQG and then left swiftly. Not for me.

On the Drama Exchange in Patreon because of Shahz and Sean, we have been watching “On the Verge of Insanity” and love it.

Did you listen to KFG’s recent podcast about SQG she just posted. She talks as well about her thoughts about Season 2 of SQG.

I enjoyed Navillera after pausing my initial watch because KFG sang its praises. I have been waiting for the right time to watch Dear My Friends. I am glad to see your comments on that Show though.

I am not sure if I can muster through The Youth of May even though I do think its an important watch.

Sean suggested Young Lady and Gentleman which I had been eyeing. Its been a hoot as it seems to be going old school with a twist. Its so far light, funny, some fantstic off the wall performances only pros can pull off.

We all go through these slumps I am finding in Kdramaland. Shahz and I just blew through The Bond and Lost and felt berfet at the end of this powerful experience with these two Shows.

We can only hope for more outstanding Shows as we all progress down this Kdramaland experience. I am sure there are many more out there we just do not have access due to regional limitations.

I hope your slump ends soon. As they say about some of the athletic greats – some had more misses than scores 🙂

Its amazing when we find the ones that stand out from the crowd and move us 🙂

Thank you so much for your detailed response to me. I really am appreciative you took the time to get back to me. 🙂

19 days ago

Reply to JJ

Por nada, de nada. BE

J3ffc

21 days ago

Didn’t watch this was but was sort of tempted to, because I have so enjoyed Seo Hyun Jin elsewhere (I note that you have dropped two of her dramas to date – the actor’s hazard of working too much 😉). It’s all good – that just means that I’ll get to “Another Oh Hae-young” that much sooner.

But I did pick up a very useful phrase from the post: “hate-watching”!

Carulhein

21 days ago

I watched this show up to ep 12 and I didn’t dislike it, even though the dialogue was weird. Which is my pet peeve: unnatural dialogue. But by ep 12 it started to really annoy me. So I just didn’t look forward to watching anymore. I still love the actors, but…

Shahz

21 days ago

So I watched this through and I liked elements of it but was meh with the final product. The psychology got so much better as the show went on and actually made a lot of sense.

There was some really nice bits with the ensemble cast.I really enjoyed the second FL who played the actress
but it is exactly as Paulina described it as “stylistically inconsistent mess”.

The issue was the core of the drama centred on the
mystery element ( I normally love a mystery) which was so dull and laboured and I just didn’t care! And the way they wrapped that up was just so odd.

And then the show rolled out the ” final jeopardy ” for the OTP which didn’t feel at all sad because it felt so manufactured. Yes, we all know that OTP will get back together but you still need to illicit some emotion from the show. And I have to admit I never really rooted for the OTP. Didn’t hate them I was just meh and how often can you say that about SHJ plays?

Such a shame as the show did have some positives.

Paulina(@soilseothuaidh)

21 days ago

Hi KFG, I remember giving you a warning about this show, I think in August. 😊 Like others here have mentioned, for me too, it was a stylistically inconsistent mess. I managed to watch it till the end, mostly to try to figure out what the whole point of the show was, but disappointingly, I couldn’t find any.

Shahz

21 days ago

Reply to Paulina

Completely agree!

Anushree

22 days ago

Ah! I binged Ten episodes of this show at one go, staying up half the night! Only ten episodes were out then…..and that’s when I stopped. I am yet to get back to it. I fully plan to however. Ian Chase has been framed in another murder and it’s getting super interesting. Also, the main leads have finally begun dating and the first kiss was …..ah!!! I do get your points though and your articles always make a very fun read! I was intrigued with the Fairy Tale of The Black Kitty which I plan to look up and honestly, I am put off by the childhood angle……every other K drama puts it in…..it’s getting old now. I do loved the lead actor in “Find me in your memory” and I am exploring hid acting in this show. I do agree his psycho analysis of the female lead was extremely rude and uncalled for.

uyen

22 days ago

I also dropped this after episode 2, largely for the same reasons you listed. I actually loved the beginning with the childhood set-up, but somehow just felt kinda bored through the rest of it. It’s a shame – I might pick this one back up at some point just not now! Appreciated hearing your thoughts.

Author

kfangurl(@kfangurl)

22 days ago

Reply to uyen

Ooh, hi5 that we felt similarly about the first 2 eps? 😂 I don’t see myself going back to this one (hence the Dropped post), but I’d be curious to hear how you take to it, if you do end up going back to this one!

Lee Tennant(@leetennant1)

22 days ago

Unlike you, I thought the first two episodes of You Are My Spring were completely brilliant. However, it’s well established that I quite like super stylish, ambiguous pieces with loads of metaphor. I agree with everything you said of course, but for me those elements worked (although Chae Jun is and remains a creepy stalker, no matter what the show tried to tell me later).

It’s kind of a shame that you dropped before they introduced Ian Chase, since most of the first two episodes were more like a prologue. The male lead’s ex-wife also turned out to be a complete delight and is one of my favourite drama characters. But if long term drama watching has taught us anything, it’s that with persistence lies madness and dropping is necessary for mental health.

Author

kfangurl(@kfangurl)

22 days ago

Reply to Lee Tennant

Ooh, how fascinating, that you found these 2 eps brilliant, while I was completely turned off by so many elements. I must not be very good with ambiguity and metaphors! 😂 If you don’t mind, could you share a bit about what you found brilliant about the first 2 eps? I doubt I will ever be able to truly learn how to see things the way you do, but I like to try, heh.

Also, I can imagine the ex-wife becoming a delightful character. The weirdness from E1 had started to settle by E2, and there was definite potential for her character to become endearing, I thought.

Ahaha! Such wise words! “With persistence lies madness and dropping is necessary for mental health.” ~LT, 2021. 😁

Lee Tennant(@leetennant1)

22 days ago

Reply to kfangurl

After I posted, I realised that my comment makes it seem as though I loved this drama. I did in fact enjoy it a great deal but it’s not an overall favourite and I was not a huge fan of how parts of it ended up (in particular the serial killer plotline got increasingly unmeshed from the show to the point where it seemed to be a different drama altogether).

Overall, I described it once as half a van Gogh and half a Dali.

One half was like Sunflowers: vibrant and colourful and artistic but also real. It’s like a hyper realistic rendering of reality but it’s still reality. The other half was The Persistence of Memory, and while it’s provocative and interesting, it’s nonetheless surrealist. It’s bits and pieces of an image representing something that’s just out of mental reach. Melting watches drape dead flesh and you’re supposed to spend an hour staring at it trying to glean its meaning and even if it has a meaning at all.

So the show went frequently from this kind of finely rendered, nuanced and emotionally very real sensibility to strange, disconnected brush strokes of something, but you’re never sure what.

Which is to say, I’d have enjoyed both these dramas just like I enjoy both these artists. Just not in the same frame.

Author

kfangurl(@kfangurl)

22 days ago

Reply to Lee Tennant

LT!! I love your phrase “hyper-realistic rendering of reality” – it is the perfect lens for all the weirdness that I felt in this drama world, but couldn’t quite accept as natural or organic. There’s just something kind of “off” about it, to my eyes, and I’ve wondered why writers do this. And now, I have an answer!! I may not love it, but at least I have a way to understand it. THANK YOU. 🤩

I love your analogy of the show as part van Gogh and half Dali.. that helps me understand the spirit of what you’re expressing, without requiring me to have actually seen the same thing, or even vaguely have the same experience.

Ahh.. To be able to see ambiguity and metaphors like you do, and actually make sense of ’em! 😅

Snow Flower

22 days ago

Good call!

Author

kfangurl(@kfangurl)

22 days ago

Reply to Snow Flower

Oh! Did you drop this one too, Snow Flower??

Snow Flower

22 days ago

Reply to kfangurl

I was fast forwarding a lot, but finished it. I wish I had dropped it earlier. The camera work was really outstanding, but the writing did not work for me.

Author

kfangurl(@kfangurl)

22 days ago

Reply to Snow Flower

Ahh, the beauty of the fast-forward function! 😂

I find that that works best for me, when there’s one main arc that I’m interested in, and a whole lot of other stuff that I don’t care for, like in Jang Ok Jung. I ONLY watched the OTP scenes in that show, lol.

But when it’s the writing at large that doesn’t work for me, there’s no joy, only relief, in using the fast-forward. 😅 Like, there’s nowhere to stop and sit back and enjoy what’s on the screen, y’know? 😝

Your experience makes me feel more confident that I did the right thing dropping this one. 😁