Sometimes no matter how great the cast, anticipated the drama, or glowing the review, I end up trailing off from a drama, regretting I ever wasted time on it. The past few weeks I’ve unfortunately come across a few of these hated dramas one after another. Instead of skipping over a full-blown review, I decided to briefly go over what the hell went wrong and why I stopped watching.
Answer Me 1994
*taken from AsianWiki*
Through the characters, drama series follows various cultural events in 1994, including the emergence of Kpop group “Seo Taiji and Boys” and the Korean Basketball League.
What Happened
*Beware of spoilers*
I went into this expecting just as much perfection as Answer Me 1997. I got sucked into that drama helplessly, so I basically showed up thinking I’d get a repeat of the simple teen period piece, just with a different cast and plot.
What I got was a tremendously boring, snail-pace plot without any of the pizzaz and magic cast chemistry that made the Answer Me 1997 so stellar. I mean, I was falling asleep during episodes, easy. I thought the whole cast was too weird and eclectic to nail the effortless camaraderie I was expecting.
It handled all the romances so oddly. Haetae being the red herring to the eventual Samchunpo/Yoon-jin pairing. Sseureki taking EONS to finally confess his feelings to Go Ara, basically torturing her with his presence and their sibling-like closeness while she waited for him to reciprocate her feelings for him. It was eating up the run time and my patience.
Sidenote: I know this sounds super vain, but Jung Woo’s looks didn’t give me any incentive to stick around for this “trash” show (did you get the K-pun?).
The way every character walked all over Lee Il-Hwa’s eomma character was beyond frustrating. I mean, I was more focused on their heinous treatment of her than I was anything that was happening in their day-to-day. Then the poor woman gets pregnant. I can’t take these sad stories that find no empowering redemption.
Lastly, I don’t mind baseball. In fact, K-dramas have a track record of doing pretty well when they involve sports as a major backdrop (e.g., 9 End 2 Outs, Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo). Answer Me 1994 made me hate baseball: it did nothing but slow down everything more, and the emphasis on it didn’t seem worthy of my time.
Easy Fortune, Happy Life [T-drama]
*taken from Dramafever*
Love spans generations in this tale of the one of who got away. Huang Chun Xiang saves the life of a young hunter by treating him with herbal medicine. Despite years of waiting for him and eventually raising her own family, Chun Xiang never loses faith that he will return. Chance brings the man — now elderly and the founder of a successful pharmaceuticals company — and her granddaughter Xie FuAn (Chen Qiao En) together. Struck by her uncanny appearance to Chun Xiang, he swears to give away his fortune to the man who marries her. However, his grandson Yan Da Feng (Lan Cheng Long) is none too happy about the possibility of losing his fortune, but soon learns you just can’t fight fate.
What Happened
*Beware of spoilers*
I had read somewhere that this was a good drama. LIE.
If we set aside the dated filming style/cinematography, the tragic OST, and the initial fated “coincidences” (Fu An meeting Da Feng before they know who the other is), we’re still left with some fugly acting and a predictable and cringeworthy plot.
Lan Cheng Long cannot act, and I couldn’t stop staring at his car crash of a performance. His Da Feng character had anger management issues, sure, but his portrayal of an angry person was comical at best. So extra! What a clown.
Da Feng treated Fu An so ridiculously bad that when she accepted his super random proposal, I almost flipped a table. She is the definition of a future battered woman, and he is the definition of a violent, controlling domestic abuser. He tried to control everything—who she could talk to, where she could go, how she could dress—I was shocked that the show was making this behavior seem perfectly normal or, worse, acceptable. To have Fu An say yes to such a terror was degrading to watch, honestly.
Fu An was also just too naive. She got engaged to the abusive ass hole who also tried to have her killed (not that she knew that last part, but c’mon!). Her chubby little brother was not cute in the least; he seemed like he’d grow up to be a perv.
The true story of Fu An’s grandmother and Da Feng’s grandfather was beyond dismal; it was cruel. That grandpa used her grandma, and now he was using Fu An. Both women just so ignorant and overbearingly gullible. Any instance when that grandpa was being benevolent were overshadowed by his theft of Fu An’s family wellness recipe and deception of that poor grandma (who died in a fire indirectly started by Da Feng, no less!). Not to mention he never loved her. Ugh.
It was already enough to make me stop, but as soon as Da Feng collapsed and was suddenly diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer (given 3 months to live), I kissed this shitty show good-bye. Didn’t get past episode 11.
Andante
*taken from AsianWiki*
High school student Shi-Kyung (Kai) suddenly moves out to the countryside and transfers to a mysterious high school. Getting through unfamiliar experiences, he realizes the meaning of life and love.
What Happened
*Beware of spoilers*
I friggin’ love Kai from EXO—he’s got a baby face and chocolate abs—so I jumped on Andante because it was his first big drama that he was headlining.
Twice in the first episode you could see the boom mic drifting into the top of the frame. What the hell?
Kai’s performance was surprisingly fresh. He reminded me of Park Seo-joon in Fight My Way. Very open in his facial expressions, not afraid to make a fool of himself, etc. It’s such a shame that he wasted his talents on a drama with no substance. Well, there was substance, but it just wasn’t interesting in the slightest. A small town where all the action happens at the local (and somehow filled to capacity) hospital full of the elderly and dying? Nothing against hospital shows or high school new kid dramas, but combining them just made the show SO PREACHY.
The chemistry between our leads was pretty much nonexistent. Kim Bon had RBF (resting bitch face), but it only made her character more distant instead of mysterious. It seemed like Kai was doing all the work trying to act out a really forced romance.
What’s more, I didn’t care at all about Kim Bon’s mysterious past and her bitch of a mother. It makes no sense why she would lie to Shi-kyung about her father still being alive; what was the end game with that? If she liked Shi-kyung she’ll eventually have to tell him the truth, so… ???
The best interactions that livened up the whole show were between Shi-kyung and his sister Shi-young. Their sibling shenanigans were hilarious and believable. On that note, Shi-young was the best character—so fiery and unapologetic. My kinda rebel.
The plot was taking its sweet-ass time, and nothing seemed to be worth sticking around for, so I quit at episode 6.
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