We thought we should write this together because Kidge watched the show from the day it started airing, whereas I waited for the entire series to air (bar the last two episodes) and watched it over the course of three days. Trust us when we say that this had a dramatic impact on our attitude towards the series. So here are our thoughts, take what you will.
Aimes: I definitely enjoyed this series and didn't feel like I had wasted my time at the end of it.
Kidge: I didn't think I had wasted my time as such. I just felt like I had been robbed of what tho show could have been. I was left with slim pickings in terms of character development and really a story line. It's a shame they left all the big drops till the last 48 hours of the show.
The last episode was a bit of a let down after the way they were wrapping everything up in the 19th.
This is what I mean. They wrapped everything up in the 19th episode because the father has a lobotomy and randomly changes his mind, letting everything go that he had spent the past 15 episodes trying to stop. Suddenly it's all 'yay, the Kim Tan and Cha Eun Sung show'. And why were the political dealings of the company left until, literally, the last hour of the show? They had been setting up this titanic battle between the brothers, only to have it never actually occur.
I disagree on that one. I think we did see the battle between the brothers when Kim Tan finally decides he's not just going to roll over for his brother. There was a lovely moment of realisation on his brothers face when that happened. Then Kim Tan swishes his sword, everything goes to crap and he get his face all messed up. Titanic battle over.
I did actually love that moment when Kim Tan basically says 'I have loved you for the past 18 years and you have never loved me back! So screw you!' Run out, slam the door and have a cry like a 15 year old girl. I feel for you Tan, I really do.
One of the differences we realised when talking about this show was that Kidge had a very different view on how often we saw certain characters.
Yeah. I frequently felt like most of the secondary characters that I actually enjoyed spending time with had about 2 minutes of air time every week, if they were lucky. I was always pleasantly surprised to see Bo-na and Chang-young gracing my screens.
Loving the functional, dysfunctional relationship. Agreed. Highlight of the show.
I did think there was some good character development. (Like what?) I feel like I will mostly want to talk about Young-do, because who doesn't love talking about him? I won't deny that some of my love for the character is a little about the actor, but I genuinely thought he was an interesting character, and I totally understand the idea of wanting someone to blame for a crappy situation. I also thought he had great chemistry with Eun-sang, and felt my heart break a little bit every time she rejected him.
I on the other hand felt very little compassion for his character. He deserved to be rejected because he spent the first 10 episodes of their acquaintance terrorising her, tripping her, chucking her in pools and generally being a total jerk. (Wait I need to interject. Wait, wait.) Rejected. (Noooooo.)
I admit that my heart of steel did crack a little towards the end when the writers finally decided to give him a reason for being an ass, and stopped giving him a string of (I'm trying to think of words to describe him but am limited by my attempt to keep this PG) hateful, hateful actions and reasonings for his complete and utter disregard for other human beings.
I think watching his relationship develop with Eun-sang won me over because you could see him becoming a better person, though he sometimes went about it in the wrong way: Note: plan to throw soy milk everywhere, is not actually a good plan. (More like a five year old throwing a tantrum.)
I always hate bullies (ME TOOOOOOOOOO), and it disgusts me to watch them hurt others and have no one stand up for them. (Bystanders are bullies too.) I don't think their reasons ever make hurting others okay, but it gives you more understanding of why they are doing it. He had enough crap stuff in his life that his delinquent ways didn't seem completely unfounded.
I guess I felt like all of this was too little too late. With so many of the story lines of each different character I felt like we spent so many episodes on setting up a plot that we understood in the first five minutes, only to spend the last few episodes actually dealing with the stuff that would have made the characters not only more likeable, but also way more interesting as well. I genuinely felt like there was no plot line for a good ten episodes. That's why the last episode was a series of shots, cutting between the fifteen different story lines they had set up, but only now had a chance to bring them to some kind of conclusion. Result = bad story telling and an even worse pay off for the audience.
This is where watching it all in one go has its perks. Every time I discussed the fact that you hadn't seen Won for a million years, you would say, 'but I only just saw him 2 hours ago'. Yeah that was two weeks ago for me!
Ultimately, I didn't hate this show (as much as it might sound that way from this review), but I just felt that the show didn't live up to it's potential. There were so many great actors, and it could have been a really fun storyline, but every good moment in the show was accompanied by five frustrating ones. I couldn't love the show in the way I wanted to.
I definitely don't see this show as being one of my top favourites, but I know there will be scenes that I re-watch and gifs that I create in honour of the many funny and touching scenes that I had the pleasure of witnessing.
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