Take 3 - Drama Reviews

1. The Virus – This is a medical thriller and takes itself serious. It’s the phobia-inducing kind. The atmosphere is grim, with lots of corruption and unscrupulous people. The characters are static and one-dimensional, it’s not much challenge for the actors, the show visually is dark, with enough scenes when you want to cover your eyes. The thing that made me watch it was the story, which was very realistic and daring. And the ending wasn’t the Hollywood-like everything turns out well in the end, it showed a bigger picture. I liked this drama. Even though I had some issues with the choice of the mastermind’s race in this context. But for exchange the actor did speak well English, his acting was serviceable, it’s not his fault that some of his lines barely had sense. The irony was that while the show was airing it was announced a new flu epidemic in Asia.
2. Heaven’s Order – It wasn’t an exceptional sageuk drama just a fairly good. I would have wanted a lot more cute scenes with the main couple, as the ones in the beginning. Fortunately after the first few episodes were less medical terms, but that was compensated with lot more plotting. So Choi Won had to run and hide, and again, run and hide. I think he lost a few kilos because of that. I like Lee Dong Wook but he wasn’t good in this role, he just can’t do the serious and grave face. But in the comedic scenes he shined. And thank God for the comedy in this show, ‘cause this makes it stand out from the sea of sageuks. I liked the good hearted thieves, and the Red Demon with his ‘slave lady’, their interaction was so cute. My new discovery was Song Jong Ho who is not a newbie at acting but I didn’t saw him before.
3. The Chaser – If you managed to get past the first episode, and you can swallow that cruelty, you’ll get hooked. I admit this show made me cry, the pain of the parents who lost their child looked so real that it touched me. It’s a well balanced drama, the good and the bad are a match for each other. The bad guys’ characters were so well written that I gritted my teeth watching them, and I rooted with all my heart for the good underdogs. I specially liked the realistic ending.
4. Coffee House – I thought it was going to be a regular kdrama Cinderella story, with a not-so-bright heroine and a mean but handsome prince, where the pretty and smart lady will get only his friendship, if she’s lucky. But this show made an exception. The first half was brainlessly funny, I laughed with tears. Jung Woong In was so cheesy and ridiculous in his role, I never thought he could be like this, and when they went against each other with Kang Ji Hwan, that was priceless. However, it’s not a drama that you will remember for a long time.
5. Heartless City – This is a pretty drama. Not only the actors looked good, but the cinematography was gorgeous as well. The story was packed with action, with huge fight scenes, which were slightly unrealistic. It was like a delicious and beautiful cake, it tasted so good, that after a slice I wanted more and more, even though I knew it has too much calories, it’s too much butter, cream and sugar in it. So it wasn’t without flaws, there were too many undercover cops, the baddies switched sides and formed new alliances at every blink of an eye, and the story was going in circles. And I couldn’t stop laughing at the leads’ miraculous healing capacity, now they were beaten up and were nearly dead, and ten seconds later in the same scene they were running and fighting like nothing happened. I liked the characters, and the actors were mostly doing a great job, even though the leading man had the same expression almost the whole drama.
6. Incarnation of Money – The introduction was too long, and when the adult version of Lee Cha Don and Bok Jae In appeared, they looked like from another movie. Their comedic scenes were so exaggerated, that I cringed. What I’m not okay with is the way the film makes fun of an overweight person with eating disorder, and it gives the plastic surgery as a solution. And if you look closely only her face is fat, her body is almost normal. The unintentional fun of this is that Hwang Jung Eum really looks like she had tons of plastic surgery on her face (she admitted only a few). Only in the second half of the drama the main couple starts to behave normal, and that’s when I started to really enjoy the show. And another flaw of the script is that all the schemes went way too smoothly on both sides.

The Virus