Romance is a Bonus Book Review
It's a Monday night, and I can't believe I had the energy to type this post. But I've just completed this drama series, and I've got some thoughts about it.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert in reviewing shows. I'm just an average person who enjoys watching to destress and voicing out my insignificant opinion.
Honestly, this was another one of those typical romance plots with a highly predictable storyline.
The plot revolves around divorcee Kang Dan Yi (Lee Na Young) and Cha Eun Ho, her younger male friend who secretly has a crush on her. After her divorce, Dan Yi struggles to get a house and find herself a stable job due to her age.
In the first episode, there are a few scenes showing Dan Yi's relationship with her child. These scenes establish how the child is a crucial motivation for Dan Yi despite the struggles she's going through. But... the director just decides the child is irrelevant in subsequent episodes and I rarely see the child appearing. In fact, there weren't any scenes of Eun Ho interacting with her child. There wasn't a single scene where he talked about her child or tried to show any concern. This made me feel like the kid was just there for the emotional appeal of how Dan Yi has to go through so many hardships, where one of them was how she's separated from her child. He does help her find her ex-husband, where he forces him to send her money monthly so that she will be able to support herself and her child, but that's about it.
Episode one seemed to be centred around Dan Yi's series of unfortunate events. She gets rudely awakened when her house gets demolished, and she's forced to be homeless. Afterwards, she tries to attend a job interview, but her shoe gets completely trashed on the road. She ends up missing the interview, and saddened by the fact she was unable to postpone the interview, she cries publicly at the bus stop. She dejectedly walks home afterwards, then bam, it starts raining on her. As if that wasn't bad enough, she ends up being harassed by a drunkard at night. I get they were trying to get the emotional appeal of people, but I just felt like it was a little too much.
On the other hand, Eun Ho is a successful editor-in-chief working at Gyeoroo Publishing, but he doesn't know about Dan Yi's divorce and that she has been secretly living in his house. He finds out eventually and lets her stay in his home. Of course, the typical knight in shining armour for the damsel in distress. But not all is bliss in Eun Ho's successful work life as rumours about him have spread due to the disappearance of a famous writer. Some episodes tried to hint about the writer's disappearance, where Eun Ho and Gyeoroo's head, Jae Min, would become sad and mysterious whenever they talked about what happened to the person and honestly, the revelation was disappointing.
But nah, no romance series is ever complete without the second leads. Remember how I said episode one was just a series of unfortunate events for Dan Yi? Well, it's not all that bad, considering she meets the second lead, Ji Seo Joon (Wi Ha Joon), who coincidentally picks up her shoe yet fails to pass it back to her and coincidentally ends up saving her from the drunk man.
He ends up liking her (surprise surprise), and his presence ends up pushing Eun Ho to confess eventually. But with the power of typical romance plots, he too is linked to the writer that disappeared and his first encounter with Eun Ho was rather hostile, making Eun Ho wary of his character.
Hae Rin doesn't know that the woman that Eun Ho likes is Dan Yi. At the same time, Dan Yi thought the woman Eun Ho loved was Hae Rin, so Dan Yi tries to set them up. A messy love triangle (or square). Luckily, Hae Rin doesn't have the role of an evil second lead. I think the way she handles her rejection was quite funny, but she still managed to keep her friendship with Eun Ho.
 |
| Look at that planned clothing colour coordination lol |
But, nothing much happened between them afterwards because most scenes involving them were all those lovey-dovey scenes and how they're going to be there for each other when times get rough. Plus, it got boring for me after a while, and I wasn't as interested as I was when I first started watching this show.
I don't think this was a terrible show, but I also wouldn't recommend it that much.
Of course, some people like this show and I would bet that most of the people like it cause of the cast. Don't get me wrong; I love the cast too, I didn't like the plot. There were a few parts I thought were weird or missing. But, if you're looking for a lighthearted show with a happy ending, this show would be for you. Everyone in the show gets a happy ending, and they all find love so yay.
There are a few things I would applaud about the show.
I guess one thing I found different was that I've never really watched a show about the publishing industry and the difficulties they face. They also did try to portray issues like ageism in the workforce because Dan Yi was often rejected at job interviews because of her age and the fact that she left the workforce previously to become a stay-at-home mum. Plus, at least this show didn't have a mother that disapproves of the relationship between Eun Ho and Dan Yi because of their age gap.
Thank you for reading and I hope this review was useful.
Comments
Post a Comment