Thursday, August 7, 2014

It's Okay, That's Love - First Impressions


I would have rather posted this last week because then I could have written about Night Watchman this week, but last week I was in Japan, and that was far more important. Sorry, not sorry. I have been really excited to watch this drama because Gong Hyo Jin is my favorite actress after Yoon Eun Hye. Lee Kwang Soo is also in this drama and he is also a favorite of mine. Then, to a lesser extent EXO's D.O is in this drama as well. Other than the fact that D.O is adorable, I didn't really care about him. He's good in EXO, but this is his acting debut so we have yet to see what he is made of.

This is also another drama that I am starting late, but not as late as Flower Grandpas, this drama just aired it's sixth episode, so I am totally caught up. I hate it when all the actors and actresses that I like all do things that sound good at the same time. It also doesn't help that I don't always want to watch dramas after being surrounded by all things Korean all day long.



Seriously though, I'm currently watching King of High School and Joseon Gunman, I need to finish Flower Grandpas, this drama is a few weeks in, then Night Watchman and The Mermaid have both just started. What the heck?! I just want to watch everything!!!!!!

I didn't actually know anything about the story going into it and that can be a good or a bad thing but this time, it was a good thing. Last time I went blind into a drama it was Mi-rae's Choice and anyone who watched that knows how good that drama was (please read that with as much sarcasm as humanly possible).

When I was looking up information about this drama it was after I had begun watching it. It turns out that drama is a re-teaming of the writer and director of Padam Padam and even though I never wrote about it because I watched it before this blog came to be, I absolutely loved it. I have been considering doing a re-watching just so I can write about it. I also found out that this is actually a melodrama. I guess that would make since, Padam Padam was a melo, but it also gave you the warm fuzzies and it had a happy ending. I'm hoping that this drama follows suit. Kim Bum is also in Padam Padam and plays a guardian angel with a mane of glory, that right there should make you want to watch it AND he's freaking adorable 95% of the time.


Now that most of this post is not about the actual drama in question, let's start talking about it!

This drama follows Hae Soo (Gong Hyo Jin), and fellow in the psychology department of a hospital and Jae Yeol (Jo In Sung) a writer who used to write romance, but not writes thrillers and both of them have their issues. She has a strong aversion to intimate physical contact because of her mother's affair and he has a yet unspoken of potential OCD issue that seems to circulate around his bathroom and some sketchy family issues from his childhood. It's a little strange. Practically everyone in this drama is a psyche patient though, so I guess it's not that strange.

Things do take a sharp left turn at the end of episode four which leaves you with a healthy dose of the goosebumps. That is all I'm saying about that though, any more and a whole plot line would get ruined. I can't wait until we learn more about it!

As for the characters, for a drama that has only been going on for six episodes, they all have very developed personalities and stories which is really cool. The characters aren't push overs either which is a nice breath of fresh air. Hae Soo is a smart, pretty, fellow who is very frank about her psychological issues and her own sexuality. Yes, please. We need more females like this in dramas and I'm hoping that this doesn't all go to crap later on and she becomes the annoying damsel in distress. I hate that.


Another character that I want to mention is Lee Kwang Soo who plays Park Soo Kwang. Soo Kwang lives with Hae Soo, her sunbae, and Joo Yeol who also comes to live with them. What makes Soo Kwang interesting is that he has Tourette's Syndrome. As I was researching, I found something that said that he researched his roll like mad because he didn't want his role to come off in a caricatured way, he wanted to be sincere which I think is very smart of him. Acting as someone with a disability would be scary because you are pretending to have a disability that you don't have and you want it to look real, but you don't want to make fun of that demographic of people. It's a fine line and Kwang Soo is walking it very nicely. Now, I could put in a nice picture of him, but why would I do that when this happened it the drama?


So, thus far, I am really enjoying this drama but I am also afraid that it is all going to go to hell soon since it is 16 episodes long and next week we hit the half way point. We can't be happy for too long in a drama, especially a melo.

~ Alora

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