December 2023 and January 2024 Drama Reviews January 13, 2024

December 2023 and January 2024 Reviews

A Good Day To Be A Dog

This drama is about Han Hae-Na (Park Gyu-Young) who is a young woman with a family curse that causes the people in her family including her to turn into a dog when they are kissed at midnight and then turn back into a human in the morning. The curse can only be lifted if the person kisses them in dog form but if they kiss a new person it will happen again. Hae-Na makes a drunken mistake and ends up kissing Jin Seo-Won (Cha Eun-Woo) who is a fellow teacher at the school and unfortunately he doesn’t seem to like Hae-Na very much. This drama is based off the webtoon with the same name. I have read the webtoon but it was a while ago and I don’t really remember too many details but this drama definitely felt different than the webtoon, at least to me.

This drama felt really dragged out to me and I think part of the problem was that it was only airing once a week and even missed a week at the beginning and then they seemed to make special episodes on top of it. I really don’t like when they do that and make these filler episodes and they also relied on a lot of flashbacks which I tend to skip over in all dramas. They seemed to hype up this drama to a ridiculous degree when it wasn’t anything that exciting or better than any other drama. I didn’t love the whole backstory of the curse story line, I thought the webtoon was much different in that area as well. I think they should have stuck more to the webtoon then invent their own story. I didn’t love the whole reincarnation plot in the drama and skipped over parts that I didn’t want to watch. For some reason I just had a hard time buying Cha Eun-Woo as a teacher when I have only seen him in roles where he is a student and for some reason I don’t know if it was his character but he seemed really stiff in his role. I noticed some people complaining about his acting skills and just relying on his good looks and that might be the case to some degree but I think it was partly the characters he is playing who are all aloof and don’t show much emotion.

I did enjoy the basic story line of the drama where she is trying to get him to kiss her as a dog and all the hi jinks that happen because of it and it is a very sweet type of romance. The story may flow better as well now that it has all aired and you don’t have to wait so long to get through the drama. It was interesting and the romance was sweet and funny. I thought it was decent drama but not worth the hype of it and had way too many flashbacks.

Perfect Marriage Revenge

This drama is based off a webtoon and it stars Han Yi-Joo (Jung Yoo-Min) who lives a pitiful life as she was adopted by parents that do not love her and treat her badly. She gets married to man that is actually in love with her sister and ends up getting into a car crash and dying but when she wakes up she realizes she has gone back in time and decides to take revenge on her adopted family and the first thing she does is approach Seo Do-Guk (Sung Hoon) and ask him to marry her. This drama is based off a webtoon and I think they stick pretty well to the general story of the webtoon but there is of course some differences but the big picture stays the same.

I think this drama did a good job of telling the story without becoming too over the top like a soap opera even though it definitely is more along the lines of that kind of drama. I liked how fast paced the drama was and there was no boring episodes as something was always happening and lot of plot twists. As I have read the webtoon I wasn’t as shocked by anything in the drama so I think it would be more fun and exciting if you didn’t know how things were going to turn out. The changes that are made I understand some of them because they didn’t have the time like a webtoon and had to speed things up or the character was a bit different because it would give a bigger plot twist later. I enjoyed the acting and the characters. I really don’t have any complaints or nothing stood out that bothered me about the drama. I thought the villains did a good job making us hate them and the main leads did a good job making us love them!

My only complaint was that the drama seemed too short on time like it was somewhat rushed through the drama but it was understandable! I wish the love story could be more developed like they would have more time to slowly open up their hearts to each other as it seemed like they needed more time to tell the story. I also don’t care when dramas need to go into supernatural, going to see a psychic or whatever you call them, I always skip over those parts.

Overall it was pretty good drama if you like romance, revenge and drama!

The Matchmakers

This drama is about Jung-Woo (Ro Woon) who is an intelligent young man that was the youngest to place first in the state examination but he was instead chosen to be husband to the Princess so he wouldn’t be allowed to participate in politics and then the princess ends up dying on her wedding day leaving him stuck unable to remarry or take a government post. It also stars Jung Soon-Deok (Cho Yi-Hyun) who is a widow in a very prominent family but secretly sneaks out and lives the life of a matchmaker under the pseudonym of Yeojoo-daek and has the reputation of being an excellent matchmaker. Jung-Woo gets roped into matchmaking some older sisters that have sworn off marriage and he recruits the help of Yeojoo-daek to help them do the impossible.

I thought it was a pretty interesting drama as it doesn’t just focus on the overthrowing of the King which what seems to be most historical type dramas focus on, I mean that is still a focus in this drama trying to choose the heir of the throne but I liked the whole matchmaking theme and it feels like a more interesting focus. I have to say the whole widow thing and devoting your life to serving the family is one of the most frustrating ideas to think about! I think how they dealt with the problem was stressful and really sad. I really liked the humor and the fun characters in this drama and made it really enjoyable to watch. I don’t know if I really thought there was much chemistry between the main leads, I don’t know why I wasn’t totally buying it but I seemed to enjoy the side characters love stories like the youngest sister’s romance and I also really liked Yeojoo-daek’s sister-in-law’s romance, they were really sweet.

There was also kinda of a controversial match that is made in the drama between a young man that is like 14 or 15 and the woman who was at least over 20. It was just too weird and I don’t like how they did that match, I know some people are saying that it was normal for a young man to get married young but I highly doubt they would be matched with someone older than them. Also I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have chosen the younger sister to be the one to end up with the young man? It would have been less disturbing in my mind. Not to mention the young man looked , sounded and acted much younger I would have thought he was like 12. I just don’t understand this type of writing it seemed highly unnecessary. Also it was kinda insulting when they are saying these men and women are so old and they are in their twenties, it was just laughable but again it was different times.

The ending was good and I was happy that it ended well but at the same time I expected the main lead characters would have had some secret plans and some well thought out plan to get out of the predicament. Instead it was just fly by the seat of my pants and if we die then we die. I was kinda disappointed that Jung-Woo who is supposedly the “smart” guy was doing something so reckless and not even trying to properly solve the problem. I also was confused how the evil character was barely punished even though they were committing treason. I just had higher expectations for the characters and writing of the story.

It was generally a good drama that has humor, romance and tension!

The Deal

This drama is about Lee Joon-Sung (Yoo Seung-Ho) who has lots of regrets and still has debt that he owes and meets up with his high school friend Song Jae-Hyo (Kim Dong-Hwi) who is also in trouble and needs money and he hatches a plan after a night of drinking with another high school friend Park Min-Woo (Yoo Su-Bin) to kidnap Min-Woo as he comes from a rich family.

This is a short series with only 8 episodes about 45 minutes so it isn’t a long series and it is a very tense action-packed type of drama. You keep thinking it can’t get worse than this and then it just keeps getting worse. It is a roller coaster of emotions and you can’t even root for the main characters of the drama and you aren’t even sure how to feel anymore by the end of it. It is definitely full of plot twists and turns. I think if you like thriller dramas you would definitely enjoy this drama. There are many times you think this is it they are going to finally get caught but yet it keeps going. I found Jae-Hyo’s motivation and ideals just don’t really make sense how does he think that he is going to become a doctor after all that has happened and I don’t think money will fix his problems. He really seems like the most delusional of the characters and is not thinking realistically at all.

I just didn’t care for all of the swearing and cursing in the drama it was really over the top for me. At times you just wanted to scream at the characters actions but I can’t say I was disappointed at the end and was actually surprised at how it could all turn out that way. I think if you can get past the cursing and violence it was interesting drama.

The Story of Park’s Marriage Contract

This drama is about Park Yeon-Woo (Lee Se-Young) in the 19^th century who is forced to get married by her family and ends up marrying a man that she knows and he tells her that he a heart disease and apologizes for his family’s deception and dies in front of her eyes. Yeon-Woo then gets kidnapped and gets thrown down a well and when she opens her eyes she is in water and the man who saves her looks like her husband Kang Tae-Ha (Bae In-Hyuk) and ends up asking her to get married to him because his bride has not shown up. She has appeared in present day and doesn’t understand how she has time traveled from her time.

I really enjoy time traveling dramas because it is so fun to see someone try and navigate modern times and it was fun for a while but she adjusted too well to the modern times. She had no problem wearing the modern clothes and all of a sudden can work in a modern office with computers and cell phones. No one was really teaching her anything and yet they didn’t want to spend anytime on that aspect of her character learning the modern ways. I think it would have been way more funny and enjoyable if they spent a little more time letting her get used to the modern tech stuff. It just felt a bit ridiculous as someone watching her having no problems fitting into the culture and actually succeeding on a huge scale.

I also found the plot holes to be aggravating in this drama, they just made up random rules and then all of a sudden those rules aren’t a problem anymore with no real explanation. The mysterious person that would keep showing up but was literally no help and gave them no advice was annoying. For some reason with the inevitable separation of the main couple I didn’t even feel sad for them or have an emotional reaction.It seemed to me that it wasn’t written in a way that I felt the strong emotional tug between the two characters and I felt more of a longing and emotional response to the 19^th Century couple. They really did the 19^th century Tae-Ha dirty though, he really got the short end of the stick and it made me frustrated and upset. The way they ended the 19^th Century storyline I kinda wanted to slap Yeon-Woo for the way she was acting. The plot hole of everyone from the past being in modern times which means there was 2 of everybody but Yeon-Woo and her maid. Why wasn’t there a modern version of Yeon-Woo if everyone else was around. I would have preferred if she never went back in the past but instead would have just fixed the problems in the present.

It wasn’t a sad ending at least but in some ways it didn’t seem like a happy ending in my mind either. Overall it was decent drama that kept me guessing and kept me interested all the way to the end.

Upcoming Dramas

My Happy Ending

It is about a woman who is a CEO of a very successful furniture company and has a wonderful family with her husband and child but she has troubles with a stalker. She find herself being physically attacked in her company and she starts to have doubts about the people around her. She doesn’t know who she can trust as people start acting and looking suspicious to her.

Love Song For Illusion

It is about a crown prince who has two different personalities that developed over the trauma of watching his Father overthrow the royal family that allowed him to become King. It is also about a young woman who vows to avenge her family killed by the King’s hands and she sneaks into the palace one night to assassinate the King but ends up becoming the Crown Prince’s concubine which is down by his different personality.