Bat-gwa Bam-i Da-reun Geu-nyeo

There are dozens of K shows on Netflix, maybe a couple of hundred, I am not sure. So out of that many, you really have to search for good ones, and that would be maybe 10% of the K shows out there. I would say this show is somewhere in the middle. It isn't horrible, but it is more mediocre than great.

Korean shows tend to have a lot of screaming in it. I don't know if that is a cultural thing as part of their comic sense, but I find that the more mediocre the show is, the more screaming is heard. In addition, there are a lot of flashbacks in Korean drama, A scene happens and then later on when a character thinks about that scene, you see that scene again, maybe 3 times. This show has more repetitive flashbacks than any other K show I have seen. This happens mostly because the conversations, romantic and otherwise, never get anywhere.

At first I thought that the mother in this was going to be abusive, I now particularly avoid the ones with abusive mothers which seem to be a theme in many of them. I saw some of that at the beginning of this show and it was a bit of a turn off but later on you see that the mom is ok. It isn't as bad as Something in the Rain (the worst K Drama writing that I have seen, so far).

Anyway, I don't like writing where the main characters make dumb choices, like in slasher movies. As crazy as it seems, at the beginning, all the young main character had to do was stand in front of her parents at dawn and they can watch what is happening to her, rather than all the avoidance nonsense. The main character as an almost thirty-something comes off as an idiot and even as a 50 year old, she often makes choices that are idiotic. Sometimes her thought processes and course of action makes you shake your head in frustration. Also, why is her older self constantly dancing around, can rock climb, and is so athletic...she doesn't seem to be like that in her youth. Her older self doesn't really seem like the same person as her younger self. A lot of it seems rather contrived and fake.

I found the early scenes with the prosecutor not very smart. When he calls her on the phone, why doesn't he just say that he is the guy that drove her to the police station, so the young lady doesn't think he is another scammer. That is typical in Korean drama, as an audience member, you scratch your head saying "Why doesn't he or she just tell her already!" The scene with the umbrella and the protesters was a bit much. What does the show want to be...slapstick, comedy, silly? The mix of silliness and the serious crime part is odd. I find the crime part much more interesting. This show is not an example of the great Korean series that are out there but it is not the worst either.

That being said, if you don't think too much and don't care that you are watching 16 episodes of people making dumb choices and watching tons of repetitive flashbacks, then it can also be very entertaining. Like most K shows, which can easily be accomplished in just 12 episodes, there is padding. The cat and mouse game goes on way too long. It is usually the last episodes when it starts to move along and head towards a happy ending.