49 Days

49 Days' premise of a soul from a comatose / brain-dead person having 49 days to find 3 tears of pure love from friends (family excluded) to allow the return from the afterlife intrigued me from the start. The writing of this drama was excellent, every episode had surprises. The production of the drama was also top notch. The acting was the weakest aspect of the drama. The great story trumped some flat performances.

What I liked about the show a) standout character was the Scheduler played to emotional perfection by Jung Il-woo. He guides the soul through the process and has an intriguing story. The actor Jung Il-woo also was riveting as male lead in Flower Boy Ramen Shop (worth watching). b) male lead Han Kang played by Jo Hyun-jae was quietly loving and worked to support the soul's journey. For you Jane Austen fans, he was Mr. Darcy in this drama. c) writer So Hyun-kyung crafted 20 episodes of intrigue, interwoven characters with plenty of surprises along the way. He also wrote Shining Inheritance (2009 kdrama). I preferred 49 days to Shining Inheritance (good kdrama) which I watched strictly for this writer.

What I did not like about the show a) depressed heroine Song Yi Kyung played by Lee Yo-won was hard to gravitate to and like. Her story unfolds during the drama and you root for her in the end, but when the lead character is despondent, it sets a tone. When the soul inhabits her, interest picks up. b) lack of passion from most of the characters. Most of the cast seemed like they were acting in a fog and came across flat. Many of the actors were also in Shining Inheritance and not flat there, so I don't know what happened. Especially villain Kang Min Ho played as tightly wound by Bae Soo-bin. Bae Soo-bin was adorable as Park Jun-se in Shining Inheritance. Must be his hair was so cute in Shining Inheritance and so drab in 49 days. c) twist in the final episode seemed unnecessary but it didn't change my opinion of this fine drama. I'm OK with how the drama ended.

Story: 49 Days is one of those dramas where the story is really interesting even if it was just the first episode. That is what dramas should be. Dramas should pull you in right at the start. The story was unique and very engaging right from the get go. The characters were also written with a lot of interesting shades so that no character looks dull and uninteresting. This isn't a fast moving drama but I thought that the pace was actually really nice. The flow of the story was just enough. I really liked how it gradually showed the story.

Acting/Cast: The acting didn't start out as strong as I would have liked it to be. It did improve a lot as the drama progressed. Some of the acting wasn't as good as the others but overall, everyone did a nice job of portraying their characters. The chemistry between the actors were really good.

Music: It surely doesn't have the best OST or music but there were some nice musical choices that helped the drama especially in some scenes. Some musical choices were a little jarring at first but it gets better as the drama progressed.

Overall: For me, 49 Days is one of the dramas that I will never forget. It is one of the best dramas that I watched because it actually has a really great storyline. It wasn't interesting just because of the actors unlike other dramas. It was interesting because it showed a really unique story.

Warning: this series is developed to make you fall in love with all characters, and the more you'll get to the end the more you'll cry, more and more, and so much even after the end that you won't want to watch anything else for a while. Instead, you will want to watch it again because it moves you deeply inside. In other words this is all about LOVE and SADNESS, i warned you. It will put in your heart a sad weight. If you love sobfests, if you are in the right mood, 49 days will drain all your available tears. Your tears would alone save all the cast! The storytelling, the actors, the music and the direction are so well harmonized and real that you will actually experience mourning.

The story is a marvel of construction and it is amazing how everything fits in and is explained without plot holes. Once you accept the basic premise of borrowing the body all the scenes and dialogue make sense and the complex situations and characters come together logically and seamlessly. It takes concentration to remember who knows what when but it pays off.

Nam Gyu Ri is pretty and expressive and suits the optimistic girl Ji Hyun perfectly. The lead actor Jo Hyun Jae is quite passionate and convincing. The villains played by the stunningly beautiful Seo Ji Hye and the usually good guy Bae Soo Bin are well thought out and sympathetically handled. They are so likeable usually in other roles that it was not easy at first accepting them as the antagonists but this is what made the show so balanced. I love the way that the less financially well off people aren't made to be the good ones and the wealthier ones are not the bad ones. In this way the series doesn't fall into cliches that plague some K dramas. It is realistic that sometimes the wealthier person has good intentions but the recipient of the help is jealous instead of appreciative. This is a fact and should be shown more often.

Lee Yo Won does a good job differentiating her 2 characters the depressed self and the one occupied by Ji Hyun. As a bonus the Scheduler Jung Il Woo is quite memorable and his side story is poignant. The ending is realistic as far as a show like this can get with a nice little twist. Although some may have hoped for a more fairy tale ending.

One of the best written K dramas out there.

49 Days is a pretty decent Korean TV show that aired in early 2011. It's fairly conventional, but it works well enough overall.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Story: Young, perky, carefree, daughter (Ji Hyun) of wealthy family is on her way to getting married when she gets "killed" in an accident. She wasn't supposed to die though (according to this show's take on the rules that govern the afterlife), so she's given a chance to continue living if she can accomplish a seemingly simple task; while her body lay in a coma, her spirit is given 49 days to gather a single tear from 3 different people outside her bloodline who honestly loved her. This should be no problem as she has a new fiancé and plenty of caring friends.

To accomplish her task, Ji Hyun's spirit is allowed to inhabit the body of the person who inadvertently caused her death. This "host" person is just about the most depressed woman on the planet. She slogs through her miserable daily routine, while Ji Hyun possesses her body when she's sleeping. Ji Hyun then sets out with her new body to gather the 3 tears she needs; unfortunately, what she mostly finds are people that didn't really like her, plots to destroy her father & family business, backstabbing lovers and friends, etc.

There's been quite a few of these similarly themed Korean series in recent years (Secret Garden, Queen In Hyun's Man, et.al.), where people occupy 2 different time periods, switch bodies, possess other people as spirits, etc. They're really just semi-creative attempts to tell your typical romantic melodrama, and they're often pretty effective at doing so. There's a lot going on in these shows; with actors playing dual roles and/or multiple story lines all taking place at once, so these shows don't tend to drag along seemingly forever, or force the characters to repeat the same actions over and over again too often.

The actress who plays Ji Hyun is plenty cute and she acquits herself quite well, but she's not the primary star here. The lead role is reserved for the actress who plays the woman Ji-Hyun's spirit possesses on a part time basis; she does a fantastic job considering everything she has to do, and it must have been a great deal of fun to get to play multiple roles with varying personalities. The rest of the cast mostly all put in solid performances; you've got your two handsome male leads who battle for the affection of our young heroine(s), the main female antagonist, and some other secondary characters. There's also the character known as the "Scheduler", who is the embodiment of a modern day grim reaper that gives Ji Hyun her 49 day chance to regain her life. He has some motives for why he's doing what he does, but he otherwise wants to have fun and get his job done while staying out of trouble with his overseers, but he can't help getting more and more involved with helping Ji-Hyun in her efforts as her deadline draws near.

This series comes with your usual plot twists and the typical clichés you'd expect from this KTV genre format; this type of stuff simply cannot be avoided, and it almost got to the point of getting on my nerves as this series ran its course. Fortunately, the story was interesting enough to keep going, and once you're invested, you might as well finish. In all honesty though, it would have been much more economical and streamlined if it was a bit shorter in length. I did find it to be effective and likable for the most part however, and my GF loved it all (except the ending), and she's always a good barometer for the target audience these shows are aiming for.

One thing I must say is that I'm always dumbfounded how the friends I watch these shows with can't foresee what is precisely taking place and what is exactly going to happen. These are some intuitive and well balanced people, but they are frequently hypnotized by these KTV melodramas to the point of stupidity (even though they watch them all the time). It took me little more than an episode and a half to figure out "all the mysteries" and how every plot point would be resolved. My friends insist I must watch these shows in advance, but I don't; I just find it all too predictable. As such, I think this show, and others like it, would benefit by easing up on the foreshadowing a bit; they're already "by the book" by nature, so you don't need to drop extra hints along the way.

On the flip side, when these shows do try to throw some curveballs, they often do so quite poorly. Last minute changes of direction, additional character tie-ins, and forced resolutions are usually the result, and this frequently comes across as just plain clumsy. These shows often get off to a nice running start and hit their stride for the bulk of their run time, then come to a screeching halt as everybody has to scramble around to figure out an ending. This would seem like bad writing, but it's more a result of the time constraints inherent to this medium that you'll just have to live with. This show did come to a conclusion that was a little bit unusual for the norm though, and I appreciated the effort to go in a different direction. Actually, I rather enjoyed the ending, even though no one else I know did.

So, follow along with Ji-Hyun's spirit to see if she can save her family from ruin, discover who her true love really is, help her new found unnie she possesses to come out of her depression and get on with her life, and, of course, get the 3 tears she needs to save herself before time runs out.

Pretty enjoyable & entertaining 7-8 out of 10 star range!...Giving it 8 stars!