Melo Movie

Disclaimer: I'm bad at English so I use AI to translate my review.

Summary: Just watch it and let it sink in because, in reality, it's complex and not overly melodramatic.

This series is intricate and tries to tell more than it can fully explain. You can enjoy watching it more than once because there are many symbols for you to decode. If you're a hardcore fan of series that delve into the philosophy of life, you'll love it and want to rewatch it, at least once more.

The romance part is just a way to lighten the heavy nature of the story and serves as a tool for the writer to tell the narrative. In the end, the series tries to take us on a journey to learn about the differences and the subtleties of life's transitions. I think the Male Lead (ML) performed excellently, living up to his reputation, while the Female Lead (FL) was standard. I didn't feel any disconnect in their performances.

I rate this series very highly because I don't see it as a romance series. If you're looking for a good romance series that will make you cry over a romantic relationship, there are definitely better ones out there. But if you're searching for a series that explores philosophical themes of life, this one will definitely be top of mind. It even gives off more of a J-Series vibe than a K-Series one.

I really enjoyed this series. While the title implies melodrama, it is definitely not overly melodramatic. But it is about relationships and contains the full spectrum - new love, broken love, familial love, grief and heartbreak. It will take you on an emotional rollercoaster. And even though it is only 10 episodes long, it does a great job of providing ample time to fully develop each of these sub-threads and seeing them thru to a satisfying ending.

I felt the chemistry between both couples, Moo-bi & Gyeom and Joo-ah & Si-jun was fantastic as was the other relationship pairings - Gyeom & Jun; Gyeom & Si-jun and even Gyeom/Jeong-hoo and Moo-bi/Joo-ah. I especially enjoyed the short scene in ep8 with Gyeom and Si-jun. I felt they nailed the representation of a long time, close male friendship perfectly in how they interacted in that situation.

That said, I did feel the writers were very lazy with the setup for the tension between Moo-bi and Gyeom. Especially in the confrontation between them in ep2. There is no reason he wouldn't have just explained what happened and settled the issue right away.

I also wasn't thrilled with the all-too-common kdrama 'stalking' trope used in ep1 and somewhat in later episodes. While there was nothing sinister about it, she does clearly tell him to leave her alone several times and he persists in ignoring her requests until finally wearing her down. Not a great example on male / female relationships.

But I recommend just ignoring those details and enjoying everything else in the series. The acting is fantastic and the storyline engaging. Even though it is very early in the year, I feel this will be one of my favorite kdramas of 2025....and if not, that only means we are in for a great year of entertainment.

I love kdramas and I have seen the main leads in other shows and I know they have great potential However, it seemed wasted on this show, the main reason was it missed opportunities to further develop the characters, and needed more action from them. The emotions didn't translate as well and couldn't connect on a deeper level with them, needed a narrative of who they all were in the past. Parents death, brother suicide, relationship broken (this did not need so much air time) - do we/can we fix this or move on? Poorly executed.

To sum it up, they all felt like walking at the same speed - and couldn't tell them apart. Would have liked to see stronger reactions, timings at key points but it was too slow towards the final 5 episodes. Started well then crashed.

A shame as I love the cast.

After reading the 10/10 reviews I am left wondering if those who left the reviews watched the same movie or were friends and family since it wasn't my experience. I was really looking forward to this series and even though it started out slow, it kept my attention early on thinking... this is surely going to get better. Unfortunately, it slowed mostly towards the last few episodes and left me feeling depressed and bored wanting to skip sections. I found the acting wasn't the problem, it was the delivery of the story line and the lack of realism in the characters interactions. There is sections of just them getting on with work and life which was didn't really develop the relationships of the characters and it was very boring. Gyeom didn't speak about his family problems with Moobi as normal people would to promote understanding. Sijun walked all over Jooah to get what she wanted and he just acted like a depressed puppy and unrealistically he let her. Unfortunately I can't get my time back but I can without a doubt say that I regret not turning it off sooner. It just didn't improve. Maybe I'm just not into depressing, sad, slow shows but that's the only way I can describe it, all the way through. There is no feel good, no realistic character development and it's a shame since the story line could've been so much more. I would rather watch paint dry than watch this series again.

Love the main actors- but very slow start and slow development of characters. Story-line was good, but seemed to take a long time to get there. Not sure about main character's chemistry-seemed more like "friend" vibe/connection.

Second lead's romance had better "romantic" connection but got tired of male's constant sadness over being left behind, and hard to follow what was really happening between them.

Entertaining though if you can get through first few very slow moving episodes. Held my interest to see where the story would go. Was just a bit more hopeful that this series would be more engaging.