168. Yong Pal 용팔이 (2015) Korean

Joo Won, Kim Tae Hee, Jo Hyun Jae, Chae Jung Ah, Jung Woong In, Stephanie Lee

Drama Rating: 3/10     Neck Score: A-

Hmm, what can I say about this drama.  It's nonsense.  There was a time in the middle where I was at least enjoying the crazy mess of revenge.  People were being killed right and left, and the main girl was bat shiz crazy.  That was kind of fun to watch.  But the rest was a little boring.  Then it was extended.  Two whole episodes of nothing.  Absolutely boring and lame, and the whole time I was just hoping that she would die, only I knew she wouldn't, because I had heard it had a "happy" ending.  Well, it did have Stephanie Lee coming back, playing the deus ex machina to force a "happy" ending down our throats.  There are some very interesting dynamics that kept this show from just being a series of painfully obvious tropes strung together with a whole lot of crazy.  Joo Won's character really doesn't do anything but cry the whole second half of the show.  Basically he is a male "Candy" while Kim Tae Hee is the evil chaebol.  He does about as much as Candy and has zero power the entire time.  He rarely gets to act and have it be meaningful, he's just acted on and being pushed around (but he was one of the only actors who could act, there is at least that).  The role reversal was a bit interesting.  The amount of moral ambiguity and justification is ridiculous.  Literally everyone gets away with murder.  Is anyone actually punished in this show?  Not that we see.  Revenge is taken, people are killed, that's about all the justice that is served and there is no justice there.  I loved that the girl went bad guy and killed everyone (except the evil brother's death was lame).  It was so ridiculous how literally everyone died halfway through the show.  But then redeeming her?  No.  Forgiving her?  No.  Him going back to her?  No, no, no, no.  What lame sauce crap was that?  All I wanted was for her to die and him to move on and get together with Stephanie Lee like a year later.  Instead we got two episodes of boring and a lame-a ending.  What utter nonsense.  Boo!

The Summer of Action Dramas: or My Beautiful Bad-A Boys

I feel like the only shows this summer were action thriller types.  Well, the only good ones anyways.  Just kidding, I did watch some romcoms and melodramas, like Warm and Cozy and High Society, but I avoided most of those boring melodramatic looking ones (even if everyone else seemed to like them ok, because no).  But even if there were lots of genres represented, the bulk of the good ones really were action/thriller/psychological/mystery.  And I wasn't disappointed either.  But I do have to admit that I am hankering for a good romcom now... or even a not good one, but I refuse to watch that one starring Ugly Man (aka Virtual Bride with Ryu Soo Young).  I just like mixing up my genres at once.  However, it still seems like the action thriller trend is going strong, probably because they're good.

It makes sense though, because what else will draw you to dramas in the middle of summer... either super cheesy fluff or hard core action.  I like that they went the action route because that meant lots and lots of beautiful bad-a boys.  Rawr.