Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Clean With Passion For Now
(일단 뜨겁게 청소하라!! / Ildan Tteugeopge Cheongsohara!!)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

Helloooo and welcome back to a new review! If I hadn’t held myself back a little I would’ve probably finished this way sooner, but in combination with my new job I am trying to discipline myself a little and limit my drama watch activities mostly to my off days.
This series was on my list because it looked cute and I knew both main leads. It turned out to be a very cute romantic comedy, it grabbed me from the beginning and after the slight anticlimax my previous drama gave me, it was a nice refreshing series to watch.

The story is mainly about two people. On the one hand we have Mr. Jang Seon Gyeol (played by Yoon Kyun Sang), the director of his own cleaning company called Cleaning Fairy. He is suffering from severe mysophobia, which means he can’t touch anything or anyone without having to thoroughly clean it first. This makes it hard for him to be in places with lots of people or enjoy daily life activities that are common for ‘normal’ people. He has been this way ever since he was a child. His grandfather was slightly OCD and when Seon Kyeol’s mother left him for a while to go to the States, he was constantly pressed to keep himself clean, otherwise his mother wouldn’t come back to him. This has resulted in how he is today.
On the other hand, we have Gil Oh Sol (played by Kim Yoo Jung), a messy but bright and energetic girl who gave up being an athlete for trying to find a job and live a stable adult’s life. However, life hasn’t been so kind to her, as she lost her mother in a construction accident 9 years earlier and she can’t seem to land a proper job. As mentioned, she is a bit messy and doesn’t really take care of her appearance except for her mother’s death anniversary, when she cleans the entire house and dresses up nicely to show her mother they’re living on well and clean.
Seon Gyeol and Oh Sol meet a couple of times by coincidence, and Seon Gyeol is initially digusted by her – someone so dirty in how she acts, eats, and presents herself. However, after Oh Sol ends up working at Cleaning Fairy since she aces the physical test, he feels drawn to her more and more. Oh Sol is attracted by him as well and after a few pushes and pulls, they get together.
On the side, there is Mr. Choi Ha In (played by Song Jae Rim), a doctor in disguise who becomes Oh Sol’s rooftop neighbor but turns out to have more connection to both her and Seon Gyeol than he reveals.

As I mentioned in my introduction, this drama grabbed my attention from the first episode on. Right from the bat it was funny, crazy, cute. I was positively surprised by Kim Yoo Jung’s growth in acting, I’ve seen her grow since The Moon That Embraces The Sun and Moonlight Drawn By Clouds. Actually I’ve only seen these two historical dramas of her before, so it was very nice to see her as such a modern young lady. She handled the role very well, although sometimes it was very obvious that she was a lot younger than Yoon Kyun Sang. They differ 13 years in real life. Kim Yoo Jung is only 19 years old(!!), yet she pulled off a mature young lady trying to fit in adult society. As for Yoon Kyun Sang, this was the first leading role I saw of him. I did see a couple of his dramas before, such as Pinocchio and Doctors, but he was always a side/secondary character so it was nice to see him as the lead for once (I mean, he has had other leading roles so I guess it’s not ‘for once’, but for me it was).

I think it was a very interesting idea to highlight cleaning as a main topic. At first I was afraid it would be focussed to much on the practice of cleaning, but they managed to keep it as a consistent theme while the romance between Seon Gyeol and Oh Sol played out. I’ve seen other dramas that at a certain point just let go of their theme as the romance took over, and that’s a pity because it’s usually an important asset of the series. For example, in Jugglers, when they made the fear of fire so important for the male lead in the beginning and then after the romance started it was never mentioned again until the last episode and everyone was like ‘oh right, he was afraid of fire, totally forgot about that’. In this case, Seon Gyeol’s mysophobia remained consistent to his character so that was good. It also seemed natural to me that while he tried desperately to get better when he fell in love with Oh Sol, he relapsed after they broke up and it became worse than before. This somehow reminded me a little of I’m Not A Robot, where the male lead’s allergy also had to do with lack of trust in people and once betrayed again, it would come back stronger than before. It almost felt like that with Seon Gyeol as well. Once he fell for Oh Sol, he cared less and less about her messiness and tried to deal with it.
On the other hand, Oh Sol’s character changed a lot. At a certain point, in the latter half of the series, she no longer was that messy girl from episode 1. She started cleaning herself up more, dressing more nicely, behaving more politely… While in the beginning she was a walking mess. She would get completely drunk at night, she would occasionally bother Seon Gyeol and invade his personal space etcetera. But her whole attitude towards him changes when she finds out about the severeness of his mysophobia and immediately tries to adapt to it. In some way I found this a shame, because I really liked her character in the beginning. She went through a similar kind of change as the female lead in Radio Romance – in the beginning there is this unique, individual kind of style to her, and halfway through she kind of remodels/restyles herself to a typical drama female lead.

Also, and this is one of the few things I disliked about this drama – the way Oh Sol treated Seon Gyeol when she found out his family was partially responsible for the accident her mother died in. They were in a solid relationship at that point, they adored each other, and I just found it really hard to believe that she wouldn’t talk to him right after she heard. Because he didn’t know about it either. I was really frustrated by how she handled this on her own. She just told him that she wanted to break up with him because suddenly ‘she was sick of everything’ and refused to talk to him. In the meantime, Seon Gyeol didn’t know shit (pardon my language). Nobody would tell him anything. Everyone suddenly turned on him and he didn’t even know why. In this moment I just felt really sorry for him because he genuinely didn’t deserve to be treated like that.
I found it really unlike Oh Sol to suddenly start acting like this. When you’re in a relationship like that, and you find out something like that, wouldn’t be normal to first confront your partner, see what he knows/has to say about it? It was so obvious from his reaction that he didn’t know anything about it, and I found it really unfair that they would blame him for that.
But I guess that’s how dramaland works, some truth about someone’s family comes out and then automatically the entire family is to blame for it, even the people who weren’t even personally responsible or didn’t even know about it. Anyways, that frustrated me a lot. She just threw him aside, wouldn’t even tell him the truth, and then, worst of all, used his mysophobia as an excuse and a lie to break up with him, just as he was starting to get better. Someone else had to tell her ‘but you know it’s not actually his fault and he’s suffering a lot too’ before she calmed down.
In short: the whole reason for their break-up was invalid and I just couldn’t understand why she kept lying to him and kept holding her feelings back from him even when they’d already made amends. There was no reason at all for them to break up. So the whole drama between them in the last few episodes felt a bit over the top for me, even for a K-Drama. It just wasn’t realistic for me. When you find out something like that of course it puts a strain on your relationship, but that’s exactly why you should talk to your partner and try to figure things out. Using the tactic of instantly and selfishly breaking up just makes me question their genuine feelings for each other. It shouldn’t be so easy to break up with the love of your life. Try to work things out first, please. Don’t just break up, talk to each other and try to figure it out. Because when you do, you’ll find your love is strong enough.

I would like to point out a few characters and their storylines, both to show compliments and critiques.
First of all, Oh Sol’s father Gil Gong Tae (played by Kim Won Hae). He also played the female lead’s father in my previous drama, but in this drama the bond between father and daughter was much more loving in my opinion. For instance, in the issue I mentioned above, Oh Sol’s father’s reaction seemed very legit to me. You find out the family of the guy that’s dating your daughter is connected to the death of your wife, your first reaction would be to tell your daughter to stop seeing him. For some reason, thinking from a traditional mind, I can see that this would happen. But the truth is, everyone just needed time to process it. I think that her father also knew that Seon Gyeol wasn’t to blame and that he was a good guy, but in that moment he was connected to that family and that was all that mattered. But he really did calm down after a while, he still saw how much Oh Sol missed Seon Gyeol and in the end, after consulting his wife (loved this part), he allowed her to start seeing him again. And this is when it becomes clear that the only thing holding Oh Sol back from Seon Gyeol was the permission of her family. I was wondering the whole time why she was still forcing herself to lie that she didn’t like him anymore, but it turns out she needed her parents’ blessing, and mostly her mother’s.
In any case, I really liked her father, he was a really nice guy and he cared really much about his kids.
Oh Sol also has a little brother, Oh Dol (played by Lee Do Hyun), who is a promising taekwondo practicioner who’s striving to make it to the national team. He loses credit one time when his father is attacked and in his anger he punches the assailant, leading to nervewrecking disciplinary meeting which initially goes wrong (it’s also AG Group that’s responsible for this). However, in the end he doesn’t give up and keeps practicing taekwondo and ultimately qualifies for the national team. I liked how Oh Sol encouraged him with her story of how she always regretted giving up athletics.
I also liked Oh Sol’s best friend and later Oh Dol’s girlfriend Min Ju Yeon (played by Min Do Hee). She was a really interesting character. She seemed casual about a lot of things but really cared about her friend’s family and she had good advice. I loved how one time, when Oh Sol spent the night at Seon Gyeol’s she had to lie to her dad that she spent the night at Ju Yeon’s and when calling her Ju Yeon automatically confirmed her story without even knowing what this was about. #friendshipgoals

Now I will switch to the characters connected directly to Seon Gyeol’s cleaning business Cleaning Fairy. I think the concept of this business was that it was a group of good-looking young people who came to clean your place and that’s why it was very popular.
The three guys that Oh Sol becomes close with at work are Lee Dong Hyun (Hak Jin), Hwang Jae Min (Cha In Ha) and Joon Young Shik (Kim Min Gyu), the latter being also a friend of Oh Dol. Dong Hyun is kind of a mysterious character, and this is being stressed by the fact that he sometimes gets phone calls that make him all serious and he needs to take the call somewhere by himself. However, and this was a bit of an anticlimax to me, in the end it turned out he would get calls about his grandmother who was in the hospital. Seon Gyeol had helped him take care of his grandmother after Dong Hyeon was mistakenly arrested and put in jail for a while.
Now there’s nothing wrong with this backstory, but the fact is that this backstory was only a plot tool to make Oh Sol aware of what a good person Seon Gyeol was. Because the story of Dong Hyun’s grandmother wasn’t used for anything else. After hearing how Seon Gyeol helped him out, Oh Sol is suddenly like ‘omg he really is a good person’. So it didn’t really contribute anything else to the series, just to bringing Oh Sol and Seon Gyeol closer together – and there were already a lot of things that were bringing them together.
Hwang Jae Min was kind of the clown of the group, because he was always second-best to Dong Hyun but he still worked his butt off to become an actor and ultimately achieves this goal. Even when being made fun of in the beginning, he keeps going until he makes his dream come true.
Young Shik was also the typical loyal friend who always had Oh Sol’s back.
And then, and this was one of my favorite characters from the series because she was just so humane, Seon Gyeol’s secretary Ms. Kwon (played by Yoo Sun). For years she has been a loyal companion to Seon Gyeol, the only person who was able to handle his mysophobia. In the end it turns out that her own son has a case of OCD and she met Seon Gyeol’s grandfather at a lecture about treating children with OCD. They got to talking and after Seon Gyeol’s initial nanny passed away, his grandfather asked Ms. Kwon to work for Seon Gyeol, which she did. When Oh Sol appears in Seon Gyeol’s life, she tries to bring them closer. When the truth comes out about how the redevelopment accident connects the two of them, she feels genuinely sorry. I don’t know why, but I just found her an incredibly sympathetic person. I couldn’t get mad at her for keeping things from Seon Gyeol, also about his company being secretly funded by his grandfather, because it was clear that she never had any ill intentions toward him.
I did wonder why they only revealed her son’s OCD and her connection to the chairman in the very last episode, up until that I just thought her child was a bit sickly.

On that note, there’s another thing. The Redevelopment Accident in which Oh Sol’s mother died. I’m not sure why, but it’s never explained what exactly happened. They just talk about it in a way as if it’s common knowledge to everyone what happened (which I guess, in the series it is). But I would’ve liked to know what happened exactly. What was going on with the demonstrations Oh Sol’s mother participated in and what exactly was the accident, did something collapse. I mean I don’t even know what the ‘accident’ was. I could only guess. They showed a couple of flashbacks in which Oh Sol’s mother was protesting with some other people, probably protesting against the redevelopment of some building (no idea why or what) and at a certain point, to make a deadline, the chairman sped some things up which led to a collapse and Oh Sol’s mother became badly hurt because she went inside to get her daughter’s medal to safety. This is what I got from different people’s stories about it, but I still would’ve liked more clarity. Because now it really seemed like Seon Gyeol had nothing to do with it. If they could’ve at least clarified something to show that Seon Gyeol was in some way involved, okay, but now? I was just wondering what all the fuss was about.
Also, especially when he discover that Choi Ha In was one of the construction workers at that time. I was confused by this. He refers to himself as ‘one of the assailants’ in the end, so that must mean that he carries feelings of guilt towards Oh Sol’s family as well. Yet he doesn’t say anything about that, he only jumps in when Oh Sol blames Seon Gyeol. He tells her the truth about a lot of things, even the fact that he knew her before and that was the reason why he moved to their neighborhood – but that he was participating in the redevelopment, he lets that part out. Which seems convenient.
But this is why I have mixed feelings about his character. Because he seems like a nice guy who means to do well, when Oh Sol falls for Seon Gyeol he accepts it, even though he still tries to troll Seon Gyeol with forcing his therapy on him and turning up at his place and stuff.
But at the same time, it seemed like he immediately took his chance back when Oh Sol breaks up with Seon Gyeol. He was there to hold her as soon as she was alone, and I couldn’t help but feel a little suspicious about that.
Because he was also one of the people who could’ve helped Seon Gyeol by telling him the truth about why Oh Sol suddenly took her distance -he knew everything that was going on- but he didn’t. Everyone was just like ‘I don’t have to explain anything to you’ while Seon Gyeol had the most right of everyone to know what was going on because he was suffering the most. It had to do with HIS family, HIS relationship, HIS trust.
I’m sorry, I really can’t get over this, lol.

One last comment about Seon Gyeol’s family, first his mother, Cha Mae Hwa (played by Kim Hye Eun). This actress was also in my previous drama but here she was a much more likable character. I really liked her attempts to make amends with her son, including the awkwardness she had because she didn’t really know how to treat him as she had always left his mysophobia to his nanny. She did leave him for a while, but now that she’s back she really tries to make it up to him and her happiness when Seon Gyeol comes back cured from the US in the end was really heartwarming.
Also, I can’t end without saying something about Seon Gyeol’s grandfather, played by Ahn Suk Hwan. Even though he seemed like the typical evil grandfather chairman who only cared about his legacy and wanted his grandson to follow in his footsteps even if that meant going to the lengths of making his grandson’s girlfriend suffer to stay away from him, the fact that they ended his illness as a tool for urgency and the fact that he hid his guilt and sadness about the tragedy of the accident behind his pride made him a character worthy of at least SOME empathy. And especially when he did come around and took the occasion to formally apologize for the accident (though 9 years late) showed maturity and responsibility. In the end, he wasn’t so much a bad guy as a figure who never dared to face the emotional consequences of his actions before. I don’t know, even though I still didn’t like him that much, he still seemed human enough to take responsibility for the things he’d caused in the end and show how much he actually cared about his family.

The very last thing I will say is about the kissing scenes, because I’ve seen a lot of K-Drama kissing scenes and some are really good and some are really awkward, but WOW. The kissing scenes were actual kissing scenes. I approve. No dry fishes pressing lips together, actual kisses. I was kind of anxious because Kim Yoo Jung and Kim So Hyun are on the same level for me when it comes to child actresses I’ve seen grow up and that now start having their own lead roles – I was underwhelmed by Kim So Hyun in Radio Romance but I was very impressed with Kim Yoo Jung in this series. Even though sometimes, especially when they were standing, she had to bend back her neck so much it almost looked painful, the kisses were definitely convincing. I’m proud.

Overall I enjoyed this drama. It was nice to have another typical 16-episode romcom to watch with a refreshing theme and interesting characters. It really highlighted how underestimated cleaning is as a job, but at the same time how much fun it can be. Of course, if it’s not your thing and you’re not interested in cleaning, I can imagine this part to be of less interest to you.
This was the case for me with Oh My Venus, I wasn’t really interested in the whole healthness theme, so that part of it made it less interesting to me. And I’m not even that interested in cleaning, but still this drama was interesting enough for me because the cleaning theme continued in the background while the rest of the story unfolded. In Revolutionary Love for example, the cleaning theme was present so much that it made me less interested because it was more about the cleaning than the storyline.
I just mean to say, the balance in which they kept all the themes of the series was very well kept. It was about cleaning, and at the same time it combined really well the romance story that developed between the two main leads. There were some typical things that were a bit of a downer (I will never get over sudden selfish break-ups and people not talking to each other when they really should), but I guess I’ll have to accept that that is a drama trope that will always be there.
I think the story was also about acceptance and striving to achieve your goals, even when life kicks you down. Find your moment to get back up and try again. Maybe even take Oh Sol’s story about the hurdle obstable course as a metaphor. You always have to get back up to get over the next hurdle in life.
I will keep an eye open for more dramas with Kim Yoo Jung because I really like watching the progress of the child actors turning into their own lead actors and actresses. It really feels like I’m growing up with them as they advance and develop their drama skills.

I’ll be back with another review soon! Until then!

Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Are You Human Too?
( 너도 인간이니? / Neodo Inganini?)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hello! I’m back with another review. I didn’t take me very long to finish, but I did take breaks in between because I also started my new intensive job, so my drama watching activities will be limited to the weekends for the coming months.
Are You Human Too? was on my list for a while, mostly because of Seo Kang Joon, but I also knew the female lead and I generally like stories about robots and I was interested in what way this would be different when compared to for example Absolute Boyfriend and, the robot-themed drama I watched previously, I’m Not A Robot.

First of all, let me give a summary of the story.
The story starts with Dr. Oh Ro Ra (played by Kim Sung Ryung), an well-established professional in brain science and artificial intelligence. She is working on a new project that involves creating robots that are identical to humans and she’s trying to raise interest from the public for this. One day, her then 7-year old son Nam Shin is taken away from her. Ro Ra’s husband, who was living apart because his company demanded that of him, is reported to have committed suicide and Shin needs to be taken to his grandfather immediately to be raised as an heir. Although Ro Ra struggles and actively tries to stop this, she is inevitably separated from her son and not allowed to see him again.
In her despair and longing for her son, Ro Ra starts her personal project and creates an android after the direct image of Nam Shin. She calls him Nam Shin I. As her son grows up in real life, she keeps updating the robot’s growth and visual changes as well until she reaches his adult version, Nam Shin III (played by Seo Kang Joon). They live together in Czech Republic.
In the meantime, we are introduced to Kang So Bong (played by Gong Seung Yeon), a tough girl with a past in boxing. Due to an injury she had to stop boxing and this took away the one thing she knew she could do. After feeling like her life was taken away, she became casual about everything and figured she might as well make money out of whatever she can. So while acting as a bodyguard for PK Group’s heir Nam Shin, she also accepts money to take secret pictures of him. When she is found out by Nam Shin himself, he publicly slaps her in the face and this goes viral, resulting in her profound disliking of him.
To be clear, the original human Nam Shin grows up to be a royal prick. He treats everyone like garbage and only shows some affection to his assistant and brother-like figure Ji Young Hoon (played by Lee Joon Hyuk).
One day, Nam Shin manages to escape his security and flies off to Czech (later it’s clarified that he’s tracing after a lead about his father’s ‘suicide’) and he accidentally meets his robot version. Petrified from shock, human Nam Shin is run over by a truck and falls into a coma. Ro Ra and her friend David (played by Choi Duk Moon) take him home to care for him before they return to Korea. In the meantime. Nam Shin III is prepared by Young Hoon to take Shin’s place in the company until he wakes up. When Nam Shin III returns to Korea to take Shin’s place, the first thing he has to deal with is Kang So Bong, who still has the urge for revenge after being publicly humiliated by him.
Eventually, she finds out about him being a robot and their relationship changes. Nam Shin III is, unlike his human counterpart, very polite and friendly to people, despite his lack of emotions or senses. It’s difficult to dislike him. Just as So Bong’s feelings start to bloom, the real Shin wakes up and everything is shaken up again.

The funniest thing about this drama, and one of the unique things, is that the actual main male lead is initially the bad guy. We don’t get any empathy for Nam Shin, at least I didn’t. Even after being reunited with his mother, he isn’t willing to just accept that she’s back in his life again. I personally found this a bit weird, because he was the one who made his mother leave him in the first place (he was forced by his grandfather to chase her away) but still he treated her like she left him out of her own free will. He only changes for the better at the very end of the series, but the first half he is unconscious and when he wakes up he’s only just mean to everyone and tries to sabotage everything. I think this might have been the first time in a K-Drama that I didn’t have any sympathy for a main character. Of course, Nam Shin III on the other hand is the ideal son-in-law. Especially after the real Shin wakes up, it really puts things into perspective since Nam Shin III turns out to be a better ‘person’ than the human Shin.
This is of course used to confront Shin with his ridiculous behavior and makes him even more agitated.
Also, the main couple of the drama is Kang So Bong and Nam Shin III, not Nam Shin himself. Whatever problematic issues this may cause, and no matter what people will think, So Bong seems to be eventually okay with the fact she fell for a robot and doesn’t even care about anything. She even says something like ‘I don’t care that you’re a robot, you’re the best man I’ve ever met’. I mean, of course, love should be limitless, but it did puzzle me a little bit at the end, with regards to the realistic possibilities of the couple in the future. I know it’s all fiction, but I did find it funny. It was like an ‘uhm… okay I guess?’ kind of ending for me.
But I am glad that they didn’t start forcing some kind of love triangle including the real Nam Shin because it wouldn’t have made any sense for him to suddenly start showing interest in So Bong, especially after how he treated her before. And Nam Shin did have a fiancee, after all.

To get to this fiancee, I first need to cover the real bad guy from the story, Mr. Seo Jong Gil (played by Yoo Oh Sung). He used to be a close friend of Nam Shin’s father, but he betrayed him because he was after the shares for the company belonging to chairman Nam Gun Ho (played by Park Young Gyu), Nam Shin’s grandfather. Seo Jong Gil is constantly trying to get the chairman discredited and he is actually the one who arranged for Nam Shin to be killed in an accident in Czech Republic.
His daughter Seo Ye Na (played by Park Hwan Hee) is Nam Shin’s fiancee. She’s a spoiled little princess who has no respect for anyone who is below her in social rank. To the people above her, she only kisses up. Her forward and blunt way of speaking has made her liked by the chairman, but disliked by a lot of other people.
She was one of the characters in the series that I genuinely disliked, in the end she made a turn for the better but only because she realized she was surrounded by bad people and then her conscience finally won over her ambition to be the next CEO’s wife. She discovers all the bad things her father has done and how much of a jerk Nam Shin is and provides the good side with evidence of her father’s involvement. Before that, she acts like she owns the world. When she accidentally finds out about Nam Shin III, she treats him like trash, holding his arm in public and when the people are gone she tells him to go stand in a corner and not speak to her.
What annoyed me most in this first part was that none of the things happening were actually ANY of her business, but as soon as she got involved, she made everything her business. Suddenly the whole thing with Nam Shin III being a robot had to do with HER, was being done to HER etcetera. I didn’t have a lot of empathy for her either. But as I said, in the end, she did the right thing by turning her father in.

Now that I’ve made some first remarks about some of the characters, I would like to elaborate a little further on some characters and my opinions on the choices that they made/how their personalities were established and things like that.
First of all, female lead character Kang So Bong. As I’ve mentioned before in the summary, she was previously a boxer but after an injury she found out her managers were only just betting money on her and she caused a scene and was ousted of the boxing ring (literally). The only people left in her life to support her were her dad Kang Jae Shik (played by Kim Won Hae, who is growing on me with every drama I see of him), and two neighborhood guys (I think?) nicknamed Joint and Robocop (played respectively by Oh Hee Joon and Cha Yeop). Her mother passed away when she was little and she only has a necklace left of hers which she starts touching whenever she feels nervous. It’s established from her first appearance that she’s a tough cookie, she’s a bodyguard, she’s a bit aggressive in the way she speaks to her peers and is clearly not from a very wealthy family. If you would put her next to Ye Na, you would be comparing apples and pears.
In the beginning, because of her casual attitude towards life and making money, it makes sense that it’d take a while for her to warm up to someone new. She’s been betrayed by people before, has a small circle of people whom she’s close with and doesn’t seem to really have any friends outside of that small circle. And even within that circle, there are sometimes frictions. For example, her reporter friend Reporter Jo (played by Kim Hyun Sook) who sometimes still betrays her when she’s offered enough money for it. However, even Reporter Jo in the end teams up with the good guys to help bring Seo Jong Gil down.
Anyways, even though it seems like So Bong is kind of a tomboy, she can’t help but fall for the innocent kindness that Nam Shin III displays. And in her case she is fully aware of the fact that she’s falling for a robot so we can see in the beginning clearly her feelings of denial, but eventually she gives in to it simply because she stops caring. This is what her heart is pointing her to, so that’s what she has to follow. And in some way her simplicity is really endearing. After she allows herself to fall for Nam Shin III, she also starts opening herself up more to other people and starts showing that she cares more.
It seems that her initial stubbornness is inherited from her father, who is the tough love kind of dad. He cares so much about his daughter, and he feels really bad for what has been done to her and he feels guilty that he let it happen. But he’ll still slap her on the back and scold her before he’ll hug her.
In any case, I just wanted to say that So Bong’s character development made sense to me, it was natural and gradual and there were no sudden changes in behavior that made it weird. Falling in love made her a better and more caring person who wouldn’t just do anything for money anymore.
I just remembered she actually started out as a spy for Seo Jong Gil, when she still thought he was a nice guy and he’d pay her money for reports on Nam Shin’s actions (so before she knew he was a robot). After discovering the android thing, she wondered whether or not she should report it, but in the end she chose the right side.

Then there’s Oh Ro Ra. She’s the first person we meet in this series, so that immediately makes her important. In the beginning we feel for her because she suddenly is overwhelmed by AND the news that her husband committed suicide AND the fact that her child is taken away from her without any argument possible. It’s therefore not difficult for the viewer to understand why she would feel the need to create a robot version of her son, to ease her own grief and longing.
(Note: I actually thought before I started watching that she’d make the robot after her son had fallen into a coma, because that’s also how the summary on DramaWiki was phrased, but this was not the case. The robot already existed when Nam Shin fell into a coma – I edited this in DramaWiki as well.)
Anyways, we don’t really know what her plans for the future are with this robot, only that for the time that she’s separated from her real son, she raised a robot son in his place. Her close friend David also affectionately calls him ‘my son’.
When she is suddenly confronted with her real son being run over by a truck in the Czech Republic, she temporarily seems to lose attention for Nam Shin III. It was a bit unclear to me what her ultimate feelings for Nam Shin III were, because for a while there it seemed like he was no more than a substitute until she would be reunited with her real son. Then when Nam Shin fell into a coma, he became the only possible substitute to avoid suspicions and keep up appearances at the company. However, when Nam Shin woke up, even though he was insufferable, she kept trying to make amends with him and she talked about Nam Shin III as a disposable product who was meant to be destroyed as soon as Nam Shin woke up.
It took her a while to determine her real feelings about her robot son, I think. I wasn’t sure what her intentions were. I mean, even for a robot it seemed kind of harsh that the person who created and raised him so lovingly, the person he called ‘Mother’, would suddenly turn out to be this cruel person who would just flip his kill-switch button when he wasn’t needed anymore.
This kill-switch by the way, was an important plot tool in the end. Because Oh Ro Ra kept it a secret from Nam Shin III that he had one build-in and no one could know that there was a way to destroy him, especially not Seo Jong Gil or Nam Shin himself. In the end, of course, they do find out and Nam Shin makes an attempt to kill-switch his robot version. Oh Ro Ra, however, has already used her brilliant brain to make a back-up to reverse the kill-switch. This all happens in an abandoned warehouse and Seo Jong Gil turns up without anyone noticing and drops a bunch of barrels and metal bars on them from above, killing Oh Ro Ra who protects Nam Shin III who is still unable to move because of the newly initiated back-up chip.
And in her last moments, she admits that it would’ve made her the happiest to see her ‘two sons’ get along and that she might continue being a mother to both of them. But it was unclear to me for quite some time, because in the beginning I thought her reasons for creating Nam Shin III suddenly became very selfish. And I wondered why she wouldn’t allow herself to also think of Nam Shin III as her ‘son’ in a way. David was the one who kept standing up for him, and it took a while before he persuaded Ro Ra. So her intentions and motives were a bit vague.

I honestly didn’t expect anyone to die in this series. I thought it went a little far to actually kill Oh Ro Ra. And also the lack of emotional response from Seo Jong Gil was so inhuman that I didn’t find it realistic. Surely, you feel SOMETHING after you’ve murdered someone? This brings me to another point I wish to make, and I’ve mentioned this before but this series really put things into perspective when it came to emotional responses in regards of humans versus robots.
I thought it was funny how they played with the concept of ‘humanity’.
On the one hand you have Nam Shin III, an android unable to feel any emotions but who still has the nicest personality. And then you have people like Nam Shin and Seo Jong Gil, who are human but only think about themselves and don’t even seem to have empathy for others, even their own family.
Although Nam Shin breaks and changes after his mother’s death and then it suddenly becomes clear how much he actually cared for her, Seo Jong Gil doesn’t even care about his own daughter anymore, he just tries to lock her up or send her away so she doesn’t see any of it.
So what are we looking at here? Questions about humanity? Does being human automatically mean that we’re better because we’re capable of feeling and thinking things that machines can? Does being human qualify us for anything? Because there’s still people out there that do things that ‘normal’ empathic people can’t even begin to understand because ‘it’s not human’. While in this scenario, a robot was being more human than the actual human being. I don’t know, I found it very interesting but I don’t quite know what to make of it. I’m a bit lost when it comes to the message this series means to give, if there is any (’cause it’s still fiction, of course).
It’s interesting to think about, though. What makes someone human? And is there a possibility that something that’s not human can also display human behavior?
The series ends a year after Nam Shin III is shot by Seo Jong Gil and falls into the water. So Bong still isn’t over his ‘death’, but suddenly he appears again and it turns out that Nam Shin, together with Young Hoon and David, have tracked Nam Shin III down and fixed him. Even though he has lost almost all his robot abilities, the series ends with a single tear falling down Nam Shin III’s cheek – suggesting that somehow he has acquired some form of human emotional ability.

I realize suddenly that I have to say a bit more about Young Hoon, since he is a very important character, not just as Nam Shin’s assistant.
Young Hoon is possibly the only friend Nam Shin has ever had. He has been with him for years, and most importantly, he has had to answer for all of Nam Shin’s misconduct. Nam Shin’s grandfather punished Nam Shin by taking it out on Young Hoon. Young Hoon, from the beginning, had better leadership qualities and potential to become the next CEO than Nam Shin, but he has always remained loyal and never stepped up to his own ambitions. Until, of course, things escalate and he finds Nam Shin acting like a total jerk. I have to say, in the beginning I genuinely wondered if Young Hoon and Nam Shin were somehow secretly romantically involved. Just the way that Young Hoon spoke about Nam Shin while he was in a coma, the dreamy look and slight smirk on his face when he thought back about him… I mean, it’s a K-Drama so of course it wouldn’t be the case, but it actually wouldn’t have surprised me if there had been a plot twist there.
Throughout the whole series, Young Hoon is one of the main active characters, from the start aware of the android issue, teaching Nam Shin III to act like Nam Shin, and afterwards to keep everyone who finds out quiet etcetera. He protects Nam Shin III but always wants Nam Shin to wake up, but once Nam Shin wakes up he also thinks he’s being too much and starts taking the side of the robot, eventually resulting in him becoming the CEO of the company instead of Nam Shin.
Even though he mistreated Young Hoon before, the chairman believes that he has the right qualities, so it should be either him or the robot taking over because Nam Shin is just not fit to lead the company.
And then there’s this whole extra plotline that the chairman knew about Nam Shin III from the beginning and he’s actually the one who sponsored Oh Ro Ra’s research and project from the shadows, and Nam Shin III’s whole server is hidden somewhere in the company itself etcetera… Yeah, some plotlines didn’t really have to be added in my opinion because it didn’t really add a lot to the story for me. The same with the chairman’s dementia which was first faked and then it turned out to be real after all… They just needed a way to make him old and senile and in need for a directly available heir, I guess.
Also the side story of Nam Shin’s aunt and her young son who was sickly and afraid of grandpa because grandpa didn’t like weak people… The kid was only used as a plot tool to blackmail the aunt at some point and that was it. So there were some minor story lines that they could’ve done without in my opinion.

Another thing I found interesting and unique about this story was that, unlike the usual K-Drama, the main relationship (between Kang So Bong and Nam Shin III) meant that the genuine feelings of love only came from one side. Since Nam Shin III isn’t capable of feeling passion or love, although their relationship was sweet, it still lacked urgency and passion. It also wasn’t the same as for example with Absolute Boyfriend, where the robot boyfriend for some reason develops human feelings by himself.
Nam Shin III is consistently unable to experience human emotions. He can generate if a person is nice or not, and that’s what he acts on. He has no initial indication of what is good and bad behavior, he only acts according to his in-built rules (such as hugging someone when they’re crying). It was a different kind of robot story than the ones I’ve seen in K-Dramaland so far, so in that way it was quite innovative how they explored a relationship between a human and a machine in an as natural as possible way. Of course, the tear at the end suggests some developments and new possibilities in that area…

Lastly I’d like to make some final comments on the casting before I conclude. It hasn’t been a long review I’m afraid, but I think I covered most parts that jumped out to me that I wanted to comment on.
Seo Kang Joon I have only seen in Cheese in the Trap and an episode of Busted! where I equally liked him. It was nice to see him play two different characters, double roles are always demanding but he did a good job. The way he would just suddenly change when he was Nam Shin pretending to be Nam Shin III or the other way around was very natural and credible.
I knew Gong Seung Yeon from a couple of things, mostly Circle where she played an alien, and I have to say that although she acted okay, her character didn’t really impress me that much. She fell a bit flat in comparison to what I’d seen of her before. Not because she acted badly or anything, but just because her character wasn’t very original.
I knew Park Hwan Hee from Descendants of the Sun and Jealousy Incarnate, and her characters there were at least more likeable than Ye Na. She’s still stuck in the female side character roles, though, so I’m curious if she’ll make more appearances in dramas from now on.
Yoo Oh Sung was also the jerk father in Uncontrollably Fond, so I’m sensing another typecast actor here. I wonder what it would be like to see him as a kind man (still quietly boycotting typecasting on my own here).
I think the only actor I didn’t know was Lee Joon Hyuk (Ji Young Hoon), but I liked his character, stuck between how he was raised and his own opinions he was never allowed to express.
Looking at it like that, there might be a parallel between Young Hoon and Nam Shin III. They were both stuck in their own rules and they both learned how to free themselves from those rules and display their individuality more.

Overall, it was an interesting drama but it wasn’t the best I’ve seen. It was interesting to see a new take on the robot theme, and how humans are always seen as better than machines. When something happens, it is always the easiest to accept that the robot snapped and did something bad than it is to believe that it was a human being who did it. Machines are often used as scapegoats and excuses why things go wrong. In this scenario, the robot was the good guy being abused by the bad human guys and the nice thing was that this robot didn’t turn on the humans.
However, except for the few tricks that Nam Shin III is seen to be displaying such as projecting things on billboards and hacking into traffic lights to make the light go green faster, I didn’t get as strong of a feeling that we were dealing with a robot here as for example in I’m Not A Robot.
In the end, the love story between Kang So Bong and Nam Shin III kind of made way for the plotline in which Nam Shin III is freed from his boundaries that come with being a robot and only obeying standard rules. He learns to let go of his rules, he creates new ones, and he starts to accept himself, almost like a person. This happens in a very unique way and it was fun to watch. In the end I had more empathy for the robot than for most of the human characters, haha. And maybe that was what they wanted to show, as well. Humanity is also relative.
Also, I want to visit Czech Republic now because it looked amazingly beautiful.
Overall I thought it was alright, I enjoyed myself but as I said it wasn’t one of the best dramas I’ve watched. It was a nice breather after the intensively long My Mister, though.

I will keep on watching new things in my spare time, so please keep following me! I’ll be back~