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.

Dali and the Cocky Prince
(달리와 감자탕 /  Dalriwa Gamjatang)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hey ho hello! Just in time to share with you my review of my final watch of the year 2022! It’s been a crazy ride of dramas, I can’t believe I actually watched 25 dramas in total this year. Time flew by! So I’m glad I finally got to watch this one, it had been on my list ever since I saw the trailer, and it really proved to be an unexpected surprise. I have to admit I was preparing myself for a bit of a disappointment, because I’d talked about it with friends and they didn’t seem super enthusiastic about it, but I still wanted to give it a chance since it had two faves as the main leads, and I can now say I’m really glad I gave it a fair chance because I ended up liking it more than I’d anticipated! It’s so nice to go into something with no real expectations and it manages to exceed those expectations. I will of course go into more detail about it, but I just wanted to clarify from the start that this is a fairly positive review.

Okay, so let’s get to it! It will be a bit complicated to write a summary since there are so many important things happening at the same time, but I will try my best. Chances are my summary will again become a bit more detailed than what I try these days, but it can’t be helped as every event is equally important in understanding the situation of things.
Dali and the Cocky Prince is a 16-episode drama series with episodes of each 1 hour and 5 minutes. It tells the story of the unexpected love between two people from respective wealthy families, that still couldn’t be more different from each other. On the one hand, there’s Kim Dali (played by Park Gyu Young – I’ll just call her Dali because she was actually named after Salvador Dali), the daughter of Kim Nak Cheon (played by Jang Kwang), the well-respected Director of the Cheongsong foundation, that had the Cheongsong art gallery as its main pride. I can’t really remember what kind of foundation or franchise Cheongsong actually was, but it just seemed like the art gallery was its main legacy that had been passed on for several generations. The art gallery was Kim Nak Cheon’s life’s work, in any case, it meant everything to him. He was also a sincerely good-hearted man, as he donated a lot of money to orphanages and other organizations to ensure less privileged people also got the opportunity to enjoy art. It was his motto that with this gallery, he wanted to create a place of comfort for all people, regardless of their backgrounds or social statuses. At the beginning of the series, Dali is studying in “The Netherlands”, where she’s working/interning at a gallery while she’s studying art. Dali has basically been studying her entire life, living her life through study books, but she never learned much about the real world, or what the reality of the art business really entails. She’s been living a princess’ life of luxury as her father let her study whatever and wherever she wanted, as long as she got all the opportunities she needed.
On the other hand, there’s Jin Moo Hak (played by Kim Min Jae), the son of the Chairman of Dondon F & B, a big restaurant conglomerate that specializes in gamjatang, which is a kind of pork bone soup. Moo Hak is often out and about to participate in food tastings of different restaurants and he has been brought up with business strategies and the importance of money. One day, his older stepbrother Jin Ki Chul (played by Lee Je Yeon) persuaded him to donate an amount of 2 million won to the Cheongsong gallery, and to keep it a secret from their father. I honestly don’t really remember why he wanted to do this and keep it a secret, but anyways, Moo Hak did so. However, their father found out after Director Kim sent them back an art object as a ‘thank you’ for the donation, and gets super mad at Moo Hak. Just before he manages to flee on a business trip to “The Netherlands” himself, Moo Hak tells Ki Chul to talk to Director Kim to get the donation back. As he slips away on his business trip and leaves his brother to deal with it, his father still blocks all of Moo Hak’s credit cards to punish him.
Dali and Moo Hak meet for the first time in “The Netherlands” as Dali is supposed to pick up a famous art critic from the airport to join her at an exclusive party hosted by one of the main sponsors from the gallery she’s currently working at. Dali mistakes Moo Hak for this art critic, and Moo Hak mistakes her for his escort to the pig farm he’s meant to visit and they end up completely busting the art party. However, this doesn’t result in them blaming one another or getting annoyed with each other. On the contrary, they seem to be quite taken with/interested in each from the start. They are both quite eccentric in their own way, and as Moo Hak can’t check-in to any hotels with his credit cards blocked, Dali even lets him stay over at her place for the night, even after having met just that same day. It is obvious that there is already a spark between them from the very first day they meet.
When they bid each other farewell the next day, Moo Hak even gives her his incredibly expensive watch, as a reason that they should meet again so she can give it back to him. However, before he can ask her for her contact information, he sees her leaving in a taxi, suddenly completely distraught and crying. As it happens, Dali had just gotten a phone call that her father passed away.

The story resumes after the two get back to Korea, where Dali holds her father’s funeral and consequently proceeds to take over the Cheongsong gallery. However, as soon as she gets herself into the position of newly appointed Director, she finds out that the gallery is in way worse financial state than she’d anticipated. Apparently her father had built up a lot of debts and took out several loans to donate money to charities and he still had to pay a lot of people back. To make matters worse, all her father’s loyal sponsors and even artists that provided art works for the gallery, suddenly all withdrew their support. It seems that, after Kim Nak Cheon passed away, no one believed the gallery would be able to withstand, and no one was willing to take a chance on Dali, leaving her completely vulnerable and alone. The handful of employees working at the gallery remain mostly loyal to her, but there is only so much they can personally do. Dali is left in a very critical and desperate position.
In the meantime, Moo Hak has also returned to Korea and he is now determined to get back the 2 million won from Cheongsong gallery by himself, as his brother wasn’t able to regain the amount after talking to the Director, and now the Director is dead. When he makes a scene with his restaurants’ employees and secretary Yeo Ma Ri (played by Hwang Bo Ra, who by then has managed to convince him that Dali must have been a swindler who seduced him even though he knows very well deep down this can’t have been the case), he meets Dali again in the gallery – the two are reunited. After realizing what kind of trouble Dali is in, Moo Hak agrees to help her out in the financial aspect of the problem until she’s able to pay him back the 2 million won. Their relationship becomes one of creditor and debtor – that is, of course, initially.

During the situation of insecurity in which Dali tries to get people back on her side to support the gallery, her ex-fiancé Jang Tae Jin (played by Kwon Yool) suddenly pops up. Dali and Tae Jin were once betrothed to be married and they were very much in love, but then Tae Jin dumped her one week before their marriage and broke her heart. Tae Jin is the Director of Segi Group, another very powerful conglomerate that owns several big department stores (as far as I could tell). After 5 years of being apart, he suddenly appears again to pay his respects at her father’s funeral, and although she appreciates his consolation, she doesn’t want to accept his further help. He offers multiple times to help her out, but it all comes down to his own personal needs – he just wants to start over, forget that he dumped her 5 years ago because ‘it had been a mistake’, and still get married to her. I will mention this more than once in this review, but seriously, the audacity of this guy baffled me until the end. Even though Tae Jin may be the only influential person who could rid her of all her debts, Dali still has her pride and doesn’t give in to him.
As mentioned before, Dali only has a small core of people that remains loyal to her, including Moo Hak and the gallery’s employees, but she also has Joo Won Tak (played by Hwang Hee), her brother-like childhood friend who also happens to be a police officer. From the start, we see that he is the only person at Kim Nak Cheon’s funeral who cries sincere tears about his passing while the rest of the guests are mainly business-related contacts. Dali’s father took care of Won Tak, who grew up in an orphanage, as his own son. Won Tak has always been like a younger brother to Dali, and he’s always had her back. As it happens, he and his team are also put in charge of investigating the circumstances surrounding Director Kim’s death when it’s revealed there may have been more to it than meets the eye.

As more and more information comes to light about the circumstances of her father’s death, as well as the fact that both Tae Jin and Dali’s cousin Kim Si Hyung (played by Lee Jae Woo) have something to do with it, it becomes increasingly harder for Dali to determine who she can trust. When even one of her gallery’s interns ends up betraying her, she really comes to the conclusion that besides Won Tak, Moo Hak is the only person who is on her side for the full 100%. Especially when it’s revealed to the world that Dali herself was adopted by Kim Nak Cheon and therefore has no real blood relation to the Cheongsong foundation, rumors and scandals just keep piling up and even her own family starts working against her.

It was really such a relief to me that, even during all these cases of being let down and betrayed, Dali never stopped standing up for herself. She may have been incredibly good-hearted and sympathetic, and therefore too innocent and naive for the harsh reality of business, but she never let herself get pushed into a situation where she would have to sacrifice something she cared about just to get money. I really loved that about her. Even when people were trying to manipulate her to break things off with Moo Hak, and it seemed like she might go along with it because she was so desperate, I kept being positively surprised by her decision to turn them down, because what she felt for Moo Hak wasn’t worth giving up over that. I really liked this characteristic of her.
Honestly, everyone did Dali so dirty. I wholeheartedly believe that she genuinely wanted to take over Cheongsong gallery, her father’s legacy, out of nothing but the goodness of her heart. She knew how much the gallery meant to her father, she even refers to the gallery as her father one time, and she didn’t want it to be lost after he passed. She really just wanted to honor her father’s, her family’s legacy by taking over the Director position, and all she got for it was hate and spite from people who didn’t believe in her. It was really unfair. All these influential guys started playing their little games of power while they knew she was vulnerable, but they never held back – they were out to get her, even more because they knew she wouldn’t be able to defend herself, and that was despicable. This isn’t meant as serious criticism towards the series itself because it definitely had a purpose for the plot, but the way these guys went about their plans was just really frustrating and mean.
If it wasn’t already bad enough that they tried to take the last thing that remained of her father away from her, when the news got out that she was adopted, people began openly shaming her for that as well. Like, what the heck was that all about? Being an orphan is apparently seen as a really bad thing in Korean society, it makes you a minority. But if you just look at Dali and how she was raised by a man she wasn’t even tied to by blood, how could you shame her? They were closer than many blood-related families, especially several ones depicted in this series. This is something I particularly appreciated about the episode ‘What Runs Thicker Than Blood?’, because it wasn’t just the episode in which Dali’s adoption was revealed, but it also included a lot of important messages concerning family ties in general. It was all wrapped up in a really powerful monologue from Moo Hak at the end of the episode. In this monologue, he basically discussed every single parent/child relationship in the series and pointed out how all family members, blood-related or not, could have messy relationships. The fact that Dali was willing to go so far to save her father’s legacy after his death, even though he wasn’t even her real father, should have proven something, but people only chose to look at the situation with the mindset that she must be an ‘opportunist’ who wanted to take over the business even though she shouldn’t be allowed to legally inherit anything. Even her own uncle, her father’s brother, treated her like that in the beginning, that guy was even about to sue her for trying to make any kind of decision regarding the gallery.

As for Moo Hak, he was actually a fairly uncomplicated character, which was also nice for a change. Compared to romance dramas in which both main leads are somehow connected through a traumatic event in the past, or how they both have some emotional baggage, Moo Hak simply grew up with a chip on his shoulder. Ever since he was a child, instead of going to school, his father had made him help out at restaurants and even though this may not have been a recommended way of upbringing, it did lead to Moo Hak becoming a successful businessman. He may have been blinded by money in the beginning, but as soon as he meets Dali, he has no real trouble accepting the love he feels for her and he’s easily able to set aside his love for money. He becomes a much more empathic person because of Dali, so that just proved to me that his upbringing didn’t necessarily ‘ruin’ him. Money never made him delusional, it never made him obsessive to the extent of losing sight of his personal relationships.
Let me go into a bit more detail regarding Moo Hak’s family. His family consists of his father Jin Baek Won (played by Ahn Gil Gang), his stepmother So Geum Ja (played by Seo Jung Yeon) and his stepbrother Jin Ki Chul, whom I’ve mentioned before. Ki Chul is Geum Ja’s son from an earlier marriage/relationship, so he himself isn’t actually blood-related to Moo Hak and his father, but he has still been accepted as Moo Hak’s real brother and Baek Won’s real son. There isn’t any tension in their family regarding that, the only thing is that stepmother Geum Ja definitely favoritizes her own son. Actually, in the beginning I suspected that stepmom and stepbrother might have been secretly plotting to get Moo Hak disinherited so that Ki Chul could become the next Chairman of Dondon, but that may not have been the case. Despite some occasional pettiness, like stepmom giving Moo Hak a painting of a duck for his office, allegedly to wish him good fortunes while actually it was more a symbol of misfortune, there is no actual evil working against Moo Hak within his own family. Although the more he gets involved with Dali and her situation, the more he starts drifting away from his family, ultimately breaking with them temporarily when he finds out they contributed to the redevelopment plans that would lead to getting Cheongsong gallery to be sold and destroyed. He does choose Dali in the end, but he never ends up breaking with his family for real. He even manages to solidify his relationship with his dad in the end, which was nice as they really didn’t see eye to eye for a while throughout the series.
Ki Chul was a whole story an sich. As it happens, he witnessed the death of Director Kim that night he went to talk to him about getting the 2 million won donation back, as Moo Hak had asked him before he left for “The Netherlands”. They didn’t get to finish their conversation because Director Kim got a visitor during their talk, and as Ki Chul was waiting in the next room, he was alarmed by some tense voices. He managed to keep his presence hidden as he secretly filmed what happened in the next room on his phone. In other words, he has a really big card to play. He mentions this a couple of times, that he still has a trick up his sleeve, but he never ends up telling what exactly that trick is. It turns out to be the most important leverage over Tae Jin ever.
I never really knew what to think about Ki Chul. He seemed to be a major coward, for one. But I didn’t know for sure what exactly his intentions were. I got the feeling that he would definitely be willing to take over Dondon instead of Moo Hak, and that he still felt threatened by Moo Hak even though he was older than him and held a higher position at Dondon, even as the Chairman’s stepson. But the way he reacted to Moo Hak getting stabbed in order to protect him against Tae Jin’s men, the way he broke down outside the surgery room like that, crying to his father about what would happen to his brother now, that just proved to me that he really cared about his younger stepbrother and that he never wanted him to get hurt. So that did make me see him in a slightly better light. Doesn’t take away the fact that he was still a coward, and that he set the whole involvement with Cheongsong in motion because he was the one that urged Moo Hak to make that 2 million won donation and then never even took responsibility for that and just let Moo Hak deal with his mess. But he wasn’t a bad person.

There are a lot of characters in this series that all turn out to be connected in one way or another, and I thought this was written pretty well. At least it made sense to me how they were all involved with each other and it didn’t leave many plotholes or loose ends. In order to deal with that in this review, I just want to talk a bit more about several important side characters that ended up playing a critical role in the plot.
First of all, Kim Si Hyung, Dali’s cousin – or more specifically, the son of Director Kim’s brother. We meet him for the first time at Director Kim’s funeral, where he very dramatically meets the press and emphasizes how HE is the official eldest next-in-line family member of Cheongsong. After that, he just kind of disappears. Dali is very eager to meet him and ask for his help, but when she finally gets a hold of him, he’s nothing but super mean to her. This already weirded me out, since I didn’t see any reason for him to be so mean to her. Anyways, this guy is a manic in the most literal sense of the word. He is the kind of guy who is just always wide-eyed and foul-mouthed, cussing everyone out wherever he goes. I first kind of disliked his acting, I thought it was very over the top – until the truth about his situation was revealed. The truth that he was a drug addict. And then it just all made sense, because the guy was just a major addict and was probably constantly under some kind of influence. Si Hyung was used as a pawn in order to help yet another scandal into the world: the scandal that Director Kim had a drug addiction. As soon as this news came out, Si Hyung suddenly appeared before the press, his hair bleached and all his other body hair removed, all that so that they wouldn’t be able to take DNA from him or something (he looked ridiculous in my opinion). Anyways, it doesn’t take that long for the police to figure out he was responsible for smuggling drugs into the gallery and he’s still locked up after he’s caught mentioning that Director Kim ‘died because of him’. When the full truth about the events of the night of Director Kim’s death are revealed, it’s also clarified that he was the person that paid him a visit while Ki Chul was talking to him.
In summary: Director Kim had discovered a package of drugs in one of the newly acquired paintings’ frames and confronted Si Hyung. For Si Hyung’s own benefit, Director Kim wanted him to come clean about it and fix the mess he’d made. No matter how much he cared for his nephew and how well he had always treated him, he just wanted Si Hyung to own up to his own crime.
And then it’s revealed that Si Hyung was being manipulated by Tae Jin and Assemblyman Ahn (I’ll get to him in a moment). These two had threatened to reveal his drug addiction to the world and made him agree to this drug trafficking to ultimately put Cheongsong in a bad position when the scandal would come out. Si Hyung was too weak to go against them, and even got one of the gallery’s interns – on whom he also had some leverage – to help him out with swapping real paintings with imitations that contained the drugs. Which enables me to move on to Na Gong Joo (played by Song Ji Won), the intern in question. She grew up in an orphanage, just like Dali and Won Tak, but she initially didn’t do so well for herself. She was working at a hostess bar where she met Si Hyung, but got kicked out and when she stumbled into Cheongsong gallery one day, she took a job interview on a whim. Director Kim was really nice to her and she grew fond of him, but Si Hyung still knew her as a former hostess, and held that information over her head while he ordered her to help him out with swapping the paintings. After the truth of the drug scandal is revealed, Gong Joo conveniently disappears from the gallery, and when Dali goes in search of her, Gong Joo only spites her – she was the only gallery employee who was sceptical of Dali’s appointment as the new director from the start, although we never got to see why. She just felt like Dali looked down on her because they were from different worlds. I couldn’t really understand why Gong Joo remained so spiteful, to be honest, but in the end Dali does manage to reach her and bring her back to the gallery because she still had really good work skills. They even became friends in the end.
Anyways, let’s move on to Assemblyman Ahn (played by Park Sang Myun). Although he initially appears as a devoted politician, his true nature is revealed harshly when we see him losing his temper and slapping his own daughter at home. He was the embodiment of a wealthy influential figure who was blinded by greed and money. He made a deal with Tae Jin to organize the redevelopment of the land that Cheongsong gallery was on, and kept trying to persuade Director Kim to sell the land to him, but was constantly rejected. He then started manipulating Si Hyung and one thing led to another. He is one of the main figures that profits from the downfall of Cheongsong, and he relishes in it. Despite his influence, I couldn’t see him as anything but a really pitiful guy. Honestly, he went to the most extreme low points in order to torment Dali and the gallery. He actually went to emotionally blackmail two of her most trusted employees to report to the police that Director Kim had been acting weird before he died, in relation to the earlier revealed news that he was a drug addict. He really thought he could buy everything and everyone over with money, it didn’t even occur to him that people would choose their loyalties over money, and if that’s truly the way he was raised then I have nothing but pity for him. He really thought he could get anything he wanted with money.
And then, finally, Jang Tae Jin. I said it before, I thought it from the start but all the more, in hindsight, I could not believe the audacity of this guy. He orchestrated everything. He was out to get his hands on Cheongsong, to steal it away and then just sell it or destroy it, and when the Director – his former almost father-in-law – didn’t agree to it, he didn’t hesitate and just went and created an entire drug scandal just to push him over the edge and agree to it. At the night of Director Kim’s death, he turned up at his house together with Si Hyung and when the director got a heart attack at hearing how his own nephew had been using his precious gallery to traffic drugs for who knows how long, Tae Jin was the person who stopped Si Hyung from getting Director Kim’s medicine that could have saved him. He literally left Director Kim to die. And then everything he does afterwards, the way he turns up at his funeral, the way he approaches Dali again to freaking get her to marry him again, makes it all the more despicable. The shamelessness of this man! I’m glad Dali called him out for it as well, seriously, even after she found out his involvement in her father’s death he STILL tried to make her listen to him say that it was all a mistake. Yeah right, dumping her a week before their marriage because he found out she was adopted and he couldn’t deal with society’s opinions about that, it was a mistake that he could fix. Leaving her father to die, it was a mistake she could just forgive and understand him for. Seriously dude, how twisted is YOUR perspective on reality? He may have been a successful businessman who could string along people of influence with money, but when it came to dealing with people in terms of social behavior and emotions, he wasn’t even at elementary school level. And that’s also what set him apart so much from Moo Hak. Because Moo Hak had the best of both worlds – he didn’t only grow up with the reality of money and business, but he’d always had to deal with people socially as well, and you could say that that is even more important than just knowing how to manipulate people with money.

I also want to mention Si Hyung’s father who appeared at some point. I mentioned Dali’s uncle before, Kim Hong Cheon (played by Lee Do Kyung) was Director Kim’s brother and Si Hyung’s father. He is the person who, as soon as he arrives in Korea, reveals the news to the press that Dali is adopted and therefore not the rightful heir to Cheongsong. He initially spites Dali for not being legally related and still trying to take over the gallery and even proceeds to sue her. However, then he is bribed by Tae Jin to drop the lawsuit if he just persuades Dali to go back to Tae Jin. This was such a lame attempt, and I’m glad Dali immediately realized that Tae Jin himself must have been behind it. Luckily, after being faced with Si Hyung’s self-declared involvement in Director Kim’s death, Uncle Kim apologizes to Dali and tells her that he would now take his brother’s words to heart that Cheongsong is passed down in spirit rather than in blood. Still, he was kind of a stubborn old man in the beginning. Just because he distanced himself from his brother, he didn’t have to treat Dali like some sort of outcast.

I just want to give a shoutout to the loyal gallery employees that always had Dali’s back. Song Sa Bong (played by Woo Hee Jin), Han Byung Se (played by Ahn Se Ha) and Hwang Ki Dong (played by Yoo Hyung Gwan). They were the employees who were the most loyal to Director Kim, and never left Dali’s side when she took over. They may have had their doubts about her abilities at first, but they never judged her and always gave her the benefit of the doubt. Despite their own family situations, and the crisis that they ended up in when all those sponsors took back their sponsorships and the gallery was even completely raided one time, they never betrayed Dali. When Assemblyman Ahn met up with Curators Song and Han privately to make them deals concerning their families so that they would give fake statements to the police regarding Director Kim’s drug addiction, I was really scared that they would take the deal. I didn’t expect they would, and I would’ve been incredibly disappointed in them if they would, but as the gallery was in such a dire situation at the time, I was just really anxious as to what they would do. Imagine my relief when they both went to the police and honestly reported that Assemblyman Ahn had asked them to say those things – with their honest reports, Won Tak and his team were able to get a better picture of the Assemblyman’s involvement and it only sped up the process of their investigation around Tae Jin. I respected them a lot for being honest and sticking to Dali’s side until the very end. I also just liked them as a team, they were all so friendly with each other and I liked how Mr. Hwang just had this gut feeling about Dali and Moo Hak’s romantic involvement while the others were still like ‘nahhh those two would never end up together’. They were really nice side characters.

Finally, I’ll just have to mention Chak Hee. Ahn Chak Hee (played by former Momoland member Yeon Woo), was Assemblyman Ahn’s daughter. She knew Moo Hak because they’d been set up on a blind date before, and although Moo Hak rejected her, they still are sort of friendly with each other. Chak Hee still has feelings for Moo Hak and is a typical spoiled rich girl, you could say. She also starts acting a bit petty towards Dali when she finds out about her and Moo Hak’s relationship, but she never becomes truly spiteful. We see that she actually doesn’t have it so easy at home as her father hits her. I don’t know if this was just a one time thing or if it happened more frequently. Anyways, she may not have been in the direct position to do anything about her father, she doesn’t even know that he’s actually such a bad man capable of such things, but she still tries to stand up for herself in her own way. She may be young and naive when it comes to the business world, kind of like Dali, but in the end we do see her making an effort to stand on her own two legs by challenging herself to live on her own. She also wasn’t a bad person, and I’m also relieved they didn’t make her into a typical second female lead bitch character that got in the way of Dali and Moo Hak’s relationship.

I think that I have now covered the most important characters, so I now would like to go a bit deeper into the relationships between the main characters, starting with the main leads. I really loved Dali and Moo Hak’s relationship dynamic. I loved how it was so unconventional and original and set itself apart from other main lead relationship dynamics. Again, there was no destiny element between them, they really just met by coincidence, and I also liked that they didn’t even incorporate standard tropes like enemies to friends or something. The only coincidence had been that when Moo Hak had talked to Director Kim when donating the 2 million, Director Kim had actually suggested he meet with his daughter one time, as he felt like they might get along. As Moo Hak was under the impression that his daughter would be very unattractive, he had rejected the proposition, but as he told Dali about this afterwards it felt like Director Kim had already given them his blessing even before they met each other, so that was kind of nice. I am convinced that the two fell for each ever since the first day they met in “The Netherlands”, at least in Moo Hak’s case. They really had such a cute dynamic. I have to admit that Dali gave me a real fright when it suddenly seemed as if she would go back to Tae Jin’s side after her uncle had requested that of her. Instead, she just told Tae Jin ‘no’ and went back to Moo Hak, stating that she only wanted to break up with him as his debtor, and start dating him for real as equals. Seriously, my heart in that scene when she first was like, ‘Sorry, I can’t remain by your side’ and then added, ‘not as your debtor, that is’, I went GIRL DON’T DO THIS TO ME, haha. I really got a scare there, but it only made it better, because thank the lord that they didn’t create any additional drama between the main leads. I loved that their relationship just remained so solid from beginning to end, nothing could break them apart. They even did it to us again at the end, when we are led to believe that they broke up because Moo Hak’s dad asked her to break things off with his son after he got stabbed. There’s a time jump to 1 year later and it seems like they’re suddenly super tense with each other – and then it’s revealed that they literally just spent ONE week apart and they had been together all this time. The revelation of this in combination with the flashback of her going after Moo Hak’s father and telling him that no, she wouldn’t break up with Moo Hak because they loved each other, that was the best ending plot twist. I was so scared that they suddenly added this dramatic element to their relationship that they needed to overcome in the final episode, but I’m glad that it was again a misunderstanding and Moo Hak actually even proposed to Dali.
The way the series kept surprising me in positive ways definitely added to my fondness of it. Also, I can’t forget to add that I was really not disappointed by their expression of physical intimacy! Their chemistry was really adorable and I loved how they would just find ways to kiss each other and then try to hide it when they were busted by people they knew. I also really liked how affectionate Dali became, she seemed to be so prim and proper but the second they made their way to the bedroom she just ripped his clothes off, haha. That was an unexpected side to her personality to say the least, haha.

I also really loved Dali’s dynamic with Won Tak. I can’t tell you how anxious I was that they would make Won Tak another love rival, that he would also secretly be in love with Dali, but fortunately that wasn’t the case. He really was just like a brother to her and I loved him. He may have been my favorite character of the show, besides the main leads. He was just the best person ever. Just his whole history with Dali and her father, and how he had become such a just person because of them and even ended up becoming a cop. And I really loved his dynamic with Moo Hak as well. One of the first coincidences occurs when it’s revealed that Moo Hak and Won Tak are actually neighbors. Moo Hak owns a building, and Won Tak lives in the rooftop apartment of that building. Dali also ends up living with Won Tak in that rooftop apartment, so Moo Hak starts visiting a lot, and every single scene in which they were trying to be intimate and Won Tak would just silently appear behind them flexing his muscles ready to tear Moo Hak away from his sister were gold. What else can I say, Won Tak was just so great. Despite the fact that he was introduced as kind of a sloppy guy living in a dirty house, he really stopped at nothing to get behind the truth of Director Kim’s death and when Ki Chul finally released that video in which Tae Jin was revealed to leave Director Kim for dead, Won Tak was shown actually breaking down crying. He had such a good heart and he was just the best person. I loved him.

In the end, I think it’s safe to say that ‘family’ is a very big theme in this series, in all kinds of ways. If it proved anything, I think it was the fact that being blood-related doesn’t define anything. A family is a family. Just like the gallery, it’s something that’s passed down in spirit rather than blood and I think that was a very meaningful message. I really appreciated how this series avoided several standard tropes such as one lead pushing the other away in order to protect them, and creating unnecessary drama by not communicating with each other properly. I loved how stable the relationship between the main leads was until the very end, that it never wavered even though sometimes they just needed some time to get it across to the other person. I liked that Dali took her own time and pace to figure things out, that she deliberately took some distance from Moo Hak at some point, not to avoid him or push him away, but just to clear her thoughts. She was never going to break away from him, but she was just in a very delicate position in which she couldn’t always just follow her heart blindly so she needed to think it through. I loved that, even though she appeared to be so soft-spoken and faint-hearted at times, she proved to have such a strong spirit. She didn’t let people walk all over her (that time she slapped Si Hyung in the face was so satisfying) and one of her main strengths was that she was consistently so sympathetic towards people, even people like Gong Joo. Even when Curators Song and Han came clean about those propositions they’d received from Assemblyman Ahn, she expressed her gratitude while also mentioning that she would have completely understood if they had taken the propositions as it would have really helped them out personally. She was that empathic.
I think she may have been misjudged as a privileged princess while no one realized she too was originally an orphan. It’s just that she was fortunate enough to be picked up by such a good-hearted person like Kim Nak Cheon and was able to receive all the possible benefits from that. That others were less fortunate was not her fault, but still everyone just seemed to want to blame her for everything. I got really mad at Moo Hak’s dad when he blamed Dali for what happened to Moo Hak, because it was such BS. Moo Hak was literally on his way AWAY from that place, Dali was the reason he would NOT have ended up in that situation. He just happened to see those men following his brother and went after them out of his own volition. Also, Ki Chul was the whole reason that Moo Hak got involved with Jang Tae Jin, not Dali. If Ki Chul hadn’t asked him to make that donation to Cheongsong, he would’ve never even had to deal with Dali and the gallery. So Moo Hak’s father’s accusations were very misplaced and I really hoped Dali also wouldn’t take them to heart. And even when he admitted that it wasn’t her fault, he still wanted her to break up with Moo Hak because he himself couldn’t deal with the shame Ki Chul had brought upon his family, like what the heck does that have to do with Dali and Moo Hak’s relationship? The fact that he couldn’t deal with his own feelings of shame had nothing to do with Dali and Moo Hak being in love, so he didn’t have the right to ask her to leave his son. He also knew better than anyone how miserable it would make Moo Hak if Dali would suddenly leave him in that situation. I’m just glad Dali stood her ground and stood up for their relationship until the end, despite the attempts of so many people trying to emotionally manipulate her into breaking up with Moo Hak. Their love was just that strong.

I also want to make a mention of the fact that I liked the in-between parts in which Dali’s team had to convince a certain artist to come back and participate in their exhibition after Moo Hak had insensitively offended her art. I just liked that they gave some examples of how important all the sponsorships and loans, both from banks and from artists themselves were for the gallery. They really shone a light on the struggles of local galleries and that was interesting to see. I personally have little to no knowledge of financial stuff or bookkeeping or whatever, but this series made it pretty easy to understand even to someone like me.
It’s funny because I recently watched Her Private Life, in which a small art gallery was also the backdrop of the main events, but I feel like Dali and the Cocky Prince went into a bit more detail when it came to actually running the gallery as a business, trying to come up with additional activities like art camps for underprivileged children as well as their own exhibitions and contracts with artists. It was interesting to get a bit more insight in that kind of business.

Finally, I just need to note why I’ve consistently written “The Netherlands” between quotation marks. I just found it so funny that The Netherlands would even appear in a K-Drama, as it’s such a tiny country. So I was kind of excited, I went like, ‘omg they filmed in my country?’ But then “The Netherlands” came on and I just laughed out loud. Just so everyone knows, and I hope that people automatically realize this, but “The Netherlands” depicted in this series is not actually The Netherlands. I can tell you as a Dutch person who’s lived in The Netherlands all her life: my country doesn’t look like that. The sceneries depicted in the show looked more like Noddyland than Nederland, haha. It was funny to me because as soon as they showed it, I was like, ‘wait, is this what people expect NL to look like?’ If so, I’m here to burst your bubble. The gallery that Dali worked at in the series was based on the Kröller Muller Museum (I believe it was called St. Mueller Museum in the series), but it also really doesn’t look anything like the real thing. To be honest, when they hadn’t yet mentioned which country it was in the first episode, I expected it to be somewhere in Italy or France, with all the cosy streets and colored houses. Anyways, for the people that may not know for sure: I can assure you that nothing, from the streets to the houses to the airport, was actually filmed in The Netherlands.
What I did appreciate was the proper use of foreigners in the first episode. I’ve expressed my dislike for the use of foreign extras in Asian dramas, especially in Chinese dramas as I feel they’re often used as figures to make fun of, but in this case, the people actually got to act properly. They weren’t random people that were just given some lines in broken English to show that they were foreigners, but they really got a chance to shine of their own, and I appreciated that.

Finally, I want to comment on the English title of the series. So the Korean title is actually ‘Dali and Gamjatang’, but I am really curious why they chose to turn the gamjatang part into ‘Cocky Prince’. I feel like, if they needed a word or expression to highlight Moo Hak’s contribution to the series, they could’ve just stuck to Gamjatang, or Pork Bone Soup or something. Why did he became a cocky prince? I just wonder what made them go for this particular translation, haha.
I have to mention that I also really liked the OST for this series. The songs really complimented the vibe of the series, even with the kind of French and artsy feel that the gallery depictions provided. I used Shazam a couple of times and I will probably look up several songs later on.

Now I want to go on to my cast comments, since this is something I’ve been looking forward to from the start. I really liked the cast. I might actually mention every single actor because there are just too many enjoyable performances that need shoutouts.

I will keep saying it, but Park Gyu Young is one of my favorite actresses. First and foremost because of her versatility. One of the reasons I was a bit anxious to start this drama was because I’d heard that her performance in this might not have been her best, and I didn’t want my opinion of her to be diminished by a slightly less impressive performance of her. However, this turned out to not be the case. Again, she proved to me a new side of her acting. I can still say that every single performance of her I’ve seen so far has been different, including this one. I haven’t even seen that much of her, I only started noticing her after watching Romance is a Bonus Book, and then she also appeared in The Third Charm and It’s Okay to Not Be Okay. Only after that I saw she was also in Suspicious Partner and Just Between Lovers, two of my favorite shows, but I don’t even remember her from there.
It was the first time I saw her as a main character, and she was such an elegant and composed lady. Before watching it I kind of expected her to be kind of a snob, but she really was anything but a snob. She was so kind, so emphatic towards others, but still maintained her spine. She was never brought to her knees, she kept fighting for what she believed in, and she never let anyone break her away from the people she loved. I loved how humane they made her despite her privileged life, also in for example how it was so hard for her to accept that Tae Jin was such an evil bastard. She had loved this man, she’d been engaged to him, she’d planned a future with him and trusted him for so long and he’d always been so benevolent to her, it was only natural that she had difficulties accepting the truth about his intentions. But she still managed to accept the truth, she didn’t cling onto the memory she had of him and let that cloud her judgement. She was very open-minded and quirky in her own way.
I saw people hating on her hairstyle a lot in the comments, but seriously, if that’s the only thing you’re going to bitch about, just keep your opinion to herself. I personally thought that her eccentric style of hair and fashion only added to the originality and uniqueness of her character. She never changed the way she looked for anyone, she remained true to herself in that way too. I personally thought she rocked that hairstyle, she was really such a doll. I really liked Park Gyu Young as Dali and it’s made me even more curious to her future performances.

Kim Min Jae, or as I sometimes call him, Kim Min Bae. I never use the word ‘bae’, so he can be grateful for the exception I use for him, haha. Anyways, he really impressed me in this drama. I haven’t seen that much with him either, apparently he was in The Producers, but I recognize him mostly from Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim and The Great Seducer. He also played Lee Dong Wook’s younger version in Goblin. In any case, this was the first main role I’ve seen him in, just like with Park Gyu Young. I really loved his performance, he didn’t hold back and showed all kinds of different sides to his acting. He really made Moo Hak’s character so endearing and relatable. Even when he was money-obsessed in the beginning, he just always had something so humane and sympathetic about him that I never disliked him even for a minute. He also seemed to have a radar for untrustworthy people, and the way he was just automatically attracted to Dali and didn’t even remark on the way she dressed or whatever was really nice, it just showed how he didn’t judge people for their appearances and was very open-minded. I loved how he comforted Dali after she initially distanced herself from him because she thought he would shun her for being an orphan too, and he was just like, ‘why the heck would you think that, my own brother isn’t even blood-related and he’s basically running our family’s company’. It was nice how they created his character development, how he really couldn’t care less about art in the beginning but gradually started to understand more and more what made the gallery so important, and that it was about the feelings with which the art was made. Even though he never became as invested in the world of art as Dali, he did become really sympathetic towards it, and he fully supported Dali in it. I love how they recreated the scene in the final episode, where he was standing behind her as she was watching a painting and they both cocked their head as they were examining it. In the first episode, he was still completely in the ‘what the heck is she looking at, what does she see in this’, but in the last episode his gaze was much more open, like ‘huh, this does look interesting’.
I really want to see more of Kim Min Jae’s acting now, because he’s so good. He really nailed this role, he was so quirky but always remained so likable in his own way. I just love how the main leads maintained their personalities so well throughout the whole show, no one ever did anything that felt out of character or that made me lose credibility in their character. And I really loved his chemistry with Park Gyu Young, he really didn’t hold back – as soon as they started dating he just went and kissed her without restraint and I lived for it.

Okay, so I’ve really been looking forward to this one. Hwang Hee. I’ve only seen him before in Arthdal Chronicles, where he played Mugwang and in that review I talked a lot about how much I wanted to like his character but felt so conflicted because he was such a jerk. Well, he definitely redeemed himself as Won Tak in this series. I loved him so much!!! I was so happy that he was casted as this role, because he literally showed all the sides to a person that I would have liked to see in Mugwang, and I don’t know, it just kind of redeemed him for me. I mean, literally his first appearance is of him getting super emotional over Director Kim’s death and it already grabbed me by the heart seeing him portray those emotions. I really, really liked him. His character was so good, so just. I was so relieved that they didn’t make him another love rival, too, he really was just there as Dali’s faithful brother, her rock and pillar who would always fight for her. He had such a good heart and was also so funny without even trying. Apart from the scene where he almost died of food poisoning by Dali’s cooking, he never ever over-acted his funny scenes, just deadglaring Moo Hak off his rooftop was enough to entertain me. Won Tak for the win, seriously. I loved him so much.

I’ve only seen Kwon Yool before in one other series, Let’s Fight Ghost, in which he was also the bad guy (or rather, the guy possessed by an evil spirit). Oh my god, wait, I just realized I also saw him in Lie To Me as the main lead’s secretary! I never realized that was him, but I do for some reason remember that secretary even though it’s been ages since I watched Lie To Me, lol. Back then he was still acting under his real name Kwon Se In, apparently. He was the type of bad guy that was always super composed and calm until something happened and when he screamed his whole face just sort of exploded and it was seriously scary. I kind of hoped that he would be more mature, as I didn’t doubt his love for Dali for a second, I really do think he didn’t mean for her to get hurt, but as his true colors were gradually revealed, he just became really intimidating and unpredictable.
The one time I found him plain pathetic though was when he came out with that drug scandal just because he was jealous of Dali and Moo Hak getting together. One moment he was actually trying to protect Dali when the news of her adopion went viral, and it seemed like he wanted to shield her also partly because he felt guilty for dumping her for that same reason 5 years ago, but then he saw Moo Hak comforting her and he just went ‘never mind, just publish everything’ and I went, seriously dude, is that how fragile your masculinity is? It was just so lame and I’d expected more maturity from him. Even when he seemed to be nice in the beginning and even helped out at that art camp event, every nice thing he did just disappeared when it was revealed what he’d done and I just couldn’t believe how he honestly didn’t seem to care about what he did. He kept gaslighting Dali, that she didn’t understand, that she was talking nonsense, that it was all a misunderstanding and she just needed to come to him so that he’d decide her whole life for her. I was really glad that Dali didn’t let her initial trust in him cloud her judgement when he started acting like that. I guess he’s a good casting choice for a bad guy. The only thing I didn’t agree with in the end was that he didn’t get locked up, he was still vindicated and that was BS as the video proving his involvement in Cheongsong’s leader’s death was still out there for everyone to see. There was no denying his ill intent, but I guess some rich people can get away with anything.

I’m a bit surprised to see that Yeon Woo is in the main cast section on both DramaWiki and MyDramaList while I don’t really see her as that big of a character in this series. Apparently she had a cameo in The Liar and His Lover and she was also in The Great Seducer, although I don’t remember her from that. Anyways, Chak Hee was the only character of whom I didn’t necessarily see the purpose in the show. It’s not like she bothered me or anything, but in hindsight I kind of wonder what she contributed, really. I did like how, even as a side character, she got her own development and closure, even after her father went to jail she didn’t end up in the dumps but she started becoming more independent and mature and even ended up working at Cheongsong gallery as well. It was funny how a connection between her and Won Tak was suggested at the end of the series when she took over his rooftop apartment, but I didn’t necessarily need to see them ending up together. The suggestion itself was funny, but I’m glad they didn’t actually force anything between them throughout the series.

I’ve seen Jang Kwang in several dramas before, but never as prominently as here. Out of series I’ve watched, he appeared in Fated to Love You, Pinocchio, Moonlight Drawn by Clouds and About Time. He was such a sweet old man in this series, I liked that despite the fact that his character died in the first/second episode, he still appeared in flashbacks throughout the whole series, so his story really didn’t end after he passed. I think that was really nice, because that way it also felt like his legacy was being passed on. People were constantly talking about him and digging up new truths about him even after he was already gone, and in some cases it really made me shake my head in disbelief at how far people would go in scandalizing someone who wasn’t even alive anymore. It was nice to see that he was good to the core, though. He had been nothing but good to anyone, from Dali to Si Hyung to Gong Joo, he never judged anyone. It was unbelievable that people would taint the memory of such a good man only to gain personal favor or get money out of it. They really did him dirty, and part of me was glad he didn’t get to see the aftermath after already having been hurt like that by the truth that Si Hyung and Tae Jin brought him the night he died. I think he was a really good casting choice for this role, I really felt for him.

I wondered what I recognized Woo Hee Jin from, but she was in Healer and Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo, so I probably recognize her from the latter. She has such a familiar face. I really liked Curator Song, she was so loyal to Dali from the moment she walked into Cheongsong gallery. I was really glad that she didn’t go along with Assemblyman Ahn’s proposition to give her sickly mother better healthcare in return for betraying Director Kim, it only made me respect her more. If she’d let her greed get the better of her, there might have been a chance that she would have accepted the offer, but her decision to just come clean to the police only proved her loyalty to Cheongsong even more. And by doing so, she also contributed to Assemblyman Ahn’s downfall in a way. She was really innocent and a victim of everything that went down at Cheongsong as well after Director Kim died, but she never left her work team behind, she stood her ground and fought until the end, constantly looking for ways to still keep exhibitions going and to persuade artists to come back. She was a really nice ally to have around.

Same went for Curator Han. I’ve said this before about Ahn Se Ha, but I really like him as an actor. I feel like he usually gets roles that allow for him to be made fun of, so it was nice to see him be taken more seriously and less a target for jokes regarding his appearance. Because why would they? He’s such a good actor. I liked that he was established as a doting father as well, and that he remained loyal despite the fact that he sometimes also seemed a bit uncertain about Dali’s skills. I feared most that he might take Assemblyman Ahn’s offer to give his son a better musical education, but I’m extra happy that he chose to remain loyal as well. I’ve seen Ahn Se Ha before in God’s Gift – 14 Days, The Producers, High-end Crush, She Was Pretty, W – Two Worlds (cameo), Moonlight Drawn By Clouds, 20th Century Boy and Girl, I’m Not a Robot (cameo) and most recently in Abyss. He’s always a nice face to see in K-Drama and I liked his character too. It was interesting to see several people having to endure and make choices in this position when they didn’t have any particular wealthy relations to rely on. It just puts people in a position where they really have to choose what kind of person they are, and both him and Curator Song proved to be the best people Dali could have on her side.

I didn’t know Yoo Hyung Gwan from anything, I just see he was a recurring character in Rude Miss Young-Ae (which I haven’t watched but I’ve seen the name more than enough times to understand it must be a famous classic). I liked how they made his character such a romantic, haha, he was consistently on point with what was going on between Dali and Moo Hak even when they hadn’t even made their relationship public yet. He was a nice addition to the gallery crew, also because in his case, not even a single dent could be made that would waver his trust in and loyalty to Director Kim. When Curators Song and Han briefly disappeared after getting those propositions from Assemblyman Ahn, he was still at Dali’s side at the gallery, telling her they would inevitably come back. It was nice to see him being such a consistent pillar in the gallery.

Apparently Song Ji Won has only appeared in three dramas so far, but she looks so familiar to me. I think she brought a good balance in the team, as there had to be at least one member who would not immediately be on board with Dali’s automatic appointment as the substitute of her father. I hadn’t imagined her grudge against Dali to be so deep-rooted, though. I didn’t fully understand what exactly she had against her, apart from that she was just really judgemental about Dali and how she grew up so privileged while she’d had to crawl her way up to this job. But even if it was just that, I still didn’t feel like that justified her spiteful behavior towards Dali. I did like to see how she at some point really couldn’t stand Si Hyung’s orders anymore, because I do feel like she cared about the gallery. It was nice to see her turn a new leaf after Dali came to find her at that convenience store she ended up working at, and how she was validated in her work skills at the gallery enough to come back and even receive a big responsibility in the final episode of organizing that year’s art camp together with Chak Hee. It was for the better that she changed her mindset about Dali, but it did take a while and for a long time I didn’t have much sympathy for her.

Apparently, Lee Jae Woo appeared in Baby-faced Beauty (although I can’t find which character), but that’s the only thing I may have seen of him so far. His character acted so ridiculously at first that I really had to determine whether I just didn’t like this guy’s acting or that there must be some major screws loose in the character’s head. But yeah, the drug addiction definitely explained a lot. He was a real coward, though. Even though he felt bad about what he’d done, he never had the guts to come forward. Honestly, I don’t think anyone would’ve been truly shocked to find out he’d been committing crimes and that he was an addict because he was one big mess. Until the end I couldn’t find it in myself to have sympathy for him, he was just a manic cat driven into a corner and a very easy target, and even though he was put in jail, I don’t feel like he ever truly owned up to his deeds.

I was pretty impressed with Ahn Gil Gang’s performance in this drama, especially towards the end of the series. I feel like he’s always casted as a kind of comical character, but here he finally got to show a real serious and emotional side, for example when Moo Hak was in surgery at the hospital. I found him a bit superficial in the beginning, but that part really proved how much he actually cared for his son and how much he was aware of the fact that he did him wrong as a kid. So far, I’ve seen this actor in Dream High, Surplus Princess, Cheese in the Trap, Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, Reunited Worlds and Gyeryong Fairytale. I definitely felt like he could’ve taken Moo Hak’s side more often in their family disputes, he really tried to keep Moo Hak on the ‘money’ side rather than the ‘follow your heart and love for Dali’ side. I’m glad they got to make up in the end, but I still don’t like that he went all out on Dali and even blamed her as the reason that this happened to Moo Hak. I get that he needed someone to blame, but he really misplaced his accusations there. Still, as I said it was nice to see this new and more serious side to his acting.

It just proves how much I love Seo Jung Yeon, because despite the fact that the stepmother was very annoying most of the time, I couldn’t help but appreciate her versatility once again. Honestly, this woman can play a serial killer and I’ll still praise her. She’s just so good in whatever role she plays! I’ve seen her now in Valid Love, She Was Pretty, Descendants of the Sun, Moonlight Drawn by Clouds (cameo), Bride of the Water God (cameo), Something in the Rain, Come and Hug Me, Melting Me Softly, The King: Eternal Monarch, Run On (cameo) and most recently in Our Beloved Summer. She’s played so many different characters, from composed to crazy, from rich to poor, from emotional to stoic, and there’s just no limit to her performance skills. I loved seeing her in this, although her character was one of the least likable ones I still loved what she did with it. Love this woman.

DramaWiki doesn’t even have a page for Lee Je Yeon, even though he’s done several dramas before according to MyDramaList. The only series I’ve seen that he also appears in is Reunited Worlds. He looks so familiar, though. Anyways, I ended up liking his duality more than I thought I would in the beginning. I still feel like he was a coward and that he wouldn’t actually be able to threaten Tae Jin like that so easily. He was quite naive to believe he would just be able to secure a contract like that and walk away unscathed after handing Tae Jin the biggest threatening piece of evidence that existed in the world, but I was also convinced that he wasn’t so stupid as to not make a single copy/back-up of that leverage video, and luckily I was right in that. I came to sympathize him a bit more when I saw how shaken up he got when Moo Hak got stabbed, that really made me go, ‘oh, I’m kind of relieved he actually cares about him so much’. I liked that they didn’t make him a solely greed-based character, but that he came to his senses after what happened to his younger stepbrother and that he finally reflected on his own actions. He and his mom also ended up doing pretty well working in that restaurant after being separated from Moo Hak’s dad. The scene in which the dad came barging and swept stepmom off her feet to come back to him was hilarious, lol. Anyhow, I ended up having a bit more sympathy for Ki Chul at the end.

The thing with Hwang Bo Ra is that I sometimes feel like she tries too hard to be funny. In this drama, I occasionally found myself wondering why she had to pull those faces with every single thing she said. She could’ve done way less and still be funny enough. I liked that there was at least one moment where she was acting ‘normal’, and I can’t say it ruined her performance for me at all, but sometimes I just thought that in her case, less was more. I haven’t seen her in that many shows, mainly in What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? and she also had a cameo in Touch Your Heart and A Business Proposal. I’ve also seen her in an episode of Busted, I believe. Anyways, I liked her loyalty towards Moo Hak. She was the sole person who stood by him until the end, and I liked her interactions with those big restaurant guys as well. She always wore a pantsuit and had her hair styled backwards, giving her kind of an androgynous vibe. She didn’t really seem to have her own life outside of Dondon, at least nothing was revealed about that. In any case, she was a nice ally as she really helped Moo Hak out in a lot of situations and she did end up really supporting his relationship with Dali. I am curious to one day see a more serious and less comical side of Hwang Bo Ra’s acting!

Lee Do Kyung always seems to be casted as a grumpy and stubborn old man, haha. I’ve seen him before in Arthdal Chronicles and Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I was really appalled by Uncle Kim’s initial behavior towards Dali, treating her like an outcast like that, and also how he had the nerve to ask her to go back to Tae Jin if he would drop the lawsuit against her, like who was he to point her into that direction while he wasn’t even related to Tae Jin? I’m glad he came to his senses, and also reflected on how he’d treated his brother and son. I liked how mature he was when he told Dali that he would help her with the gallery and also that, when Si Hyung would sit out his punishment, he could always come back to his parents afterwards.

And then finally, the actor of my most hated character of this drama, played by Park Sang Myun. I have seen him in Mary Stayed Out All Night, Healer and Sensitive Boss (cameo). I feel like I know him from more since he has such a familiar face. Anyways, I was very surprised to find out the Assemblyman’s true colors. He first seemed to be a fairly friendly man and caring politician, but then he suddenly slapped his own daughter just because she was asking what he was planning to do to Moo Hak as she cared about him. Like, seriously, what was the reason? He was really just a money-obsessed creature, and he didn’t care about anyone ending up as collateral damage. People like him shouldn’t be put in charge, so I’m glad the reveal of his involvement cost him his career and he ended up on jail. I still wanted him to become jail buddies with Tae Jin, though. Anyways,

All in all, I just want to conclude that I was positively surprised by this drama. I thought the story, the character dynamics and the way they dealt with the events were really original. I can’t emphasize enough how grateful I am that they steered clear of some classical tropes, because I know for sure that if they had chosen to include those, I would’ve had much more criticism to give on it. It was just so nice to have a main couple that was just smitten with each other from the start and that nothing was able to make their love waver. It just relieves my heart so much when the main couple is sure about their mutual feelings for the entirety of the show and doesn’t let anyone tell them otherwise. I liked that the female lead was so strong-spirited despite her seemingly soft-spoken and naive nature, she really didn’t let anyone walk over her or make her doubt how she truly felt about things. It had a really touching message about family and loyalty, and the fact that even with just a handful of helpful comrades, it still can give you all the necessary strength needed to fight for what you believe in. I liked the majority of the main cast and I just thought it was very well written. It was nice to get a positive surprise, every plot twist just worked in its favor for me and I’m happy to conclude my year with a positive review.

So this will be my last review for this year! I was able to watch 25 dramas this year, that’s 5 more than last year (yes, I keep track, haha). I hope that I’ve been able to improve my review writing skills and that from next year on I will be able to provide many more worthwhile reviews for people to enjoy.
Thanks for the valued feedback and comments, I promise I read everything and I am glad that I am able to reach people with my reviews and that they find them entertaining to read as well. You guys make my day every single time!
So yes, I wish everyone a merry Christmas and a very happy 2023, may the force be with you all and all that!

Bye-bee!! ^^