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.

The Best Hit
(최고의 한방 /  Choegoui Hanbang / The Biggest Hit / Hit the Top)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

Hey hey ho, another review let’s go! With my current schedule I try to finish at least one review per month, and as usual these days it took me a while to finish this. To be completely honest, I originally didn’t put this show on my to-watch list, but then when I did, my Wheel of Fortune app didn’t take too long to pick it out and here we are. I had mixed feelings while watching it, but I will say that I overall enjoyed it. It was silly but also legit funny at times and I got to see a lot of variety from actors that I knew and ones that I hadn’t seen before. I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible, since it was a lengthy watch and there’s a lot of things I want to discuss. In a way, it kind of proved why I didn’t want to put it on my list at first, but I’m still glad I watched it because it was entertaining enough to keep me interested in how it would end. Let’s get started, thumbs up! 👍🏻

The Best Hit is a KBS K-Drama with 32 back-to-back episodes of each about 30 minutes. I started watching it on BiliBili but then switched to Viki because the subtitles on there were much more complete, in the sense that they included relevant song lyrics as well.
The show is about Yoo Hyun Jae (played by Yoon Shi Yoon), a popular idol from 1993, who mysteriously ends up time-travelling to the year 2017 in the middle of a typhoon. Once there, he finds out that in the future, he is mostly known as a singer that went missing in 1994. Since he time-travelled from 1993, he doesn’t have any memories of the circumstances of his disappearance – it hasn’t happened yet. He ends up at what used to be his house, the rooftop apartment of his old agency World Entertainment, where he meets his former president Lee Soon Tae (played by Lee Deok Hwa) and manager Lee Gwang Jae (played by Cha Tae Hyun). Without a clue of what happened or why he’s there, he slowly starts finding his way around and figuring out what must have happened to him before he disappeared, including the whereabouts of a large sum of money he last remembers hiding in the attic of his house. However, as of 2017, his house is occupied by Lee Ji Hoon (played by Kim Min Jae), Gwang Jae’s alleged son.
Ji Hoon has been secretly training to be an idol for about three years but just can’t seem to make it to the debut team at Star Punch, one of the biggest entertainment agencies, run by Hyun Jae’s former duo partner Park Yeong Jae (played by Hong Kyung Min). What’s more, Ji Hoon is secretly accommodating his fellow trainee Lee Won Bin, nicknamed MC Drill (played by Dong Hyun Bae) in his apartment, and it doesn’t take long for Ji Hoon’s childhood friend and secret crush Choi Woo Seung (played by Lee Se Young) to join them as well, after she finds out her roommate and boyfriend are seeing each other behind her back.
Ji Hoon, Drill and Woo Seung are the first ones to find Hyun Jae outside of the World Entertainment agency building, dressed in tacky clothing and with a weird hairstyle. Despite Ji Hoon’s initial suspicion towards this stranger, especially when tensions start rising between Hyun Jae and Woo Seung, he allows him to also shack up at his place. From there on, Hyun Jae is determined to figure out what happened to himself in 1994, all the while adapting to the new environment of 2017, including his slowly growing feelings for Woo Seung.

I’ll say right off the bat that I thought the preface of the story was very interesting. It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for time-travel stories, and it was interesting to me that Hyun Jae time-travelled before he actually went missing in the past, because that meant that he didn’t go missing because he time-travelled, but that he must’ve come back to the past briefly before he disappeared or something. I’m all for theories about butterfly effects and parallel timelines and all that, so I was curious to see where it would go.
Having said that, in my opinion they included a lot of suspense in certain elements of the story that stood separate from the main storyline that wasn’t really necessary. For example, instead of just focussing on gradually unravelling the mystery behind Hyun Jae’s disappearance throughout the story, they also kept the logic behind the housing arrangement of all the people living at World Entertainment very vague, as well as the truth about Ji Hoon’s biological parents.
Regarding the housing arrangement, that was something that I would’ve actually liked established from the get-go, because it got really distracting when halfway through the story I still didn’t know exactly how everyone was related to each other and how they all ended up living together.
As for Ji Hoon’s biological parents, I’m not talking about the revelation of Hyun Jae being Ji Hoon’s biological father, but more about how much Ji Hoon actually knew about his parents, because they really went back and forth with that.
All in all I think I would’ve liked it better if they just stuck to focussing on gradually revealing the relationship between Hyun Jae and Ji Hoon and the truth about Hyun Jae’s disappearance, while establishing things like the relationships between all the people living at World clearly from the start, because that was just background information. Keeping even information like that vague for at least half of the series got really confusing. I didn’t like having too many unanswered questions at the same time and it wasn’t really necessary to keep it vague for so long either.
The same went for the fact that the Hyun Jae that time-travelled from 1993 was apparently from a different timeline than the one who disappeared in 1994. If they had cleared that up earlier, it would’ve saved so much confusion about whether Hyun Jae was actually suffering from amnesia or not. Knowing that he was a different version of Hyun Jae would’ve probably also made me feel a little less queasy about his relationship with Woo Seung, as the idea that he was actually Ji Hoon’s biological father consistently kept me from fully rooting for them.

Before I go over my notes – I’m not even kidding, I anticipated forgetting a lot of details because of the time it took me to finish this and actually took notes whenever something popped up that I either found funny or that confused the heck out of me – I’d like to go over the main characters briefly, and with that I mostly mean the people living at the World Entertainment agency building.
Let me give you the overview that took me so long to figure out while watching the show: first of all, there’s the president of World Entertainment, Lee Soon Tae, and his young granddaughter Lee Mal Sook (played by Lee Han Seo), whom he took in after the girl’s parents – Soon Tae’s daughter and son-in-law – perished in a tragic car accident. Then there’s Lee Gwang Jae, World Ent’s manager who is currently in charge of the agency’s two remaining artists, a girl duo called Helter-Skelter and singer Hong Bo Hee (played by Yoon Son Ha), another resident. Bo Hee used to be a popular singer in Hyun Jae’s time – they were even rumoured to be dating – but in 2017 she’s kind of washed up, trying to make a comeback after twenty years without much luck. She also runs a small bakery next to the agency. Then there’s Lee Ji Hoon, Gwang Jae and Bo Hee’s alleged son. Until the truth comes out, the fact that Drill and Woo Seung (and later Hyun Jae) are living with Ji Hoon in his rooftop apartment is initially kept a secret from the rest of the residents, as well as the fact that Ji Hoon secretly commutes to an agency instead of college.
To sum it up, apart from Lee Soon Tae and Mal Sook and Bo Hee and Ji Hoon, it’s not like all the residents are specifically related to one another. Even after finishing the series, I still don’t really know how Soon Tae and Gwang Jae, as president and manager, came to live together in their company’s building. Again, I don’t think it was necessary to keep the logic behind this arrangement vague, and I would’ve liked a solid establishment of the reason behind it as initial background information before the main story started.

For the character analyses, let me start with Hyun Jae, as his character basically ties everyone together. If I understand correctly, his real name is Yoo Bong Jae, but Soon Tae chose the stage name Hyun Jae for him after consulting a fortune teller or someone who picked out fortunate names. Together with Park Yeong Jae, Hyun Jae formed the popular duo J2, where he was clearly the more popular member, standing out in both looks and eccentricity. His catchphrase is 따봉! (dda bong! – translated on Viki as “thumbs up!”), and he apparently likes it so much that he even takes on the name “Kim Da Bong” in 2017 while he keeps his real identity a secret. This catchphrase gradually changes from a weird habit to a familiar and endearing one, especially in his relationship with Woo Seung.
As Hyun Jae tries to figure out what led to his disappearance in 1994, we get some background information about his relationship with Soon Tae and Gwang Jae back in the 90s, and how he didn’t exactly leave things on good terms with them when he time-travelled. He also finds out that his former partner Yeong Jae made it big by stealing Hyun Jae’s notebook filled with songs he wrote, crediting them to his current idol hit MJ (played by Cha Eun Woo). Apparently, Hyun Jae was planning on leaving World Entertainment for some reason he never shared with anyone, and now he has to literally “figure himself out”, or at least what he must’ve been thinking and/or going through at the time of his disappearance.
As of 1993, he wasn’t in any kind of relationship with Bo Hee, so the news of Ji Hoon being their son comes as a shock, even though he’s quite quick to accept it. As he tries to keep a low profile while snooping around, he can’t help himself getting attracted to Woo Seung, knowing fully well that she’s his son’s childhood friend. He even tries to help out Ji Hoon in winning her favor, but in the end he can’t help himself from feeling the way he does and he and Woo Seung somehow get together through a kind of slapsticky enemies-to-friends-to-lovers development. He does end up going back to the past – to 1994 to be precise – through a twin typhoon of the one he originally travelled to the future with, where he meets the 1994 version of himself and finds out that he was actually terminally ill and probably disappeared as he went off-grid to get treatment but ended up passing away or something. In any case, after failing to persuade sick 1994 Hyun Jae to travel to the future and get treated, 1993 Hyun Jae ends up going back to 2017 to get an advance treatment for his then yet undiscovered illness and to stay with Woo Seung.
Despite the fact that Hyun Jae was kind of a goofball most of the time, there were some things that I really appreciated about his character. I’ve mentioned this many times before, but I don’t like it when actors try to act all funny for the sake of being funny, thereby making it seem like they don’t take their character seriously. In my opinion, characters are the funniest when they take themselves very seriously and end up being effortlessly funny because of that, not by making goofy faces or acting exaggeratedly in front of the camera. In hindsight, I’m really glad I got to see both sides of the coin from Hyun Jae, both in his 1993 and 1994 versions. It was really cool to see two completely different versions of him, shaped by their respectively different life experiences.
With regards to 1993 Hyun Jae, who we follow the most throughout the series, I have to say I really liked how quick on his feet he could be, despite usually acting so careless and oblivious. For example, the fact that he figured out all by himself that Ji Hoon must have swapped two bags and accidentally gave Gwang Jae the one containing information of his traineeship, and the lengths he went to in order to get that bag back from the main house for him. It was also really satisfying how, after revealing himself to Yeong Jae in 2017, Hyun Jae consistently remained one step ahead of him in tricking him with the USB, the expired check and ultimately handing over MJ to World Entertainment. Those were all very satisfying power moves which saved us from a lot of unnecessary predicaments and drama, and it was surprising to me how sharp-witted Hyun Jae could actually be when push came to shove. Despite his consistent aloof behavior, he knew exactly what to look out for and he had a surprisingly good radar, also for example in the way he sensed there was something off about Soon Tae, basically being the first to detect his dementia. He definitely kept me on my toes as a viewer. I always appreciate it when a character is more than just funny and goofy and he actually knows very well what he’s doing, so that was a nice touch to his character.
Another thing that I appreciated about him was that he genuinely tried to be supportive of Ji Hoon and Woo Seung as a couple. I was actually rooting for the two childhood friends to end up together, so I couldn’t help but think that Hyun Jae was a real stand-up guy for informing Ji Hoon when Woo Seung called him to come pick her up in the mountains. He actually created opportunities for Ji Hoon to go for it before he went after her himself. The way he kept showing up for Woo Seung instead of Ji Hoon somehow reminded me of My First First Love, where the childhood friend kept coming to the FL’s rescue because her actual boyfriend kept missing the chance to show up for her. Even though the romance didn’t end up going the way I would’ve wanted, I couldn’t help but appreciate that Hyun Jae at least tried to step away and support Ji Hoon in his advances towards Woo Seung. The way he smiled when he overheard Ji Hoon confessing his feelings to Woo Seung gave real “that’s my boy” vibes and I loved that, just as I loved how cool and collected the 1994 Hyun Jae was when hearing about his son. I guess that just proved that Hyun Jae was a genuinely good guy, no matter what timeline he existed in, and he really didn’t want to cause problems, even if that meant he had to go against his own feelings.

Although the true extent of Ji Hoon’s knowledge about his biological parents is kept vague throughout the series, his instinctive ambition to become an idol speaks volumes about his heritage, both for his mom and his dad. He was literally raised by Gwang Jae, a manager, and Bo Hee, a singer, at an entertainment agency, so I could see how growing up in such an environment would stimulate that dream. I also think that it was nice that they gave an insight in the harsh reality of idol trainees waiting for their chance to debut. The initial reason why I switched to Viki was because it included the lyrics of the rap Ji Hoon performed at that first audition, because I just knew that what he was saying would be relevant to the images of the struggling trainees depicted on screen.
Ji Hoon goes through some ups and downs throughout the series, both in his ambitions to become an idol and in his confidence of winning Woo Seung’s heart. Despite his initial disdain for Hyun Jae, he does remain respectful and still chooses to take a step back when he realizes he’s losing the game. In the end, I thought it was a very touching decision of him to become a trainee under Gwang Jae, and it was cool to see that he and Drill eventually became an idol duo called JB, which was almost like a reincarnation of J2.
I would say that my biggest criticism of Ji Hoon’s character was his lack of proactiveness in pursuing what he really wanted. Despite the fact that he does eventually manage to fulfill his idol dream, he initially wavers a lot, even to the point of giving up rather than going the extra mile and working even harder. This was also reflected in his feelings for Woo Seung. It takes him eight full years to confess his feelings to her, but even when he does, he still doesn’t actually go all the way to win her over. After telling her that he won’t give up on her, he continuously misses every single chance to show up for her, basically handing all the opportunities to step in to Hyun Jae on a silver platter. Like, it’s gonna take more than showing your consideration by installing a hammock for her, bro! It’s about direct actions, not just about words and subtle gestures. I definitely feel that, especially with how long he’s been in love with her and how strongly he feels about her, he could’ve done way more to actually make a direct move on her.
I would say that, in terms of personality, Ji Hoon was definitely a bit bland compared to his father. Despite his ambitions to become an idol, he didn’t really seem to utilize his assets that much – he literally went viral because some girls decided to post pictures of him working at the bakery on the Internet, not because he himself made any attempts to get recognition through his good looks or anything. I have to admit that I still don’t fully understand what attracted Ji Hoon so much in becoming an idol, because it didn’t actually seem to fit his personality. He didn’t even seem to care about being in the spotlight that much, neither did he ever mention a specific reason for wanting to be on stage. I guess it was just in his blood and he liked making music? Anyhow, I think it would’ve helped if he was a bit less wishy-washy about his actual dreams and goals and showed a bit more active determination towards what he wanted to achieve.
I think I would’ve liked it if Ji Hoon shared a bit more personality with Hyun Jae. The only thing they seemed to have in common was their love and aptitude for working with music, and I think there was one scene where their enthusiasm overlapped (when they went camping together), but other than that I think it would’ve been nice if Ji Hoon had been attributed some more characteristics or habits that Hyun Jae used to have, to make their connection a bit more clear. Thinking back on it, I didn’t actually feel that much father-son vibes between them at all, and Ji Hoon also remained very stoic when he told Hyun Jae that he knew who he was. I get that he had fully accepted Gwang Jae as his father and nothing could shake him in that, but I still would’ve expected a slightly more heartfelt reaction from him when he realized he was standing face to face with his biological father. I will elaborate a bit more on my criticisms regarding this part later on, but the point I wish to make here is that Ji Hoon’s character all in all just felt a bit bland to me, both in personality and in the way he responded to things. As the biological son of someone as eccentric as Hyun Jae, they definitely could’ve given him more to work with and made him a little less serious, for example. I don’t mean to downplay the fact that he was a nice guy with his heart in the right place, but I just felt like that wasn’t enough to carry him as a main character.

Using that as a segue, I feel like we actually got to know Woo Seung better than we got to know Ji Hoon, and it was interesting that she ended up being more of a main character than him. When we are first introduced to her, she is attending Ji Hoon’s college classes for him to maintain his attendance rate while he’s secretly off to train as an idol. In the meantime, she’s busy studying for the civil servant exam while working several part-time jobs to keep herself fed. She doesn’t need much – when she moves into Ji Hoon’s attic she only brings a small bag of belongings with her. She studies and works very hard, leaving little time to socialize and make friends – as far as we can gather from the story, Ji Hoon is her only close friend. I even felt like she was more comfortable around guys than girls, probably because we don’t get to see her spend time with many female friends. In any case, I guess she’s used to being ‘one of the guys’, which would explain her ‘bro’ attitude towards Ji Hoon and her awkwardness when he suddenly expresses that he sees her as a woman. When it comes to expressing her own feelings, you could say she’s a bit of a tsundere, as she usually snaps back with a witty or evasive remark before she lets herself get emotional or vulnerable.
I personally had mixed feelings about Woo Seung. It’s not that she wasn’t a nice character or anything like that, but I did find her slightly hypocritical at times, especially when it came to her feelings for Ji Hoon. Blame it on my bias, but I really hated the way she rejected him. Instead of at least acknowledging that he had mustered up the courage to confess after eight full years, she actually just tried to unhear it and ignored his feelings by insistently going “can’t we just be friends?” Of course there’s nothing wrong with rejecting someone if you don’t feel the same way about them, but what bothered me the most was that, after telling Ji Hoon straight-up that she didn’t see him as a man, she then went on to elaborate to Hyun Jae that she was scared of ruining their friendship if she chose to date him. Like, why couldn’t she have told Ji Hoon that, if they were so close? Also, phrasing it like “I don’t want to ruin our friendship” actually made it sound more like she was holding herself back because she didn’t want to lose what they had, rather than that she was not attracted to Ji Hoon whatsoever. Honestly, I was kind of surprised by her hesitation and awkwardness, seeing as they’d had no problem with skinship in several scenes before that. She’d already laid her head in his lap and they’d shared an intimate hug when Ji Hoon comforted her after she botched her exam – those interactions actually made me feel like Woo Seung could’ve been harboring secret feelings for Ji Hoon as well.
Also, while she was the one who kept insisting they remain friends, she was also the one who ironically kept emphasizing the awkwardness between them by avoiding Ji Hoon and instead calling Hyun Jae to come pick her up. She remained very vague in what she actually thought about Ji Hoon’s advances, like that kiss. Looking at their friendship dynamic, if she really didn’t like it I don’t doubt she would’ve made that very clear but she didn’t. While it initially seemed like she was allowing Ji Hoon the chance to win her over, she then ended up only casually revealing that she liked Hyun Jae after Ji Hoon had to drag it out of her. Like, would she have even told him herself at some point? Or would she have let it develop “naturally” so that she wouldn’t have to explain herself when it came out? I don’t know, I didn’t know what to think of the way she seemed so self-assured and put-together one time and super vague and evasive towards her own and other people’s feelings the next.
Besides that, I also found it incredibly ironic how Woo Seung, despite her down-to-earth-ness, kept ending up as the central target of most of the slapsticky/comedic situations throughout the show. The majority of my notes are actually comments on situations where her character was purely utilized to create silly scenes. For example, when she loses her contact lenses and still decides to go to work without getting her glasses from home first, purely for the sake of creating “funny” situations where she’s walking around like a blind person. It could’ve been solved really easily if she’d just passed by the house and explained the situation to her employer – it literally didn’t make any sense for her to go to work without even being able to see, that was ridiculous.
Also, when she applies for an internship at Star Punch and is mistaken for a journalist that’s coming to interview MJ, and she goes along with all his weird requests instead of just saying, “sorry, I think there’s been a misunderstanding, I’m here for an internship interview”. I just don’t like it when characters remain vague purely for the sake of creating unnecessary misunderstandings. That kind of humour belongs to full-on comedy shows like Go Go Waikiki. It just got a bit annoying at some point. Especially since, in that particular case, it led her to miss her actual interview and she couldn’t even bring herself to explain about the mix-up. She just kept creating a worse impression of herself by saying she was late while she wasn’t – she was perfectly on time but got taken to the wrong room. It wasn’t even her fault, but for some reason, in those kinds of situations, she was suddenly unable to stand up for herself. Like, I’m all for comedy elements and good laughs, but at least keep it realistic and make it relevant to the story, don’t just create unnecessary misunderstandings for the sake of showing “something funny”.
I think that’s what ultimately bothered me the most about Woo Seung – she seemed to have her shit together but then she still kept getting herself into ordeals where she became “a victim of the situation” and somehow couldn’t bring herself explain what had happened, even though she could’ve very easily worked things out. I didn’t understand why she had to be so vague in explaining things, why for example she would tell Ji Hoon that she got fired instead of admitting that her part-time job got suspended. Why did she keep making things sound worse than they actually were for no reason? I’d say it’s much less shameful to be let go because of a company’s financial situation than getting fired because you are a shitty employee, which she wasn’t.
The only reason I can think of for Woo Seung to be dragged into these situations was to create a connection between her and Hyun Jae, as he was usually the person to get her out of these predicaments. Either that, or he was with her and they went through it together. These situations led Hyun Jae to bare witness to Woo Seung’s flustered and silly sides, which was necessary to build up their romance. In the end, he even managed to pull Woo Seung into his crazy a little bit, causing her to start copying his mannerisms and catchphrases, things that had initially seemed weird and stupid to her. So yeah, I get that putting Woo Seung into flustering situations and getting Hyun Jae to consistently help her out was a plot tool to bring them closer together. Still, I couldn’t help but feel annoyed at times. It just seemed unnecessary and out of character for Woo Seung to get dragged into so many misunderstandings and predicaments that didn’t really serve a deeper purpose. There were more than enough normal scenes between her and Hyun Jae that contributed to their romance-building, she didn’t need to keep falling on her face to create more opportunities for them to bond. I also thought she had plenty of other funny scenes which didn’t include these kinds of situations, like how she went back to her old place and ripped/broke every thing she’d bought with her roommate in half 😂 That was really funny in its craziness because she was so serious about it.
Despite my initial aversion towards the Hyun Jae and Woo Seung couple – which never truly left, to be honest – I did think that, once it was revealed that “Da Bong” wasn’t actually Ji Hoon’s father, they became a cute couple. It was nice to see Woo Seung’s character develop, to see her soften and become more vulnerable towards the people she cared about the most, rather than that she kept taking on everything by herself. It was cool that she started working at World Entertainment as well. She ended up showing sides of herself that would’ve been unthinkable in the beginning of the story. As much as her ambiguity annoyed me at times, it did make her a flawed and therefore realistic character, and I liked that at least she got to be a proper female lead that learned to embrace her true self in the end.

Moving on to Gwang Jae, Hyun Jae’s faithful manager. Not gonna lie, I initially kind of expected him to have a part in Hyun Jae’s disappearance, and that things between the two had actually been much more sour than they let on. Especially when Gwang Jae’s feelings for Bo Hee were revealed, and the fact that he had been watching the relationship between Hyun Jae and Bo Hee unfold in 1994 – who knows, there might have been some grudge or jealousy towards Hyun Jae from Gwang Jae’s side. Also the fact that he registered and basically raised Bo Hee’s child as his own. However, I was really glad when I found out that Gwang Jae had had no ill intentions whatsoever. The way he dealt with everything after Hyun Jae disappeared, the way he gathered everyone at the house, raised Ji Hoon and the lengths he went to to take care of Bo Hee and try to give her another chance at a comeback all proved that he was an incredibly mature and stand-up guy who just wanted everyone to be happy and at ease.
I really liked Gwang Jae, he was such a good guy. I thought it was a nice decision to keep him on as a loyal manager instead of tapping into his envy of Hyun Jae too much, especially when it came to Bo Hee. He was juggling so much at the same time, both in terms of keeping the company running and with Hyun Jae’s sudden return, and still he never got over-greedy. He kept wanting to do things the right way, even if that meant bowing down to Star Punch. He literally created a home for all his artists, even accommodating MJ when he transferred to World Entertainment.
Some examples of moments where he really touched my heart are the way he practiced and ultimately ended up proposing to Bo Hee, and how he reacted when he finally found Soon Tae after the latter went off the grid in a dementia episode. The way he actually CRIED when he saw his busted-up bare foot and when he was driving him back – this man cared so much about his boss he literally treated him like family. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Gwang Jae was actually Soon Tae’s son from the way these two interacted. There was even a moment where I actually wondered if they were related, because that would’ve made their housing arrangement make more sense, but I don’t think that was the case, I really think they just worked together and somehow ended up living in the same house, maybe to save costs for the company or something. I also really loved the father-son dynamic between Gwang Jae and Ji Hoon, and how even though Ji Hoon knew that they weren’t biologically related there was no doubt in his mind that Gwang Jae would always be his one and only father figure. It’s kind of interesting that I got more father-son vibes from people who weren’t actually related than from Hyun Jae and Ji Hoon 😅. But yeah, Gwang Jae was the best father to Ji Hoon – he both wanted him to pursue his dreams and tried to protect him from the harsh entertainment industry, despite knowing that it was probably in his blood to pursue a career in music.
All in all, I thought Gwang Jae was a solid, reliable and consistently trustworthy character and I was genuinely happy for him when he managed to win Bo Hee’s heart. He worked so hard and showed her through his actions what a trustworthy and dependable man he was, and it paid off. I actually squealed at their wedding picture in the last episode because I thought they were so cute together. Hot take: their romance made me happier than Hyun Jae’s and Woo Seung’s. I think it just had to do with the fact that we see Gwang Jae struggle through so much while trying to keep everything in balance – his “family”, his company, his artists – and it all pays off in the end. He got a really satisfying happy ending which he deserved 100%.

I just mentioned that I found it kind of interesting that I felt more familial chemistry between people that weren’t actually related to one another (except in the case of Soon Tae and Mal Sook, which I’ll get to in a moment), but the same went for Bo Hee and Ji Hoon. As I mentioned before it took a while before I realized they were actually mother and son, but am I the only one who felt that they didn’t seem to have that many scenes together? I mean, there were a couple of moments were Bo Hee was like “my handsome son” to Ji Hoon, but other than that I didn’t feel like they actually interacted with each other at all throughout the show. Which is weird, especially when you think of how long it took for Bo Hee to get over Hyun Jae. Wouldn’t it make more sense for her to dote on Ji Hoon way more, seeing as he was the only thing she had left from his father? It seemed like she mostly just got caught in her own nostalgia and melancholia regarding Hyun Jae, and that it didn’t really seem to reflect much in the way she raised Ji Hoon, as his upbringing seemed to have been mostly taken care of by Gwang Jae. While I liked the scenes of her trying to make a comeback and return to the spotlight, in hindsight I do feel like she seemed more focussed on that than on her family.
Regardless, I still liked Bo Hee. There was something melancholic about her, maybe because in a way she was a victim of a harsh situation (losing her beloved and raising a child by herself). She always kept that sadness in her, it seemed, and I was just glad that she could find it in her heart to put the past behind her and let Gwang Jae in at the end, instead of grieving about Hyun Jae forever.
I also liked that they gave her other things to do besides the failed attempts at making a comeback. Working at the bakery really suited her, and it was nice that they gave her the yoga thing and that she kept contributing to the story in different ways, not just as a background character with little purpose besides being “the girl that was left behind in the past”.
One scene that I particularly liked was when she got the chance to appear in a CM as a roll of kimbap, facing off against an incredibly disrespectful junior actress. First of all, I need to indicate that I am allergic to situations that feature adult bullying in professional settings. It always sets my teeth on edge when directors at film sets make an actor do repetitive stunts or other exhausting work purely to bully them. I remember scenes like that from Road to Rebirth, and it never stops making me mad. When they treated Bo Hee like that in that incredibly uncomfortable suit while she was already not feeling well, it really irked me, but that’s why it was all the more satisfying to see Bo Hee stand up for herself against that junior. Even if it didn’t amount to anything and it put her in a bad light, I loved that she stood up for herself and went like “you can’t treat me like this and act like you own the place”. In scenes like that, which are so frustrating to watch, it helps when the character at least takes a stand. I guess I’m also bringing this up to show the contrast with how Woo Seung acted when she kept being wronged. It’s always so much more satisfying when characters speak up rather than keep quiet and let themselves be blamed despite having a valid argument to support that they are right. No matter how timid and soft-spoken Bo Hee was, she at least had the spunk to stand up for herself and this characteristic also came out when she went to Yeong Jae for financial help behind Gwang Jae’s back. She didn’t sit still when she knew there was something she could do to help and I really appreciated that about her.

Moving on to my favorite duo of the show, Soon Tae and Mal Sook. Again, it took me some time to figure out they were actually grandfather-granddaughter, but I really loved their dynamic from the start.
Starting with Soon Tae, I have to say I liked that they showed him both as a strict company president and as a doting grandfather. This contrast gave him much more dimension as a character and allowed me to feel more compassion and sympathy for him. Of course, as soon as he started forgetting words I was like, “uh-oh, Alzheimer’s incoming”, so that didn’t come as a surprise, but even within that trope there were things that really touched me, such as how he immediately started writing Mal Sook’s name over and over again in his notebooks so he wouldn’t forget about her (😭). When he was having a dementia episode and started bawling when he asked his daughter’s ghost not to be mad about the fact that Mal Sook drew him instead of her when she was asked to draw a picture of her mother at school. 😭😭 That nearly broke me, not gonna lie, that scene was heartwrenching. On the other hand, there were a lot of silly and funny scenes in which his love for his granddaughter came through, like when Mal Sook found a boyfriend. The beef Soon Tae had with Mal Sook’s “oppa” was hilarious, the way he literally pulled the “take this money and leave my granddaughter” move and his reaction when he saw the boy eating ice cream with another girl straight after that 😂. Those were comedy fillers that were actually funny because they contributed to the relationship between Soon Tae and Mal Sook, and showed just how much he cared about her. I’m glad they added in a confrontation with Mal Sook’s mom to finally fill in the question of how they came to live together without Mal Sook’s parents. It came a little late, admittedly, but at least they did answer some of my questions, so I appreciated that. I really liked Soon Tae’s character because even if he and Hyun Jae weren’t always on the best of terms, just like Gwang Jae he did remain loyal and never betrayed his company or his family.
Mal Sook was such a sassy little thing, I loved her to bits. The way she could be so down-to-earth and snappy but then still feel all her feelings openly made her so mature for her age, and I loved the energy she brought to the fam. The way she called Ji Hoon “oppa”, vibed along with the Helter-Skelter girls and readily accepted Gwang Jae and Bo Hee as her new parents in the end just showed how comfortable and safe she felt around everyone. I actually really liked that the scenes with her and her grandfather existed separately from the whole Hyun Jae story, like nice and funny pallet cleansers. I can imagine that growing up in such a chaotic household made up out of unrelated people could be quite confusing for a little child, but it was nice to see her walk around so confidently and be her refreshingly bright self around everyone. In hindsight, I really feel like bringing her to the World Entertainment family was the best thing Soon Tae did for her. He immediately surrounded her with such warm and welcoming people after she’d lost her parents. Even if she was too young to even remember losing her parents, she became such an indispensable part of the World Ent family that it seemed like she wouldn’t even want it any other way.

When Drill was introduced, I was worried that he would be that typical comedy relief side character that was extra in everything he did, and that he would be the example of the kind of comedic character that I disliked since it seemed like he was just trying to be funny. However, I gotta say that he grew on me a bit throughout the story, especially when it was revealed that he was hiding some stuff from Ji Hoon and he was actually really insecure about his age and even had stage fright. I liked seeing the backstory of how he and Ji Hoon met at Star Punch, and how Ji Hoon initially mistook him for a senior. I can always appreciate it when the token comedy relief character gets some backstory and purpose outside of just being the funny guy. I’m glad that they gave Drill a bit more to work with than just his portrayed “cool hiphop attitude”, because it was way more interesting to see what was behind that. I always find it a bit weird when people with stage fright try to be idols, but I guess maybe it can stimulate people to work through that? In any case, I did like that Drill and Ji Hoon, who were quite an unusual duo at first glance, bonded over their failed attempts to make it and eventually got the chance to debut as a duo. Admittedly, I did think they were better off together than alone 😅.
It was funny that Drill, while living in one house with “Da Bong”, didn’t get included in the whole Hyun Jae story. He never realized what was going on, which was probably for the better because knowing Drill, he would probably not have been able to keep it a secret. I don’t know what it was, but his energy kind of reminded me of J-Hope from BTS (who is one of my favourite people), so I couldn’t bring myself to dislike him, apart from the fact that he was a bit too intense for my liking sometimes. In hindsight, the unusual friendship dynamic between Ji Hoon and Drill was quite refreshing, and I liked that they kept getting along so well, despite the things they chose to keep to themselves. Not gonna lie, I kind of side-eyed Ji Hoon for reprimanding Drill for keeping secrets from him while he literally kept the whole Hyun Jae thing from him 😂. In any case, they continued to be best bros and it was a nice twist that they got to debut together as a duo in the end.

I have to talk a bit about Yeong Jae, as he was probably the closest thing to an “antagonist” in this story. I actually thought it was nice that there wasn’t a true bad guy/villain character, and that even Yeong Jae was redeemed sufficiently with funny elements such as his defect desk chair and the way he freaked out about Hyun Jae and how he tried to keep his wife in check. Even though he stole Hyun Jae’s notebook with songs and claimed them as his own artistic property, it still felt like Hyun Jae’s disappearance had driven him into a corner and he did what he did to keep going in the music industry, because he knew very well that he wouldn’t be able to continue J2’s popularity on his own. I mean, yes, it was wrong of him to claim ownership of what wasn’t his, but I could also understand his reasons for trying to survive in the industry, even marrying a main investor from their peak days. I didn’t think he was portrayed as such a bad guy, per se, he just did what he had to in order to work his way up and admittedly, he did very well for himself. I liked his little scenes in-between where he was trying to deal with MJ and figure out what Hyun Jae was up to. As I mentioned before, it was very satisfying to see how his attempts to keep stealing Hyun Jae’s music kept failing, and how he tried to fix his own mistakes, like signing MJ over to World Entertainment before even verifying the check Hyun Jae gave him. In these actions, he proved himself to not be as intimidating as his status suggested him to be, and I actually liked that about him.
I realize I hadn’t mentioned his wife yet, but that’s probably because she was quite a minor character. Still, I thought she was interesting so I’d like to talk about her a bit. I guess that Cathy (played by Im Ye Jin) – her Korean name is never mentioned – used to be an investor back in the 90s. I vaguely remember her in a flashback from then, but she ended up as Yeong Jae’s wife. I can’t say for sure, but I did feel like it was more of a business marriage than a love marriage. Still, I liked their little bickering sessions and how they always found a way to appease one another. How Cathy got jealous when she got wind of Bo Hee possibly joining the company (apparently Yeong Jae used to have feelings for Bo Hee back in the day as well) and retaliated by considering Gwang Jae’s business proposal, for example. They just kept taking stabs at each other and then made up by sweet-talking things out, it was kind of funny. I’m glad it still ended well for them, despite losing MJ as their major asset. They still seemed to be good people at heart and I actually would’ve felt bad for them if their entire business had fallen apart.

There are a few more side characters that I would like to discuss because they made my watching experience much more fun. First of all, MJ. Honestly, MJ was probably my favorite side character in this show, he really made me laugh. While he seemed to be a very typical arrogant popular idol at first, we soon see his goofy side come out when he first encounters Woo Seung, and he starts cracking himself up over her name. I loved how that remained a running gag, that every time he saw her and called her by the nickname he made up, he just start giggling to himself. I also thought it was funny how Hyun Jae just decided to dislike him and broke off MJs head from a cardboard cutout of him in a convenience store and just carried it around 😂.
MJ grew on me throughout the story because he actually turned out to be a proper stand-up guy. I thought it was really mature of him to want to come out with the truth that he wasn’t writing his own songs, that it just felt wrong and that it wasn’t the image he wanted to move forward with. Despite his aloof behaviour at Star Punch, he really proved himself to be someone that was passionate about honing his skills in making music, and he was eager to learn from Hyun Jae and Gwang Jae as well, even respectfully calling them “Masters”. I just thought it was really cool how he openly sought Gwang Jae’s advice about coming out with the truth about his authenticity, as it would surely harm the company’s image that he hadn’t been honest from the start. He just seemed very sincere and had integrity when it came to his art, and I appreciated that about him a lot. Honestly, I kind of feared that he might become some sort of additional love interest for Woo Seung, since the two of them kept meeting and he clearly enjoyed teasing her, but even if that had happened I feel like it would’ve just ended as him having an unrequited crush on her. I’m glad they chose not to pursue that storyline, because he was an interesting enough character on his own without becoming a special person to one of the main characters. I really liked him.
Another side character that I haven’t mentioned yet is Do Hye Ri (played by Kim Ji Yeon/WSJN’s Bona). Hye Ri is one of Ji Hoon’s fellow trainees at Star Punch who actually does get to debut in the company’s new girl group, and keeps reminding Ji Hoon to keep going. Ji Hoon quickly (involuntarily) manages to melt down her icy demeanour and she actually confesses that she likes him at some point, although she doesn’t push through after finding out he’s in love with Woo Seung. Honestly, I would’ve liked them to end up together once I got over my hopes for the Ji Hoon and Woo Seung ship. I thought she was a nice supporting character, even if she only occasionally appeared to remind Ji Hoon of his ambitions. It was nice to get some perspective from more trainees than just Ji Hoon and Drill, also to show that even promising trainees like her had it rough. I appreciate it when there are side characters that exist outside of the drama from the main story that just know the main character from something and try to support them in their own way. Hye Ri was definitely one of those characters, I thought she was a nice and meaningful addition to the cast.

By the way, am I the only one who finds it curious that MJ and Hye Ri are featured on the title poster, and not Gwang Jae or anyone else from the World Entertainment family? I guess it has the purpose of promoting the two idols Cha Eun Woo and Bona, but it actually doesn’t make much sense since they’re just supporting characters and the two of them also don’t even meet in the show. I would at least expect Gwang Jae on there, as he is highlighted in the opening sequence and Cha Tae Hyun is even one of the directors of the show. Oh well. 😂

Lastly, I briefly want to mention Helter-Skelter, the girl duo that Gwang Jae is managing at World Entertainment besides Bo Hee. I liked these two girls. They are credited as Heol Le (Lee Jung Min) and Beolddeok (Son Soo Min), and I think the Korean name of the duo was also a combination of their names or something similar-sounding. Gwang Jae would drive them around to gigs in their customized mini-van and sometimes they would just come over to the bakery or something. Whilst these girls were also completely excluded from the main story about Hyun Jae, I really liked the energy they brought to their scenes and how, despite being the only ones that didn’t live at the house, they were also part of the World Entertainment fam. I really loved it when Hyun Jae took the time to improve their song as well, like he even did those kind of things for them when he only occasionally helped Gwang Jae out by driving them around. I liked their screen presence a lot, uncomplicated supporting characters like them really helped to keep things entertaining.

Now that I’ve gone over all the characters I wished to discuss, I’d just like to go over the remaining notes I wrote down while watching the show. I already incorporated several of them in my character analyses, but there are still some more general remarks and examples I’d like to give in terms of things that either confused, irked or amused me.
Let me start with my main criticisms. First of all, I’d like to elaborate a bit more on my issue with the confusing family dynamics. It all starts in the first scene, when they get a family photo taken and there’s a funny back-and-forth between the members and the photographer, who can’t figure out how exactly they are related, which is the point, I guess. He goes, “can your daughter move in a little closer?” and they tell him, “she’s not my daughter!”, things like that. Which is funny, I suppose, but I did wonder why they kept it at making the photographer feel stupid for not understanding whilst they themselves didn’t bother to clear it up either. If they’d just cleared up the dynamics there and then, I would’ve been all set.
This was all complicated further when it was revealed that they held annual memorial services for Hyun Jae – how were they all related to him? – and the mixed things they all told people about each other. I distinctly remember Gwang Jae telling Hyun Jae at some point that Ji Hoon didn’t even know that Bo Hee was his biological mom, but then it seemed like he did because he called her “Mom” all the same. Like, I went back and forth between thinking that Ji Hoon might either have been raised with the knowledge that he had been adopted and that his parents weren’t alive anymore, or that he knew Bo Hee was his mom and he didn’t know his biological father but had accepted Gwang Jae as his dad. I went through all these possible scenarios, only to find out all the way at the end that he DID know that Yoo Hyun Jae had been his dad all along!
Which brings me to my next point: how the heck did Ji Hoon not recognize Hyun Jae/”Da Bong”? They had a very clear picture of Hyun Jae at the memorial altar, and Ji Hoon was even seen checking out a video with Hyun Jae earlier as inspiration. Even if he didn’t immediately make the connection – admittedly, you wouldn’t consider the possibility that your father suddenly appears out of nowhere – I found it really weird that Ji Hoon didn’t even at least recognize him or think he looked familiar, when he literally grew up in a house that commemorated his disappearance every single year. This made all the less sense to me when it was revealed that Ji Hoon had actually known that Hyun Jae was his father all along. Apart from that, there were a lot of other confusing things, like Soon Tae expressing his surprise that Bo Hee still remembered Hyun Jae’s face after twenty years when they’d literally just finished praying to his picture at the altar. Make it make sense.
Another thing that was kept very vague was the logic behind Hyun Jae’s time-travelling. If I’d known from the start that the Hyun Jae that time-travelled from 1993 and became “Da Bong” was not the same as Ji Hoon’s father who had disappeared in 1994, that would’ve made a lot of things so much clearer to me. But no, they chose to only clarify that in the last two episodes, and the entire time before that it wasn’t clear whether “Da Bong” had actually lost his memory or not. Like, he should’ve known that he wasn’t suffering from amnesia, but instead of going, “What are you talking about? I never dated Bo Hee” when Gwang Jae told him about their relationship, he made it even vaguer for himself by going, “Huh? I slept with Bo Hee? Really? 🤔” Like, you’d remember something like that, right?
I initially thought that he made up the amnesia to get Ji Hoon, Drill and Woo Seung off his back when he shacked up with them, but at some point it was like he actually started believing it himself, even though it kept bugging me that he didn’t come to the conclusion that he couldn’t remember what he’d done in 1994 because he hadn’t done it yet. After a while I thought that he must’ve gone back to 1994 and fixed stuff with the knowledge from the future and that’s when he disappeared at some point, but then it turned out that there were two different versions of him!
Which, again, brings me to my next point (I’m killing it with these segues): the time-travel tropes didn’t really add up in my opinion. As soon as the duplicate watches and notebooks came into play, I got sceptical. As far as I’ve learned from other time-travel stories, it shouldn’t be possible for the same object to exist simultaneously in the same time. In hindsight, that was probably the first sign that these were separate timelines, because it also didn’t make sense for Ji Hoon to exist if this Hyun Jae had been his father, since he disappeared before even establishing a relationship with Bo Hee. Actually, now that I think of it, in Somehow 18 the ML had the FL’s past diary and was able to see her entries appear in his own version of it, so maybe it was possible. Still, it felt off for those duplicate items to exist simultaneously, especially in the case of the watches since they were basically keeping them side by side. I also feel like it shouldn’t have been possible for 1993 Hyun Jae to meet 1994 Hyun Jae, like isn’t there a rule that you can never meet yourself when you travel in time? The logic about there being two different versions of him within the same timeline was kind of weird, even for science-fiction. I kind of spun a logic from it for myself in the end, but it was never actually explained how it worked, which felt a bit wishy-washy.
Something else that kept feeling weird to me was that I didn’t get the feeling that Woo Seung ever fully realized that Hyun Jae/”Da Bong” was Ji Hoon’s father from the past. She ended up finding out that he was the singer Yoo Hyun Jae who mysteriously came to the future, but no one ever really told her that he was Ji Hoon’s father, which to me seemed like a crucial piece of information. Finding out that you’d been making out with a past version of your best friend’s dad would certainly provoke a certain reaction, right? If it wasn’t weird enough how calm Ji Hoon remained when he found out who “Da Bong” really was and realized the true implications that had for his and Woo Seung’s relationship, it bothered me that no one ever called out the messiness of Ji Hoon’s father dating his son’s best friend. Of course, in the current time, they were around the same age and it wasn’t probably as weird, but still, I thought finding that out would definitely lead to a certain realization and possible shock with Woo Seung. Instead, I actually found it hard to grasp why she got mad at him when she found out the truth. If she didn’t know about him being Ji Hoon’s biological dad (and I guess she didn’t because again, no one ever mentioned it), was she just mad because he lied to her? What was it exactly that made her so mad that she’d tell him to go back to his own time? Even if it was just because “it didn’t make sense” that she was dating a time traveller, I would’ve liked it if she at least expressed a specific reason for getting mad at him. In the end, her getting randomly angry didn’t even have a meaning, because it was only followed by cringy scenes of the two getting super awkward and avoiding one another despite the fact they still wanted to be together.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it was really strange to me that Ji Hoon, especially if he knew that Hyun Jae was his father all along, didn’t make more of an effort to dissuade Woo Seung from dating him, let alone letting her in on the fact that she was crushing on his DAD. It just felt like Woo Seung had a right to know at some point, you know. The lack of shock response at realizing this was kind of baffling to me, and it’s definitely not how I would’ve let things develop.
The fact that this issue was never acknowledged let alone clearly communicated between the characters made it only harder for me to support Hyun Jae and Woo Seung as a couple. To this moment, I think the pairing was weird. I don’t understand why they didn’t clarify earlier that “Da Bong” wasn’t actually Ji Hoon’s dad and instead chose to let the weird idea float over their relationship for the entirety of the series. I already didn’t like the three “accidental kisses” in the first episode, but I brushed those off as typical jokes since this kind of silly stuff tends to happen sometimes. When they actually started to push the two together it legit made me uncomfortable. I mean, can someone tell me what was romantic about Hyun Jae looking at baby pics of Ji Hoon and Woo Seung together and going, “ahh, she was so cute” ?!?! Nope. Didn’t like that. That was downright gross. Nothing cute about it.
Basically, I wasn’t able to enjoy their romance because I couldn’t stop focussing on the fact that Hyun Jae was Ji Hoon’s dad, and even though they were around the same age in 2017, it just felt wrong. I could only come to peace with their relationship when in the last couple of episodes it became clear that Ji Hoon’s biological dad was a different version of Hyun Jae. If they’d just established that from the start, I may have been more okay with their relationship a little earlier on, but because they didn’t, it pretty much ruined their romantic relationship for me. Which was a shame, because they actually had some decent kissing scenes.

One thing I strongly disagreed with was that they literally revealed the truth of Hyun Jae being Ji Hoon’s biological dad in the very first episode, in an almost sitcom “and that’s how I met my dad” kind of way. The fact that they gave that away from the get-go but kept being vague about other, less important things like the family’s housing arrangment is still wild to me. The revelation of Hyun Jae being Ji Hoon’s dad would’ve been such a great thing to gradually unravel. It would’ve made Gwang Jae’s first mention of him registering Bo Hee’s child as his own much more impactful, seeing Hyun Jae slowly realizing what he meant by that. But no, we already knew, no surprise there, and that really took away from the suspense of the story. All in all I feel like, if they had chosen to pace and reveal certain things in a different way, they could’ve influenced the impact of these revelations way better. Instead they revealed potential major plot twists while keeping other less relevant things vague, and started off with introducing a lot of slapstick filler scenes that only distracted from and delayed the plot development of the main story.

Apart from these criticisms regarding the pacing and development of the story, I’d also like to give some examples of scenes that were kind of missed opportunities or that I thought weren’t concluded properly.
Personally, I don’t really like scenes that play out purely for the sake of comedy relief without a logical ending to it. At some point in the beginning, Woo Seung accidentally drops her phone on a boat and gets stuck in a split position whilst trying to recover it. Eventually she falls into the water, but after Hyun Jae helps her out they just leave, seemingly forgetting about the phone altogether. The same thing happened when Hyun Jae was crawling through the main house’s vent in an attempt to get Ji Hoon’s swapped bag back. After he fell down into the living room when the vent collapsed under his weight, the bag remained up there and was never mentioned again. I just don’t like the inconsistency of scenes like this, also when for example Ji Hoon asks Gwang Jae for a ride somewhere and then somehow ends up in a café to talk with Hyun Jae, like, weren’t you in a hurry to catch a ride? Why are you suddenly meeting up somewhere in town? Like, it would make sense if they went there after catching that ride with Gwang Jae, but the scene switch made it seem like he suddenly just changed plans, lol. I might be nitpicking here, but I always catch these kinds of inconsistencies and they always come across as lazy writing to me.
Another scene that seemed like a major missed opportunity was when MJ turned up at the house unannounced and found out about Ji Hoon and Woo Seung living together. Just at that moment, the shot conveniently switched to Hyun Jae inside, who just happened to be thinking of a way to meet up with this “MJ” who had been stealing his songs, not knowing that he was literally outside at that moment. Everything pointed at a development of “hey, he’s actually outside right now!” and I guess a more impactful moment of MJ finding out they all lived together but no, they actually LEFT IT THERE. They just cut off the scene right there. Why? I was totally expecting that to lead to something and it felt super random that they would be like “Omg, now MJ knows!”– end of scene with no further elaboration on it for the rest of the show. That was random as heck.

Despite the abovementioned criticisms, I still want to emphasize that I had a good time watching this show and there were enough moments to enjoy. Apart from the slapstick moments, there were some genuinely funny moments, such as Gwang Jae and Hyun Jae carrying a drunksleep Bo Hee around when they first met in 2017. The way they kept making pit stops and just plopped Bo Hee on a chair somewhere while they engaged in serious conversations actually cracked me up. It was funny because they kept it as a subtle funny background detail without emphasizing it. I also laughed when Drill and Woo Seung kept clapping to activate the lights in the staircase while Hyun Jae and Ji Hoon were arguing with each other. The combination of a funny action in the middle of a serious scene worked really well. It made me think of the scene from Our Blues when the girl told her father she was pregnant and the fan kept toppling over, adding to the building tension of the situation. I would’ve preferred more scenes like that, as those personally entertained me more than the scenes that were clearly deployed with a comedy/slapstick purpose.

Now that I’ve gone over all the points that I wished to discuss for this series, it’s time for the cast comments!

I’m not going to lie, but Yoon Shi Yoon was actually one of the reasons why I initially didn’t put this show on my to-watch list. I’d seen him in a couple of shows before this, like Me Too, Flower!, Flower Boy Next Door and Vivid Romance, but his performances always ended up being just a bit too goofy for my liking. Having said that, while his goofiness definitely showed through again in this series, I really liked also seeing a more serious side to his acting. I was genuinely impressed with the scene of the two Hyun Jaes talking in the second-to-last episode, because the way he portrayed 1994 Hyun Jae there literally made him look like a different person and it immediately made him much more attractive in my eyes, lol. I wonder if there are shows where he’s constantly serious, cause I might want to check those out 👀😂 It’s amazing how much of an impact it has when an actor that’s usually cast in comedic roles takes on a more serious persona. It was definitely a throwback seeing him in this, and it did change my view of him a little. It seems like he’s been doing dramas up until 2022 but I haven’t seen anything of him recently, I wonder if he’s still active in the background. In any case, it was fun seeing him in this show and he occasionally really impressed me with his acting. I hope he can keep it up!

The way I actually forgot that Kim Min Jae was in this show 🫣. I’d been deprived of his acting since he went to the military so this came as a nice surprise! Also, since he just returned from military service I can only hope more new dramas with him will come out in the near future. Anyways, following up on my character analyis of Ji Hoon, this was probably the mildest performance of Kim Min Jae I’ve seen so far. Up until now I’ve always seen him in roles with a little eccentricity or spice to them, like in Dali and the Cocky Prince and The Great Seducer. As far as I can remember I’ve never actually seen him in such a “vanilla” role as Lee Ji Hoon. Which was refreshing, in a way, since it did count as a side to his acting that I hadn’t seen before. I always like to see Kim Min Jae – he’s still the singular exception to my use of the word “bae” in my nicknaming him Kim Min Bae – and despite my criticisms regarding the passivity of his character, I still liked seeing him in this show. If anything, it’s made me more excited to see him appear in more different genres and roles!

I honestly didn’t recognize Lee Se Young from any other shows, so this was definitely an interesting introduction to her acting! There are some shows with her still on my to-watch list, so I look forward to those as well. May it be clear that my criticisms regarding her slapstick scenes have nothing to do with her acting, and I actually thought she did a really great job. I liked how she managed to convey the different layers to Woo Seung’s personality, going from sassy to soft, from snappy to emotional. The way she portrayed how Woo Seung’s feelings for “Da Bong” gradually developed was also very natural and they did have nice chemistry, regardless of my opinion about their relationship. I hope I can see her in more different shows and genres, I’m really interested in getting to know her better as an actress since it seems like she’s been consistently active the past few years.

I’ve seen Cha Tae Hyun before in The Producers and in some funny cameos in for example Café Minamdang and Legend of the Blue Sea. He is one of those actors that I feel can be effortlessly funny without becoming a token comic relief character. I really liked his performance in this show, Gwang Jae embodied the perfect balance of funny and serious and that worked very well. I also found out that he co-directed this show, which is cool! As far as I can tell this remains to be his only directing work, but it’s still interesting to see how some actors get the chance to explore other sides of the craft. As I think I made clear in my review, he really managed to touch me with his portrayal of Gwang Jae’s selflessness and innate goodness. I thoroughly enjoyed what he brought to this series, and I will always appreciate him for his subtle comedy skills, which is exactly the way I like it.

Yoon Son Ha looks really familiar to me, but I don’t think I recognize her from anything else. I also couldn’t help but notice that this was the last drama she appeared in before she retired, which means that this was probably quite a special project for her. I think she performed the role of Bo Hee really well and did a great job at layering her innocence and subtle bubbliness with her melancholy. Despite the fact that I would’ve liked to see some more heartfelt mother-son scenes between Bo Hee and Ji Hoon, I think she exuded a very welcoming energy and I did feel her motherly vibe with Mal Sook at the end. I don’t know if I’ll get to see her in other stuff since she won’t appear in anything new and I might not get to watch any of her older shows, but I’m glad that I at least got to see her in this.

Although I didn’t recognize him while watching this series, I’ve seen Dong Hyun Bae before as one of the PDs from So I Married an Anti-Fan. Apparently he’s also a musical actor, which seems to suit him perfectly. Regardless of his occasional exaggerated “funny” acting, I did like his performance, especially when more timid and serious emotions came into play. I liked his chemistry with the other people living in the rooftop house, and even though he didn’t exactly contribute to the main story that much, I liked that they kept him in as part of the fam and that they even went through with his ambitions to become an idol together with Ji Hoon. As I said before, his energy reminded me of Hobi a lot, which made it impossible for me to get too annoyed with him. It seems like he’s still consistently doing dramas, so maybe I’ll get to see him in other stuff in the near future. I’m curious to see more variety in his acting!

Lee Deok Hwa is one of those ahjussi actors that I’m always glad to see. I remember him most vividly as the grandpa from A Business Proposal, but he also appeared in Hyde, Jekyll, Me and Suspicious Partner, my all-time favourite show. I’m sure I’ll get to see him in a bunch more shows as he always pops up somewhere. I was really happy to see him in this, he always brings such flair and excitement to his roles, he always has that sparkle in his eye and it’s always a pleasure to watch him act. I really liked his chemistry with the little girl who played his granddaughter. It just seemed to come natural to him to dote on her. He was a really great addition to the show. I can’t believe he actually made me cry during the scene when he had the dementia episode, his delivery and emotional acting was amazing. I think I will never not be happy to see him in a drama.

When Mal Sook first came on-screen I instantly thought it was Kim Min Seo, the child actress from Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Café Minamdang and Mask Girl, but I was wrong. I still think they look very alike, their names sound similar and apparently they’re also the same age, so don’t come for me. Anyways, the child actress that appears in this drama is Lee Han Seo, and I remember her from her stellar performance as Kim Ji Won’s younger version in Fight For My Way. She also appeared in Goblin, 20th Century Boy and Girl and I’m Not a Robot. I really loved her as Mal Sook. Despite being only 8 (!) years old when this show aired, she seemed incredibly mature and smart in the way she acted and conveyed her lines and jokes. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s going to be part of the new generation of amazing child actors-turned-adults, and I can’t wait to see what more she has to offer.

I didn’t even know Cha Eun Woo was in this show! Apparently this was his first official drama appearance as an actor. It was so interesting seeing his first ever feature after seeing him in a bunch of romantic comedies like My ID is Gangnam Beauty, Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung and True Beauty. Honestly, it’s not that I’m even that big of a fan, but I absolutely loved his performance in this. His acting was really natural and cheeky, and it was a very refreshing change from the types of roles I’ve seen him in so far. MJ might not have had much depth to his character, but Cha Eun Woo still portrayed him with a lot of sincerity and personality. He was a really nice unexpected surprise, I’m glad I got to see this performance of his.

It hasn’t been long since I saw Kim Ji Yeon/Bona in Twenty-Five Twenty-One, so it was nice to see her in such a different role here. It was her acting debut as well, and while portraying an idol might not have been that challenging for her since she’s in a girl group in real life as well, I still liked her performance as Hye Ri. It didn’t look like she was new to the scene at all, she looked very natural and confident and portrayed both the sharp and softer sides of her character very well. I’m really excited to see her in more shows, especially Pyramid Game where she plays the main role, and get to know her as an actress even better. It was nice to see her in this!

And with that, we have reached the end of this review! I’m glad to see it took me less time than expected, but I guess it really helped that I made notes that I only needed to work out a bit. I might actually keep doing that as a routine, especially with shows that take me a long time to finish or that I end up watching with many breaks in-between.
Anyhow, this was an enjoyable show to watch overall. It wasn’t too serious, but it still had good acting and a promising story. My only criticisms lie in the fact that I don’t fully agree with their decisions regarding which parts to keep vague and which things to reveal right off the bat. I still feel like they could’ve structured it a bit better, because by leaving that vagueness hovering over the majority of the story, some parts didn’t come across to me as they were probably intended.
In the end, it was definitely the kind of show that I had imagined it to be, for better or for worse, but I’m still glad I got to see it and judge it for myself instead of wondering if I should’ve given it a chance.

I’m very curious about my next watch and I’ll try to upload another review before the end of next month.
Thank you for reading this until the end, and I’ll “see” you in the next one.

Until then!
Bye-bee! x