Noiva Por Vingança

The head of a private education company Noh Go-jin (Kim Jae-wook) is revered in the industry but is a horrible person who bully's his staff. Most personal assistants only last a few months because of his personality but Lee Shin-ah (Krystal Jung) has put up with his unreasonable behaviour for over a year when she receives life changing news which encourages her to take drastic action. The situation then escalates where she is under suspicion for attempted murder but she lies about her relationship with her boss and because he has amnesia claims to be his fiancé. The premise is interesting and parts of the story are entertaining with good acting from the entire cast. My main issue with the drama is most of the characters are not nice people and no matter how they try to justify their behaviour with their pasts it is not acceptable to behave in the manner they do whatever they claim is the reason. It would have been better if they had just softened a lot of the characters back story to make them more likeable and invested in the outcome of their lives.

The first four episodes were absolutely brutal. In fact, I would call this story downright sadistic as far as how these people treated each other. The romance was handled very very well and I enjoyed the romance and the growing love very much. Initially, I wasn't sure if I was going to like the male lead, Mr. Gojin, because his personality was so ruthless and uncaring to others. But I knew that the story would likely make him a better person in the end and that there was going to be a lesson in this for him. But he was so callous I started to think he may just be unredeemable. Lee Sina, his long suffering secretary was no better. I wanted to root for her but I could not understand why she refused to leave despite his horrible treatment of her. But when she finally gets the nerve to stand up for herself is when she learned some bad news and figures out that she has nothing to lose anyway. So she sets off on getting revenge and boy is that revenge brutal. I couldn't believe that I actually started to feel bad for Mr Gojin. I started to look at Lee Sina in a way that she was not redeemable herself. She treated Mr Gojin horribly when he was at his weakest. To get revenge of someone when they are at their most vulnerable, to me, is an act of cowardice. But when he finally gives Lee Sina the truth and gets his own revenge on her I was floored by how sadistic he was. My sympathy went back and forth between them. His revenge on his secretary, was much funnier than her revenge on him. Both actors did a great job. For the first five episodes I could not root for either of them. But by episode 6 I was rooting for them and rooting for them as a couple. I enjoyed the romantic tension and the growing understanding for each other's situation. This was against my better judgment because they had been so horrible to each other and at one point they actually have a physical altercation in which they hit each other. It doesn't matter if they were hitting with pillows there was anger behind those blows a.d they were hitting each other hard. As the story progressed I started to feel very sympathetic towards Mr Gojin. A lot had happened to him that he simply did not deserve. What I found perplexing was how everyone managed to blame Mr Gojin for everything. I don't know if it's because he was a handsome ,wealthy, and successful genius, and they were just jealous but no matter what went wrong in their lives they blamed him for it. Even the main villains blamed Mr Gojin for mistakes that he did not make. It seems like everyone was blaming him for no reason at all for their own shortcomings their own bad behaviors and when the time came for consequences they blamed Mr Gojin for any consequences they had to face. The one lady who had a parent make a terrible accusation against her that resulted in her losing her job blamed Mr Gojin for what the parent did, when he had nothing to do with it. Even though she was aware that someone had made these stories up about her she still managed to blame him. So it felt to me after a while like he was being mistreated for things he was not doing and even set up and targeted constantly. The thing that bothered me at the end was forgiveness. I get that he was trying to be a better person but some of those people did not deserve to be forgiven especially after many of them broke the law in order to harm him.

I don't usually leave comments but I think this drama deserves one. It's sad to know that it's underrated in Korea, and that's probably because it's not streamed on Netflix. I love the flow of the story, it's not like the other drama with expected scenario..I love how it shows us that no matter how cold-hearted a person is, we should know judge them by the surface, they might've gone through tough times and endured the pain until they become numb. It also tells us that it's never to late to change/improve ourselves. This is very realistic in the sense that it tells us about hate & forgiveness. You must watch this if you like comedy & slice of life combined. It's 10/10 for me.

My wife and I bailed on this after 4 episodes. We just found the fact that the ML was a total jerk, and the FL was, perhaps for good reason, trying to torture out male lead. It just went on so long and got really tedious.

Since I actually bought Blue Rays (it didn't appear on streaming until after I bought the discs ha ha), we thought we'd give it another chance to try to get our money's worth.

The bottom line, is that it gets better in the second half, and lands a bit more in the romcom category. The is still some trauma coming from a side character, but it is not too bad.

The acting was generally good. We love Krystal Jung. She did a great job. Kim Jae-Wook was also good, although I can't put my finger on why I wasn't happier with this portrayal of the mail lead. We really like him a lot in Her Private Life.

So overall, an 8 for us. If the mutual harassment between the leads had not gone on so long, it would have been a 9.

Korean Drama " Crazy Love " is a drama that has a predictable story and it almost feels like the old Korean rom coms of the past decade. The trop of the main lead dying, the crazy and rich CEO, the enemies to lovers plot twist, and the ex girlfriend storyline were all well known and used ingredients for many dramas. And yet, the drama had something fresh and comforting.

The first part of the drama is funny and the dynamics of the couple spot on. And yes, it is predictable, but their chemistry is overflowing. The performances were another factor that aided the drama a lot.

Unfortunately, the second part was slower and a bit boring, but the ending wrapped things up nicely.

So, overall, 6 out of 10.