icalistri

Enchanting, heartwarming, and artistically slow paced drama about a small, backwater town and the efforts to bring about ways for its inhabitants to improve their lives and stay in the town rather than seek jobs in the city. The setting is absolutely beautiful, and the acting so good I sometimes dream of the characters as if they were real people. It's one of the few dramas I wish would never end. The music is beautiful too. I've watched a few Chinese dramas after a steady fare of K-dramas, and this is the first one that isn't cutesy/ silly or forced. For the first time I want to travel to China!

I'm just starting Season 2, and I can't express how superb this drama is, with the exception of the usual propensity for Korean drama to indulge in overuse of flashbacks as filler.

Every single actor is an ace. They ARE their roles.

The best facet may be the writing-very engaging, interesting plots, and characters who, even when villainous, are so realistic.

The countryside views of the mountains, few though they are, are breathtakingly beautiful.

Dr. Kim is one of the most finely drawn characters I've ever had the pleasure of viewing. The actor is the best of the best If this were a book, I'd call it "unputdownable." Note on the title: though there is some romance, the bulk of the drama revolves around activities in a small, rundown hospital,peopled in part by outcasts of a most interesting variety. The characters have an actual arc demonstrating personal growth and realization of life's difficulties and realities.

I loved this story, every twist and turn of it. Wonderful writing, beautiful cinematography, and performances all around that knock your socks off. Where does Korea train all of their splendid actors? The woman playing Hye Joo is remarkable, with a performance so nuanced it breaks your heart. Themes of deception masked by earnest faces resonate, as do the explorations of people with initial good intentions losing their way in the thicket that is politics. Teenagers' passion, quests for what is true or real, play an important role in this drama, again handled exquisitely by the young actors. The treatment of sexual assault which motivates much of the action is raw and powerfully depicted. It's not "too much" as some might claim. Just ask anyone who has experienced this trauma, as have 38% of my friends and acquaintances and students. (And yes, when the ME TOO movement started, I took a random survey.) The casualness which the assaulters display about their actions falls in the "what's the big deal" category and is sickening. This is wonderful psychological thriller, carefully deliberate in pacing because these issues, and difficult, sometimes impossible, choices , require deliberation and a slower paced production.