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Watch it for yourself, and you will quickly see that this is a gem among many other dramas. Yes, ill be the first to say (while i would not have predicted this when watching the series in the beginning) it was imperfect (but really, only in the last few episodes), HOWEVER, as i am the first to drop a show as soon as i think ill be disappointed with the end, I can say that I don't regret watching this show at all and that's primarily because of how strong the series as a whole was.
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Strong Start, Weak Finish
Cheese in the Trap was a drama that started off really strong for me...but ultimately fizzled out toward the halfway mark. I never read the webtoon so I went into this with zero context. CIIT is not the worst drama I have ever watched. Despite its low rating I don’t vehemently loathe everything about it.Going into this I knew the plot was going to be not that exciting since it’s main focus is around college students. Even though they tried to add drama with Seol’s classmates or the plot around Jung’s borderline sociopathic tendencies everything was grounded in reality. And I loved it. As a college student I definitely related to Seol and her struggles. It felt so good to watch a drama where college is the setting and they actually show the struggle of juggling classes, friendships, jobs, and everything else. Nothing was happening plot wise but I was unable to stop watching it. Which leads to my main issue with this whole entire drama: the romance.
I want to start out by saying this: the acting in this was amazing. Everyone gave it their all and it was flawless. However, the characters are what I have an issue with, more so than the messy plot. Seol was a somewhat relatable character (as was Eun Taek and Bo Ra) but no matter how much I tried to force myself I couldn’t root for Jung. In the webtoon I’m sure we got to learn more about his character but in CIIT he felt like a minor character. I was unable to feel anything more than annoyance with his character. His psyche is super fascinating but because the drama pushed the romance I kind of forgot how intriguing he was at the start. Kudos to Park Hae Jin because he played Jung very well.
As for the side characters I adored Baek In Ho. He’s not somehow better that Jung morally or perfect for Seol but he was interesting. He was fleshed out. I grew to love and root for his character early on. I know fans of the webtoon was complaining because In Ho got too much screen time but since he was my favorite character I was okay with it. That’s probably why I didn’t like Jung at all, if he was the lead he should of had more screen time so that the audience can give him a chance.
Baek In Ha was a truly complex and messed up character but once again I found her interesting. In my opinion, The Baek siblings stole the show from their very first scene. With dramas I never ask for perfect characters who never do anything wrong. I just want properly fleshed out characters. We had 16 hours to flesh out Seol and Jung’s relationship but it was not that believable to me. Again, this solely lies in the messy plot.
As for the controversial ending: I liked it. I won’t spoil it but I was okay with what happened because sometimes an open ending is better. It would of felt rushed if they tried to give every character their fairytale ending.
Anyways, Cheese in the Trap was just an okay drama for me. The only thing it had going for me is the side characters (such as Seol’s friends/family + the Baek siblings), the acting, and the emphasis on showing what a college life is actually like. This might be the first drama in awhile where I actively was rooting against the leads to not get together so...do with that what you will.
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It's a trap!!!
Cheese in the trap.Don’t fall for it, it’s not just lactose-free cheese, it’s actually a bad, vegan imitation. (Please, excuse the wordplay but it definitely boils down my disdain).
How is it possible that so many deeply problematic people are gathered in one drama, is beyond me. Like, not your average behavioural issues or mistakes - to even help the plot move forward and create suspense - we’re talking about eerily disturbed people.
Warning: If you are a first-time Kdrama watcher, skip it and watch something else instead. Otherwise, give it a shot only if you’ve reached your limit and have nothing else to watch.
The questionable morals, principles and good/bad deeds will be very much intertwined throughout. It is a weird drama, that you will keep watching in hopes that all this will lead to some type of catharsis or deeper meaning or….somewhere, at least for the protagonists.
Certainly, it is a drama where second ML syndrome is unavoidable.. Seo Kang Joon is praise worthy for his acting skills, apart from the fact that he is extremely good-looking and a very likeable character, who has his flaws but surely, he is not disturbing.
Other than that, over the top acting from some actors or just plain boring from others. Was it the acting itself, the fact that the characters were so unlikable or the scenario/direction combo?
Bottom line, no-one really shines.
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STORY
I am not completely sure what exactly CIIT wanted to present. All in all, i think it wanted to depict young adult relationships of all kind: Friendship, siblings, family, frenemies, first loves, even stalking. Also i believe it sends a very important message about the people around us. We should always accept those who we call friends with their flaws, because those are what they make them unique and important to us, but we should not put up with those that surpass our proximity levels. Every person has its limits, its principals, its ideals and credentials, noone should overpass them, and if they do they don't deserve to be part of our lives, and they certainly don't deserve a free pass because it may happen that we love them. I am not sure if this is CIIT or me trying too hard to make sense of this show.
As far as the plot goes, i believe the writers had something amazing in mind in the beginning, but they lost it midway. Basically you will enter 'Seol's world' Seol is the main protagonist, and the viewers she her life in first person. We listen to her thoughts, we see her life before everyone else, we are Seol herself! The background of the drama is college life. Believe me when i say that everyone will relate to Seol when it comes to college activities, like courses, subjects, co-students who you hate but you have to put up with, team projects that you want to solo,but you are forced to cooperate, all nighters, everything felt familiar. The best thing this drama had (and the worst probably),is the male lead. His personality and his actions moved the show forward. I am sure every viewer spend quite a lot of time trying to figure out what he was doing and why. The drama is basically worth watching to watch his amazing disturbed personality unfold. At the same time we have the cutest love story happening, and probably the biggest second male lead syndrome that anyone has ever experienced lol.
Moving forward from the good stuff, the drama sadly had lots of faults, that forced me to drag it down to 7.5.
1. Weak backstory. We get glimpses of the backstory throughout the episodes, and they make it seem huge and over-dramatic. The backstory is fundemental to the plot since everything that happens basically happens because of this. Sadly, I got dissapointed, it felt childish and overall stupid i may say.
2. The show after a while felt like a constant back and forth. The drama did go around in circles, there is no denying that, we got 0 character development through the episodes, and what was super interesting in episode 3 isn't interesting anymore in episode 13...
Which leads me to 3: Rushed ending. Everything fall into place in episode 16 without having the background to do that.... Everyone decided to just grow up just like that. Face their selves and act adult-y and mature like it was super easy, but for 15 episodes... it wasn't... Another dissapointment!
Overall, this isn't a bad show, and you rom-com fans will love and devour every second of it, BUT, the drama gives you the idea that it will be something extraordinary in the beginning and it just never lives up to those expectations. It was good, for a rom-com but nowhere near what it could have been....
ACTING
Best part of the drama.
Kim Go Eun. A worthy leading actress. Her role felt very plain and simplistic to me, so she didn't have the space to show what she can do imo. But, she had to pull off a few dramatic moments in some episodes and she completely nailed them, thus showing that she is a worthy actress! Hope to see her more in the future!
Park Hae Jin. A difficult role, that he pulled off wonderfully. He was scary and disturbing, but simultaneously, he was cute and lovey-dovey when he needed to. A very well-rounded actor. Amazing and memorable performance overall. A true star
Seo Kang Joon. He held up to PHJ and that means something. His character was also rather simple, a good person with anger issues, but his performance was memorable and wonderful.
Lee Sung Kyung. She should be considered the 2nd female lead! To me, she was the TRUE STAR or the show, character and acting-wise! She gave a luscious and exquisite performance! Her character was actually a difficult one to pull off. She was over the top crazy, she was funny, she was super easy to hate, but at the same time she was emotional and heartbreaking towards the end. She rose above everyone else as the shining star of this show!
RECOMMEND/REWATCH
This is recommended to all the rom-com fans, you'll love it. I feel like i am a parent giving chocolate to his kids lol. As for melo fans, watch it, why not, but don't expect much. It seems extraordinary at the beginning, but don't set your expectations to high, you'll fall hard!
I can totally see how someone could rewatch it, i won't though.
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At first the only thing that attracted me to it was the extremely refreshing character of Yoo Jung, who unlike any other similar characters in other kdramas was actually the main lead. Next came the familiarity with all the supporting cast and the storylines that developed - all extremely relatable to everyday life as a student. Then came the tugs on my heartstrings with the brilliant second lead.
Honestly, I don't think I could've asked for any more. Like a lot of things I developed a massive soft spot for the second male lead...and seriously, his scenes were always straight up 100% adorable or just heartbreaking in all the right ways. But plots developed. Characters learned. The acting was superb and the music amplified all the emotions and laughter. The ending is...perhaps too open-ended for a lot of people but it's true to life and gives me hope. I'm not left feeling sorry for anything.
Watch it.
Don't just deliberate and at least TRY it for a few episodes! I loved all the characters, even the ones that I loved to hate. Depth is definitely not something which this drama lacks.
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Hong Seol: As far as female kdrama leads go Seol isn't so bad. She's smart and eventually grows quite the backbone. My problem with this character was the way she acted with our male lead, Yoo Jung. She bent over backwards to accommodate him. Maybe I'm being harsh on her, as this is fairly typical kdrama female lead behavior, but it honestly bothered me that she seemed so blinded by his very consistent and predictable bad behavior. Also a point on Kim Go Eun; she plays all of her characters with too much of her own personality in them in my opinion. It's not that she plays every character the same, since Eun Tak from Goblin is nothing like Seol, but they all feel too much like Go Eun. I want to feel immersed in her acting and her real life personality is very distracting.
Yoo Jung: At the beginning of the show I adored Yoo Jung. I am a huge sucker for male leads with dark pasts and personal issues. He seemed perfect. Then came the stagnant to nonexistent character development. I am all about character's changing and growing with their experiences. Despite having innumerable opportunities to grow and change Jung remains stagnant. He never learns from his mistakes or changes his behavior. He never accommodates or changes for Seol even when she makes a huge effort to do so for him. He is the same problematic person in episode 16 as he was in episode 1. His chemistry with Seol is also nonexistent. They have nothing in common and the emphasis placed on how similar they are confused me throughout the entire show. His lack of growth was very disappointing to me. Despite being my male lead perfect type in the end Jung fell flat.
Baek In Ho: He is my favorite character in this entire show. He shows an immense amount of growth and development going from a bratty thug to a respectable mature and caring adult, friend, and brother. Baek In Ho is what i wish the other characters were.
Baek In Ha: My least favorite character. I can write an entire essay with what I dislike about In Ha. She is shrill, immature, selfish, one dimensional, vapid, greedy, violent, arrogant, rude, untrustworthy, envious, and self serving. I could go on. Her character is just so unlikable in every way. She shows no remorse for any of her actions, at least no genuine remorse, and makes those around her miserable. Every moment she was on screen was torture to me. She too lacked character development and any moments where I was meant to feel sorry for her only made me hate her more. I see no redeemable features in her. A note on Lee Sung Kyung as an actress: I also saw her in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo and hated her in that too. Maybe some of that carried over into my assessment and feelings for In Ha but nonetheless it happened. I do not like Sung Kyung as an actress. She consistently annoys me and her characters, whether sweet of bitchy, are not to my taste.
Eun Taek and Bora: I paired these two because they are a package deal. I wish more of the show focused on them. They were bright cheerful and showed a lot of growth for their comparatively small amount of screen time. I have no complaints about them and once again wish some of the main characters were treated with this level of character development.
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I’m not a fan of the show, but the actors were great
I dropped this show twice before I just powered through it on my third try so I could feel like my review is legitimate.At least half of these actors are flat out sociopaths: they feel basically nothing for anybody outside of themselves and (sometimes) those they care about. The mental gymnastics to turn themselves into victims are astounding.
As far as the male lead is concerned: I’ve always been a big sucker for the stoic/angry male lead falls for the hardworking female but this guy has absolutely no redemption arc, he just stays shady. I feel bad for the FL over and over that she doesn’t get out of his web, she seems like she should be smart enough to.
The only redeeming points for this show are Hong Seol’s best friends because they are amazing, and the fact that many of the really bad people *eventually* do get them comeuppance in very satisfying ways.
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I honestly don't even know how I made it through this show. I despised this drama so much that I thought about dropping it after every single episode I watched. The major disappointment was definitely the storyline. I appreciated the fact that it tried to stand out from the romance genre with it's "dark" and "weird" characters, but it just didn't do the job for me. I was so confused and frustrated with them. Yoo Jung was a mix between a cold, dark and soft (but only towards Hong Seol) character. Hong Seol was simply not convincing when it came to the relationship with both her and Yoo Jung. I think it was mainly because of the fact that not many episodes went by for them to "fall in love". They went too fast in the beginning which is fine if there is a good development for the rest of the drama but that was not the case with this one. After every episode I doubted whether they were going to either continue with their relationship or breakup. They tried to explain Yoo Jung's cold and dark character with flashbacks about his high school days which I suppose were meant to make you fond of him but it was the total opposite for me. It just didn't justify his behaviour. It made me even more frustrated. I could go on about what else I didn't like about both these characters in particular but simply put, I felt like there was just no character development.
I do have to say that what made me reach the end of this drama was Baek In Ho and the relationship between Eun Taek and Bo Ra. I just fell in love with In Ho's character. After every episode I thought: "I want to know what happens to him". But at the same time, it confused the story even more. It was like a war between Yoo Jung and In Ho which made me wonder why Hong Seol wasn't convinced enough to go with the latter. I honestly appreciated the decision of putting Eun Taek and Bo Ra together. I thought there was at least some hope for love in this drama.
At the end of it, I was just so uninteresed that I didn't even care about Yoo Jung and Hong Seol's relationship.
Overall I wouldn't watching it again.
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First of all, I must confess that I was a little reserved about this drama after I got "sick" of all the Romance genre. But what made me give it a chance was cover photo and Seol's imagine. At first I thought she was cute and I liked her hair, but it turned out that she actually has a strong personality and a pure heart. I really admire her!
On the other hand,even though I have the second lead syndrome, and Baek In Ho got me all hyped and fangirling, everytime Yoo Jung appeared this got me to my senses. I was thinking:" What is wrong with this guy? What he truly wants from the people around him? Is he really sane or something?" But I found out in the end that I misjudged him somehow. He was always put in the corner by his father and was always trying to hide his genuine feelings even from himself just to look good in front of others and especially his father. Maybe the was right saying:"I'm not the strange one. They are." People always tend to want more when they already have what they want. That is the biggest flaw of a human beeing: greed.
In some way I found myself in Seol,always the forgiving person who tries to be kind to everyone but gets hurt and misunderstood, always trying to help and says "Yes,I will do it." even if I have make sacrifices to do it,somehow grudging of my older sister when my mother praised her too much. But, surprisingly I resemble Yoo Jung too. Not being able to show my feeling to other, hiding them away, locking everything inside me, being an avenger with indirect methods and hurting those who truly care about me,is quite odd.
My advice: Watch this drama! It's not a waste of time.It might have some disappointing issues,but it will give you some lesson about how life truly is. You don't know what's awaiting for you. You might find things about you or others that you didn't know.
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What a strange, strange drama. Cheese in the trap started off with such a different, eary and chilly feel, which indicates brilliant acting from the leads and supporting siblings. However, you soon start to feel that the brilliant acting from the leads is downplayed because of the lack of character development. It made me really appreciate the importance of Baek InHo and Baek InHa's predicament which ended up in happiness and self-fulfilment.
They go from having growing pains to finally being able to detach themselves and start new lives in the final episode, the leads however, had an unsatisfactory ending. I usually like to be objective and don't really mind how the ending is, as long as the characters THEMSELVES find self-fulfilment at the end. This leads me to wonder what the entire point of the past 15 episodes was while watching episode 16.
So for all those complaining that the supporting Baek In Ho as a supporting character got way to much screen time, I am very satisfied with the outcome at least. My time watching his dilemmas was not wasted, because he eventually found his passion again, even his sister had a new beginning.
I've watched enough K-Dramas to figure out all the genres and what is most enjoyable or appealing to me and what genres I need to give more of a chance to because I surprisingly end up enjoying things I thought I would drop. I really wanted to get into more eary and chilly dramas, but this one just couldn't do it for me.
Shout out to everyone who liked it though, everyone is entitled to their own favorite shows!
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I was really enticed with this drama up until about midway through the season...I think if it had been filmed later once the web toon had come to a conclusion it really would have been such an amazing storyline and drama. I really think that that was this drama's biggest downfall. It just seemed like they had lost their way about mid-way through as they began to shift the focus and main characters around. I don't know all of the drama and controversy that went on behind the scenes, or if there even was any.
I really liked how we were able to see the main female develop into a woman, but the ending completely spoiled it all...to say in the least I was disappointed.
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