Hey, Everyone, welcome back to the K-drama Study. Last time we talked about the spectacular drama Twenty Five Twenty One. Today I'll be talking about the Seo In Guk drama Cafe Minamdang which aired from June 27 - August 23. The last time we saw Seo In Guk, he was in Doom At Your Service, A drama that could've been significantly improved. So did Seo In Guk's new drama impress me more, or did it have similar problems to his last drama? Let's jump into the Cafe Minamdang world and see what I think.



Characters:

Oh Yeon-seo as Han Jae-hui: Starting this Review, we talk about the female lead with whom I was in the middle. The actress acted well, but the whole character was weak. It felt like all the female lead did was punch and threaten the male lead. Stealing evidence and never catching the bad guy which felt like a never-ending cycle. I also found the female lead annoying at times, which made me dislike her that much. I wish I could throw her character away since she sometimes felt useless in this show, but I kept watching her to see if she would grow, and yes, she grew on me a bit.

Seo In-guk as Nam Han-joon: Seo In Guk's acting perfectly fit his character. I loved seeing him play a shaman, which made me laugh occasionally. I will say some of the shaman humor got old often. However, I enjoyed how slick her was when he needed to be and how he was the brains of the operation they were putting on. Seeing the Male lead interact with the female lead felt like I was watching Tom and jerry. I still wish his character was more serious and less goofy to fit with the thriller elements.

Kang Mi-na as Nam Hye-joon: My favorite character in the show played by former gugudan member Kang Mina. I love how serious her character could be and go into funny/cute. Hye-joon is excellent at computers and is super intelligent. I also loved the romance hse had with Gong Soo Cheol; that was super cute and funny. This character felt necessary to the show helping the story to progress further.

Story:
There are so many things to say about this exciting story that didn't impress me. Unfortunately, the writers built more on comedy and less on the mystery elements, making the whole story not connect well. I did find some of the casting to feel strange as some of the actors and actresses felt out of place playing some of the characters. The biggest letdown was the plot which I was excited about after reading it, but this show didn't live up to it. My favorite episode was when minamdang and the police raided a club with a good balance of comedy and thriller. The shaman moments where he was advising people felt like he was a con artist lying to them, but those moments were great. Now I will mention that the episodes dragged on too long, making my board halfway through them. The cringy moment of the show was the romance between the Shaman and the female police, as they didn't fit together well. There weren't too many romance scenes, but watching them made me sick. However, I did like the moments where Seo In Guk's character was fighting the villain; that was cool to see. The comedy this show had was good, but there were times that they used it in the wrong moments. The first couple of comedy episodes were too over the top, which made me dislike those moments that much.
During episode one, the two male police thought the female police officer was a ghost, and I thought that wasn't an excellent addition to the show. The second ML. who played as the cop who got let go. He started promising but looked like a weak, slow-witted pig. I don't care for characters like that, as they feel like throwaways. There was one moment when the Shaman came down the steps in the cafe, and all the girls were like, he is so cute and felt cringy and not crucial to the show. One thing the police did was break the law so many times in this show. The show's ending showed the male and female lead find a dead body on their holiday, which made them go back to work. I felt the conclusion was building up to a season 2, which I don't want to see.

OSTs:
I found the OSts to be the best thing about this show. Gwangil Jo had the first OST, which I enjoyed, but I found it not to be my favorite. Raina had a piano ballad song, the first track from the show became my first obsession. The second was Seo In Guk's track which showcased his killer vocals, and I've been listening to that tune a lot these past few days. SuA of Dreamcatcher had the 7th and final song, which was a perfect closer for the OSTs. The dance of Minamdang was the weirdest song for me as I still don't know if I like it. I'm happy with the songs from this show as they worked well with the story. I will still be repeating these tracks since there were some good ones.

Thanks for reading my review for Cafe Minamdang, a show that used too much comedy that sometimes felt unnecessary. I will give this show a D for having a poorly executed story that the writers could've done better on. I hope the next Seo In Guk drama is much better than this one. Don't forget to come back next time I talk about Sejeong's drama Today's Webtoon.