Doril
Enjoyable, Emotional, Character-Driven Drama with a Few Flaws
If you enjoy romance-centered KDramas where the focus is on the characters and their experiences dealing with their feelings, then this is the drama for you. When the show was airing, I stayed up until 3 am to watch the release in my region. Since then, I've watched this drama 3+ times all the way through and loved it each time. At the same time, I think there are some flaws, which may turn into complete dealbreakers for some people. It's a weird thing for me to review, since I am not giving this show a 10, but I love it to death.
Format-wise, it was produced as a short-form show for KakaoTV. With each episode having about a 30-minute runtime, and the entire series having a 17 episode length, Lovestruck is basically 50% of a typical KDrama, which is a good thing if you're busy or your KDrama backlog is too big. The main highlight of this show is the extremely touching conversations/heart-to-hearts that happen during a select few episodes. The producers tried to make this a really humanistic show, and I think the raw emotions of the characters really shines through. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but overall, I really empathsized with the characters when they were desperately in love, extremely frustrated, sad, or basically any of the capstone moments that define friendships and romantic relationships. For me, there are just so many snapshot moments in this show that I can easily go on youtube, watch a short clip, and immediately feel a strong sense of nostalgia for this show.
However, there are some flaws which bog down the show's quality a little bit. Firstly, the pacing is a little off: the first episode kicks things into high gear by establishing all the characters and the main narrative settings for the two main characters. The next two episodes flesh out the main story and also start revealing the backstory of the two side couples. However, following this, the show starts to get a little draggy until episode 8, when the main story speeds up again. Additionally, they were too ambitious by trying to cram into 3 love stories into a show that is half-as-long as your regular KDrama -- there is simply not enough time for all the stories to be properly established and resolved, and I would argue the side characters don't have a completely satisfying conclusion. One of the side couples actually has some "new reveals" at the end of Episode 16 which is never resolved -- without a Season 2, I'm afraid we'll never find out what happened. Finally, the mocumentary format is a little lacking: it starts off as intriguing, possibly inspired by famous mockumentaries like The Office, but very quickly devolves into nonsense -- in some later scenes, there are some "interviews" which are completely impossible for the "camera crew" to have captured unless they were omnipotent and/or being extreme creepers.
One extremely controversial point to discuss is that many watchers found the characters, especially the main lead female Lee Eun Oh, to be extremely unlikeable and/or unrealistic. My personal opinion is that Lee Eun Oh's character does suffer from SOME poor writing, but that overall, she was created to mimic a real-life human being. In real life, sometimes we do do things that make us unforgiveable jerks. Sometimes, we do obsess over loving people that we need to let go. Sometimes, we do say one thing, but our hearts make us do the exact opposite. At the end of the day, though I don't think the characters were written perfectly, I do think they were written to be people that you could meet in real life -- if you reflect upon your own acquaintances, friends, and family, I bet you might know guys who were obsessed over girls that they needed to drop like a bad habit or girls who weren't sure what they wanted so they kept teetering between self-confidence and love. In this way, I think it is very fitting for the humanistic theme of the show.
Overall, I think this series is underrated and you should give it a shot. I think you will know fairly quickly whether it is your cup of tea: it might be something you love like I do and if not, it's easy to drop it mid-watch.
Format-wise, it was produced as a short-form show for KakaoTV. With each episode having about a 30-minute runtime, and the entire series having a 17 episode length, Lovestruck is basically 50% of a typical KDrama, which is a good thing if you're busy or your KDrama backlog is too big. The main highlight of this show is the extremely touching conversations/heart-to-hearts that happen during a select few episodes. The producers tried to make this a really humanistic show, and I think the raw emotions of the characters really shines through. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but overall, I really empathsized with the characters when they were desperately in love, extremely frustrated, sad, or basically any of the capstone moments that define friendships and romantic relationships. For me, there are just so many snapshot moments in this show that I can easily go on youtube, watch a short clip, and immediately feel a strong sense of nostalgia for this show.
However, there are some flaws which bog down the show's quality a little bit. Firstly, the pacing is a little off: the first episode kicks things into high gear by establishing all the characters and the main narrative settings for the two main characters. The next two episodes flesh out the main story and also start revealing the backstory of the two side couples. However, following this, the show starts to get a little draggy until episode 8, when the main story speeds up again. Additionally, they were too ambitious by trying to cram into 3 love stories into a show that is half-as-long as your regular KDrama -- there is simply not enough time for all the stories to be properly established and resolved, and I would argue the side characters don't have a completely satisfying conclusion. One of the side couples actually has some "new reveals" at the end of Episode 16 which is never resolved -- without a Season 2, I'm afraid we'll never find out what happened. Finally, the mocumentary format is a little lacking: it starts off as intriguing, possibly inspired by famous mockumentaries like The Office, but very quickly devolves into nonsense -- in some later scenes, there are some "interviews" which are completely impossible for the "camera crew" to have captured unless they were omnipotent and/or being extreme creepers.
One extremely controversial point to discuss is that many watchers found the characters, especially the main lead female Lee Eun Oh, to be extremely unlikeable and/or unrealistic. My personal opinion is that Lee Eun Oh's character does suffer from SOME poor writing, but that overall, she was created to mimic a real-life human being. In real life, sometimes we do do things that make us unforgiveable jerks. Sometimes, we do obsess over loving people that we need to let go. Sometimes, we do say one thing, but our hearts make us do the exact opposite. At the end of the day, though I don't think the characters were written perfectly, I do think they were written to be people that you could meet in real life -- if you reflect upon your own acquaintances, friends, and family, I bet you might know guys who were obsessed over girls that they needed to drop like a bad habit or girls who weren't sure what they wanted so they kept teetering between self-confidence and love. In this way, I think it is very fitting for the humanistic theme of the show.
Overall, I think this series is underrated and you should give it a shot. I think you will know fairly quickly whether it is your cup of tea: it might be something you love like I do and if not, it's easy to drop it mid-watch.
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