So.

The hype all indicated that KTL was going to be a really great watch. And LJH is definitely worth waiting for. I duly waited for this drama to finish airing so that I could watch at my leisure without the need to wait for next episodes to arrive.

In all...........I'm sorry, but when I had finished watching, I was quite disappointed. The lead characters were good but somewhat two-dimensional. The scripts were also fairly flat most of the time, and the storyline left little opportunity for the actors to put across any real depth of character. The two girlfriends of the female lead took forever to pull themselves together enough to stand up to their respective bullies - which was neither helpful to, nor reflective of, most women in such situations these days. There were enough k-drama cliches to feed the entire cast and crew cliche cake for a year, and enough tedious PP to make a profit after paying their wages for the duration of their next shoots. I did watch to the end, but only because romcom is my guilty pleasure, and kdramas generally do that SO well. There was definitely some rom and some com in here, and those swoon and chuckle moments kept me ticking along.

Now here's the thing I can't get past. All the webinfo (Google, Rakuten Viki, Netflix and MDL) tells me that this is a 2023 release, and nothing shows that it's a renamed or remade series. Also, I began watching only three days after the last episode aired. Therefore it's highly unlikely that I am REwatching KTL itself , right? However - I have seen substantial sections of this storyline before. Some kdrama I saw before this (possibly six months to a year ago) definitely had amazingly similar situations within its storyline. I don't think the following will be spoilers....

1. The rise of the female lead through the ranks quickly through competence, while her colleagues are mean/jealous. This is probably a situation in dozens of kdramas so I can let it go. But then..

2. At the BigBoss house dinner, an incident happens to her which is pretty much identical in setting, activity, dialogue, action and reaction to the one in KTL. Here it starts to bug me more but I carry on.....and then....

3. The child's lost toy. All details are the same here as in the drama I saw before. A) when everyone else gave up the search, she won't. B) She has the same out-of-the-box idea to look in the same specific place for it. C) She must hurry because the family has to leave shortly. D) When found, the toy even turns out to be the the same type of animal AND the same colour as that used in the drama I saw before.

There are more similarities too, but the toy incident served as a full confirmation to me that I was indeed watching regurgitated drama lumps.

I've searched my extensive watched list and the internet, but I'm unable to name the drama I originally saw that contained these storyline lumps. The similarities are substantial enough and numerous enough, though, that I came out of it feeling quite cheated. It feels like I was served reheated waste food instead of the freshly-cooked meal promised by the hype. It's fortunate for me that the child's toy incident came late because if it had arrived earlier I would have been tempted to quit and move on. I might have missed LJH in the kitchen, and that wouldn't have been good.... :)

Bias aside, I really think highly of LJH as an actor and like what I see of him as an individual too, so I hate leaving a negative review for a drama of his. Unfortunately there was little in this storyline to showcase his remarkable acting skills, so this time even his charismatic presence as lead didn't camouflage the numerous and blatant shortcomings this series has. That really saddens me.