Here is the more positive review you were looking for

I guess the reviews are mostly so negative because a lot of people had high expectations in the cast and the fact that it is an adaption. Not saying that the drama is bad, but that people probably just expected something much different.

I mainly knew what I was getting into, though I hadn't watched the original adaption, but there is not too much of a twist to expect about a drama that focuses around rich people. The Greatest Seducer was a good drama. I loved it. I felt a whole lot of emotion from happy, anger and sadness. It is definitely not the greatest drama that is out there, but it has all the qualities all good dramas have. A good cast and good acting, and an interesting plot.

I know a lot of people hated Joy's acting, but she did very well, actually. Most people just dislike seeing popular idols in lead roles, what I get to a certain point, but I could also give you the names of three "veteran" actresses who are in my opinion worse and loved by millions.
The storyline was nothing new, a lot of intrigues, tragedy and drama but also a lot of cute romance and funny side characters. Since it's an adaption after all, I am really surprised by most of the reaction to the plot, besides that, just the fact that this drama is about chaebol problems gives you enough information about what this drama was going to be - like I said.

What I liked the most was our female lead. TaeHee is a strong character from the beginning, and she mainly stays true to it. I read quite a few reviews about TaeHee being annoying and dumb, but I guess the world is just not used to a female character that is strong but also vulnerable. I never doubted TaeHee's decisions because it all fitted with her experiences and morals. SiHyun was a character with very good character development, and it was very nice seeing him grow up and embracing his problems. The romance of the leads is built very nicely and in my opinion pretty realistic for a first-love type of story. As much as I loved most of the drama, I do disliked some parts. My biggest problem lies with the side characters. For me, it seems like the writers gave much thought about how they wanted to develop the main couple, but gave very little thought about every other character. Especially our antagonists, they were all just driven by love which blinded them to a point that it was ridiculous. Even though they had major story lines, a lot of characters were just so unreasonable that it was difficult to understand where their problems, angst and difficulties lied with. Also, a lot of the problems stay unresolved, and I feel like even quite a few characters get forgotten throughout the ending.

After having watched the original, this is still better.
Overall, The Greatest Seducer did stress me out at parts, but I kept coming back for all the tea. I don't regret any minute of it.

Leia Mais

Daddy Issues done wrong

I pretty much binged this. It was overall interesting, but it wasn't actually good.
I started this already thinking that the premise was rather problematic. Therefore, understandably, my biggest concern was their age gap, and I was curious to see how they would try to convince the audience that yes, they are perfect for each other despite their age. However, they didn't convince. Not at all. In fact, it just proved me right. All my concerns about big age gap relationships where one of them is just barely legal were proven.

This guy (36) could've been her father, and I would've cared less if she (18) wasn't considered a minor in Thailand (adulthood at 20), and if she hadn't so often commented on his gestures that reminded her of her late father. Also, if he hadn't continuously referred to her as a kid/child and a good/bad girl. How was I supposed to not see how she only fell for him because she was young, innocent, naive and vulnerable, and that she literally projected her untargeted/floating love for her late father onto him???

Why he fell for her is a mystery in itself. She literally did nothing but be nice to his daughter and bring him coffee sometimes. How and why did his feelings of guilt for accidentally killing her father suddenly turn into love? Nobody knows.

Since there was no room for their relationship to really grow and blossom without making it problematic (because there is really almost no skinship - thank god), this is very slow. Like slow slow. The actual plot description only starts in about ep 5/6 and their one problem is left unresolved until it's finally addressed at the very end.

The lack of plot is a result of just bad character drafting. Both of them have nothing going on in their life.
She could finish school or rather start studying, or continue her internship at the kindergarten, but she doesn't. However, she stays at home and just plays babysitter-mom for his daughter.
He has no real work schedule, does he work from home or not? No ambition at work or in his private life.
They both don't have any goals, nothing that they aim to achieve.

This is what I find worrisome: In a storyline like this, where she's still underage and supposed to fall for a mature guy, they didn't even try to make her a strong character with her own thoughts, dreams and judgement. You'll think she's a strong character in the beginning, because she comes across as really feisty, but then they just left that part of her personality evaporate. So instead, they made her so vulnerable, so easy to manipulate, a mere pushover with big words: just very tamed and shy. I didn't dislike her, she had so little going on, there was nothing to like or dislike about her. She doesn't have a personality, but Moodka does a great job with her expressions, so it almost seems like she does have one sometimes.

Weir is handsome I guess, but with the glasses and old fashion compared to her very stylish and modern outfits ... it made him look so much more like a dad, that they just looked very off with each other as a couple. But most importantly, he acted like a dad. So much, that he sometimes talked to her like he did to his own daughter. It felt like incest to me sometimes, even though there technically was none.
The only moments I remember where he supposedly fell in love with her were when she didn't act up, when she showed "maturity" by being obedient - that's when he called her a good girl. She's only 18, but she shouldn't act like it, I guess.

I did like the side couple, they were cute, even if the 2nd male lead was very dumb, especially considering that they kept praising his amazing instincts that were supposed to make him a great police officer. I like their story until the second to last ep, when she had to be pregnant. It didn't even progress the story in any way.

The evil characters were good at being evil. There was off-screen rape, multiple rape attempts, attempted murder, attempted(?) sex trafficking, and it was all just left open. No real consequences. I guess it's not worth mentioning since all of it was just attempted.
Quote: "The guilt you'll have to live with for the rest of your life should be enough punishment."
and yes, you're allowed near the clueless victim. (????)

Conclusion: The storyline only worked because the FML was innocent and underage, that's why it's not good.
If they had aged her up, there would not have been any reason at all for them to get married. And since they both have no personality, there could've never been any chance for them to feel any kind of attraction towards each other. That's very sad considering I was supposed to root for them.

Leia Mais

I suggest you don't bother with this and save your precious time

OCN romances so far have potential in their premise, but that's about it.
This drama really doesn't deserve a general rating above 6 in my opinion.
Somehow I managed to watch 11 episodes of this, and every week I just wondered if something was finally going to happen. It didn't.
I have never watched a drama with less plot than this.
The acting was just meh, though this has some good actors, but I guess you cannot give a good performance if you just have the worst script ever.
I believe this could have been nice or at least okay if they had made it into a web drama because for all that happens here they really didn't need an hour per ep - 10 to 15 minutes would've done the deal.

Leia Mais

Missing 9 won't be for everybody. It was for me and then it wasn't anymore.

I guess I still like it a lot because I appreciate that the drama kept my interest the whole time. I wasn't bored, and I didn't skip. Since suspenseful dramas stress me out quite a lot, the frequent comedy here kind of put my heart to rest, mostly when needed. In my opinion, though, this is also it's weakness. The comedy was out of place most of the time and when you just thought something really big happened, they just took it away with silly music.

Story:
The story overall was good. It wasn't the best in my opinion and pretty predictable in an unpredictable way (when you know what I mean) but at the same time fascinating. At some point, I just thought that the writers tried too hard to lay every possible difficulty in their way, and it got a bit annoying. Also, if you are looking for romance, there isn't really any. I mean it does seem like it, the whole time, but the romance plot is more like an anti-climax.

Acting/Cast:
The acting was great. Everybody fitted very well into their roles. There were some roles, I found a bit annoying and at some point I wasn't sure if it was the actor's acting or the actual character that made me cringe. Overall, I don't have anything I didn't like about the cast.

Music:
I don't even remember the music tbh, I know, that it was used to lighten up scenes a lot, and it was used for comic relief.

Overall:
Missing 9 is a good drama. I don't know if I would recommend it, though. It's something you have to stumble on by yourself. Personally, I also think that since I watched it weekly, it kept interesting for me. Probably not the best drama to binge-watch.

Leia Mais