Not bluffing when I say that I knew what will happen to this drama. When the news broke out and I read the story, with my notions and instincts, I, for sure, knew this will be as bad as Seo In Guk’s previous drama, DAYS, where the characters, their appearances and the setups will be incorporated to attar t and intrigue the audience, instead of shaping up the plotline. I have zero idea about the original manhwa and is quality, but this show is surely below average and I guess the opinion is unanimous. I still wanted th drama to do good bc In Guk actually needs a blast in his career atp, but well…..

Produced combinedly by ‘People Story Company’, ‘AD406’ and ‘Monster Union’, “Café Minamdang (미남당)” is an 18 episode long live-action adaptation of the popular Kakao webnovel of the same title by Jung Jae Han. Written by Park Hye Jin and directed by Go Jae Hyun, the mystery thriller cum comedy drama was originally broadcasted on KBS2 and internationally distributed by Netflix.

The drama is about a handsome shaman Nam Han Jun (Seo In Guk), formerly a criminal profiler, who runs a small café with fortune-telling as a backdoor business and cons people for money. With him, work Gong Su Chul (Kwak Shi Yang) as a bartender, Nam Hye Jun (Kang Mi Na), an elite hacker and Jo Na Dan (Baek Seo Ho) as the waiter, all of them with the aim to unveil mysteries from the past. Detective Han Jae Hee (Okm Yeon Seo) is an upright police officer currently transferred to work with Detective Jang Do Jin (Jung Man Shik) and is close to prosecutor Cha Do Won (Kwon Soo Hyun).

Other familiar faces in the show are: Jung Eun Pyo, Jung Ha Joon, Hwang Woo Seul Hye, Park Hae In, Heo Jae Ho, Baek Seung Ik Kim Byung Soon, Kewon Hyuk, Kim Won Shik, Jung Da Eun, Cha Geon Woo and Park Jung Hak.

Plot is very choppy provided the mystery line was not properly to begin with. I feel the screenplay and execution could have made the drama survive but the very fact that not one of them were potentially enough, did influence the overall quality and the dhow hit its lowest even before it could reach its interval. This definitely didn’t deserve 10 episodes, forger about 16 but the audacity to make it 18 is beyond my thinking process. They should have been considerate to the response and criticism, duh! Not just the comedy scenes in the later half is stupid, the story itself was exaggerated without any mercy.

The twists and revelations were underwhelming for obvious reasons, not just they gave away obvious hints at the very beginning of the show only to make us look like clowns at the end, it did not pick my interest at any point and I gradually lost interest in the 4th episode itself. However, it felt like it had hopes left so I thought to proceed by the kind of stupid portrayal and execution got me hard soon. The antagonist and the group of evil people is too high but their connections and way operations were poorly sketched.

This is my first drama from the writer Park Hye Jin and they haven’t created much it seems but I really hope they learn from all the criticisms for poor writing skills and low-standard character buildups. Apart from the shoddy plot development, the elements incorporated were very subpar and the characters had no overall growth. This no way felt like dark comedy,ngl, rather the thriller part were hugely mis-subscribed as unfunny comic. It was kinda okay till the interval but then exaggerated to an extent that anyone would loose interest.

Go Jae Hyun PD-nim deserves better scripts for all his hard work in all these years but this is probably his worts creation and not to lie, there were significant flaws with the direction, as the writing, so he needs to do better, as well. The screen-editing is one of the worst aspects of the show. The comic flash-ups were unnecessarily frequented which turned me off from the beginning and the sound production was also substandard. The flashy hues again were not attractive as it were intended by the makers.

Composed by Seo Sung Won, the drama has a total of 7 OSTs; some are good but not very memorable. I vibed with “The dance of Minamdang” though haha.
“Ghost Buster” by Gwangil Jo
“Stay Awake” by Nam Young Joo
“Endless Night” by Raina
“The dance of Minamdang” by Gonia and Yu Taepyungyang
“Stay Here” by MORE
“I like you’ by Seo In Guk
“Still with you’ by SU A

The character of the female lead was the worst thing about the drama and there is no way I will take back my words, let me tell you why. Han Jae Hee appeared to be strong, brave and fierce on her first appearance but soon it was followed by a comic gesture, which I took healthily, but to my disappointment that feature of hers was frequently utilized for comedy only and was exaggerated. There is no development at all and her behaviors wee quite made to annoy the audience, like not one percent likable. On that note, the male lead character is subpar as well.

The romance was off, please I would like to have none of it. There was no chemistry between the leads at all and other than that they were not exactly falling in love. To me it seemed funny about how they came to kiss and be together, but until that point, I felt no need of them ending up together. And for partnering them for the cases, they weren’t even good at that. Also, the 2nd couple were funny but ig their impact didn’t lessen the mediocrity of the show.
None of the characters were likable. Seo InGuk seemed intriguing at first but his aura soon vanished into thin air. Kwak Shi Yang as a tall dummy was my most favorite probably, liked the way he acted up. Kang Mi Na was kinda bland for the kind of crazy girl she was supposed to be. The antagonist was lame lmao.

Final remarks… Do not need to watch even when you are Seo In Guk fan. Thank you.